Once Upon A Time in the Past: Book II

From Chapter 1

Three months had passed since the death of the old prospector, Old Jim Bradovich back in Arizona. The Logan boys had drifted north to Mason City, Kansas. The streets and boardwalks were a hustle and bustle with townspeople and newcomers to Mason City when the Logan boys rode the dusty trail toward town, hoping to find work. Most of the gold nuggets the old prospector had given them before leaving Arizona had gone toward their grub, as they had promised the old man. In spite their promise to him that none of the gold would go toward gambling, they had neglected to stay wide of card games and some of the gold nuggets had gone across poker tables in saloons of towns along the trails in which they had drifted.

From the incoming Logan boys’ view of the town buildings lined both sides of the wide dirt street. Horses stood three-legged and dozing at hitch racks. Pedestrians trod from one side of the streets to the other mixing with the flow of traffic—equestrians, buggies and supply-wagons—in the hazy wake of daily activities.

Thick white clouds, resting calmly under a deep blue sky, hung in the background above the town. A stagecoach, six black horses in harness, stood out front of Clett Broom’s Saloon, four passengers, standing on the boardwalk stepping aboard. Then the coach driver and the shotgun rider pushed through the batwings of the saloon and climbed up on the box of the coach.

The stagecoach driver, a short, hairy faced old-timer called Johnny Stumps, clad in buskins, old frayed pushed-back brimmed hat, kicked off the brake, popped his whip, yelled, “Giddap!” to the team and the six black horses jerked the stagecoach into motion. The old coach sped down through town at a harness-tinkling, dust rising totter.

Chance William Logan sat straight and tall in the saddle of his black stallion, Midnight, clad in black britches, black cotton shirt, black leather vest and wide brimmed black felt hat; one of his little Mexican cigarros parting his lips; the white bone-handles of his Colt .45 jiggling slightly in the holster on his hip.

Big Burt Wiley Logan, his jaw bulged from a large quid of chewing tobacco, slumped restlessly in the hard, uncomfortable saddle of his palomino Sunshine, spat chewing tobacco juice to the street of Kansas dust, clad in brown denims, red and white plaid shirt with a tan leather vest and tan, wide brimmed hat. At both his hips rested his twin Colt .45s, the white bone-handled butts pointing forward in their holsters.

Young Peter Wallace Logan sat almost sidesaddle with one leg crossed over the saddle horn of his mount Thunder Cloud, looking from side to side at the hustling, bustling city folks as the piebald, head high, clopped gaily along. The tail of his gray suit coat flopped at the white bone-handled grips of his Colt .45 that still looked too big for him in the holster on his hip. His neck-long blonde hair shuffled in the wind above the gray felt hat dangling from its chin-string behind his thin shoulders.

The stagecoach that had shortly pulled away from the saloon rattled and swaggered as it swayed by the quartet of strangers coming into Kansas with the six black horses dragging it now at almost a dead run. A yellowish-brown ribbon of dust fogged the streets behind the coach.

Jesse Lee “Boots” Logan’s black appaloosa, Night Moon shied at the tinkling, rattling coach, the old driver and shotgun rider yelling “Welcome to Kansas, boys!” as the old rust-colored Overland Stagecoach sped by. Jesse fought the prancing appaloosa’s reins as dust from the speeding coach wooden-spoke wheels settled in all around; his brothers’ mounts shying from the clamor of the coach as well. Their mounts continued to prance and dance, as they fought their reins, trying to bring the animals under control long after the stagecoach sped by until the animals calmed and then resumed their interrupted stride up the dusty street.

Jesse’s dark-brown shirt under a slick black leather vest, stained with trail dust, now had in it Kansas dust as well. A wide-brimmed black felt hat with a rawhide chin-string bumping the sides of his gaunt cheeks sat his head of long cornrow-braids of hair ranging to his shoulders. The sleeves of his shirt, the cuffs foaled once to his wrists, flagged the wind; his holster, thong-tied to the right thigh of black britches, boasted the white bone-handled Colt .45 the old prospector had given him some years back.

The Logan boys reined their mounts up in front of the livery stable, swung down from their saddles, paid the liveryman a gold nugget to take care of the animals, and then strode back to the saloon they had passed on the way up the street. They stood on the boardwalk a minute, to observe even more the hustling, bustling town, watching pedestrians, equestrians, buggies and supply wagons amidst rising dust of the tumultuous streets.

Still on the boardwalk, the jaded strangers beat trail dust from their garb, and then, pushing through the bat-winged doors of the saloon, strode into the barroom, spurs jingling, and halted up at the bar. A busy bartender, a stocky man missing one of his front teeth, was pouring a patron a drink, as the quartet settled in at the long, slightly curved bar, standing shoulder to shoulder with other saloon patrons.

The saloonkeeper smiled, revealing his gap tooth, overwhelmed that his barroom was this full with patrons—saloon hanger-ons, barflies, and drifters.

“Howdy,” he spoke, giving the Logan boys’ trail-weary gear a short glance. “Whiskey or beer?” He looked at their garb again. “From the looks of ya, I’d say whiskey.”