“Hey, Larry!” Ted called across the bar. “Look what the cat dragged in!”
Old Larry Crenshaw put on a show, as he was wont to do, dropping his mouth wide open as if Will were none other than Robert E. Lee. Then he came scampering over and shook Will’s hand and set to jabbering.
The bartender, a man Will barely knew, came over and said his name and shook his hand and asked what he could get for him—on the house, he said with a wink, on account of Will putting Gibbs in his place.
That broke the place wide open.
The two o’clock crowd, many of whom had apparently been clearing out every day to avoid the three o’clock arrival of Gibbs and Sully, gathered around, slapping Will on the back and congratulating him and giving thanks.
Will’s smile was genuine. He wasn’t much for drinking, and he didn’t need praise, but this was exactly the sort of reaction he’d been hoping for when he’d hatched a plan back on the ranch.
After helping settle the cattle and practicing his draw some more, Will had gone from neighbor to neighbor, thanking everyone who’d come out to help his family in his absence.
The neighbors were all happy to see him and happy to have helped—and happier still when Will gave each family a cow.
“There’s more where that came from,” he told each family, “and there should be even more later. You folks need something, you just let me know.”
By the time he’d started his rounds, the plan was already forming in his mind. By the time he’d finished, after having witnessed his neighbors’ grit and gratitude, the plan was basically complete.
“Boy oh boy, Will, we sure showed them bluebellies over at Copper Run, didn’t we?” asked Jake Stall, an infantryman Will had gotten to know during the war.
“We sure did, Jake,” Will said. “Bartender, I want to buy a round for every man who wore the gray—and any man who wished he had.”
The men roared with approval, and Will pulled out a wad of greenbacks. “We don’t have any carpetbaggers in here, do we?”
A timid-looking fella at a table near the wall took this opportunity to slip out the door.
“Last one just vamoosed,” someone laughed, and the rest of the bar joined in.
“Good,” Will said. “I hate carpetbaggers. Been working up in Colorado, saving some money, so I can provide for my family. Well, I come home, find out this carpetbagger went and stole my farm.”
The men growled and grumbled, several saying they’d lost their places, too. Someone suggested taking the carpetbagger who’d stolen Will’s farm and running him out of town on rail. And putting the tar and feather to him for good measure.
“Wouldn’t that be something?” Will said. “But no, I’ll take care of him in time. Right now, I got a new place, and I’m too busy with cattle to worry about him.”
“Cattle?” several men said at once.
“That’s right, boys. Me, my friend Rufus, and old Charles Forester threw in together and rode down into the Thicket and gathered near on three hundred and fifty head. Some said not to bother. Said the bluebellies would just confiscate them. I say this is Texas. And Texas will rise again. But we gotta stand up like men for that to happen.”
This riled them up. They set to whooping, and a few even let go with rebel yells.
“I sure wish I had known you was going down there,” Dave Taylor said. “I would’ve ridden along and gave a hand.”
“Me, too,” one of the Farleigh boys said. Will didn’t know which of the brothers he was, but he was a Farleigh, all right, and he was sincere.
Several others chimed in, saying they wished they’d gone, too.
“Well,” Will said, taking his time, leaning back, and sipping his beer, making them wait a little, “things go as planned, I’mgonna need some help chasing out more cattle and pushing them up the trail. I’d be happy to pay you boys two dollars a day if you’d throw in with me.”
“Two dollars a day!” Chet Elliot exclaimed. “I’d wrangle gators for two dollars a day!”
The room fairly erupted then, men excited by the prospect of making money, which was rare as hen’s teeth in these parts.
Will bought another round, much to the glee of his friends, old and new, and said, “I just hope nothing gets in our way.”
Everybody wanted to know what might stop Will and keep him from providing much needed work.
“You know how folks are,” Will said. “They want to keep a man down.”
