Chapter 5: The Spoils

Next Clint went to pick up the horses that he’d gained, so he stopped by the hitching post beside the bank where the boys tethered them. He learned that Mr. Akin owned the best stable and that it was one street over, turn at the saloon, when he asked about the whereabouts of stable. Clint did as they suggested and made his way, walking with the four horses in tow. Clint watched them to test their soundness as they walked. He’d decided on which ones to keep by the time they reached the stable.

He called out when he got to the doorway. “Hey, Mr. Akin. Are you open for business? I have a little horse-trading to do with you today. Are you interested?”

He was leaning forward looking into the depths of the darkened barn. A voice next to his right ear startled him as it said, “Shore thing, Stranger, just keep yur hands steady and we’ll git along jest fine.”

Clint detected the click of the hammers of the shotgun as someone pulled them back to the ready position.

“Sheriff Smiley has sent me to you, Mr. Akin. He recommended that I come to you because you were honest. I own these horses by virtue of my prowess with a gun. My wife and I are law-abiding citizens doing our duty. I shot their former owners for animal cruelty. It was cruel for them to make these poor horses give transportation for their ilk. Oh, yes, I also shot them because they were robbing the bank and were shooting at me.”

“Well, why in tarnation didn’t you say so right off?” he asked, lowering the twin hammers of the double-barrel shotgun on safety again. “Dag nab-bit, no one ever tells me nothing! They should tell me first off, afore I shoot someone who comes nosing ‘round my business without so much as a by your leave.”

“That is an oversight I won’t forget, Sir,” he said. “My name is Clint Robertson and me and the missus arrived in town just in time to witness the bank robbery.”

“My name is Chance Smith Akin, but everyone calls me Smitty. You’re welcome to if you’re of a mind.”

“So then, are you interested in purchasing what I don’t keep?” Clint asked.

“Yes, Sir. Glad to help, iff’n I can. I take it that you’ll be keeping the black stallion and the roan mare?”

“Why, yes? How did you know?” Clint replied with a chuckle.

“It was no hard choice. I spied them animals and stepped over to take a gander at them when the hubbub died down out there. Them two are the better of the choices, but I’d change the roan out as soon as I am able. I reckon that one’ll go lame soon enough.”

“How do you know?” Clint inquired.

“Lift the back leg on the right. Look at the frog. It’s diseased. Your mare ain’t long for this world. Best use her til she drops.”

Clint lifted the mare’s leg and sure enough saw what Smitty talking about.

It’s a shame that we don’t have Koppertox around to treat that thrush. She’s a beautiful mare, but she’s worthless to us without treatment. It’s a shame that we’re only 75 years too early.

The summers that he’d spent working on his uncle’s farm taught him the value of a good supply of equine vet supplies.

“Before we get going, do you have a reliable stable boy I might send out on an errand?”

Smitty said that he did and called the boy out.

“This here is Clarence Thompson. He’s the Widow Thompson’s boy. He’s honest and smart,” Smitty declared.

“Good! Boy, I need you to run an errand for me and there’ll be two bits in it for you. Are ya interested?”

“Twenty-five cents!” the boy exclaimed. “You bet!”

Reasonable payment for a service such as this was a nickel. The offer seemed a fortune.

“Here is an eagle.” Clint said holding the gold coin out. “Go to the hotel. Tell the clerk that I want to rent the best room they have. Use my name, Clint Robertson. You can tell him I’m the one who stopped the bank holdup if you need to. The gold piece is to pay for my room. Here’s a quarter for you. Please inform the clerk that I want a bottle of good Kentucky whiskey in the room when I get there.”

The boy grabbed the coins from Clint’s hands and was off like a shot. Smitty chuckled at the boy’s antics. That quarter was equal to what Smitty paid for a week’s worth of part-time work.

“You’ll spoil the lad that way.” Smitty groused, but he couldn’t stay angry long. He proceeded to point out the strengths and weaknesses on the animals that Clint brought him.

“Thanks for the advice.” Clint said. “Now I have a couple questions. What will you pay for those three horses? I’ll throw in the tack except for two sets. We want to keep the best of the two saddles based on your judgment. Also, I want to trade some for a new horse for my wife, preferably a mare so that we can make little horses, too.”

“Let me think on that, young fella,” Smitty said.

The ladies started for the boarding house as Clint had walked away. Janie glanced back at Clint with a look of admiration and longing. Her new friend caught her expression and gave Janie a knowing look.

“We’ll just have to discuss that situation when we get back to my room.”

They continued on and Janie noticed that the town was back to normal for the most part. A young lad passed them using a stick to propel a hoop up the street. The townspeople were carrying on with business as if nothing untoward happened.

Janie and Agnes resumed their walk along the street and soon turned off the main thoroughfare, headed for the Widow Johnson’s boarding house. They entered the neat little clapboard house with yellow paint and made their way back to Aggie’s room. She invited Janie inside and shut the door. To say that Mrs. Johnson was a nosy busybody was just a kindness. So Aggie kept to herself as much as she could. The women made themselves comfortable and talked.

Aggie’s room was very large, allowing space for a settee and a table “Tell me” Janie began “Who’s President now? We’ve been out of touch.”

Janie spotted a broadsheet laying on the table as Miss Farnsworth explained the politics of the day. The masthead proclaimed the date to be May 23, 1875. Janie visibly blanched at the revelation and trembled.

Agnes noticed and mistook the action for the jitters from the shooting. She apologized for her manners and offered to get Janie a cup of tea. She disappeared from the room before Janie could comment.

Widow Johnson always kept a kettle on the stove. Aggie was quickly back with an herbal tea designed to calm the nerves. It reminded her of Celestial Seasonings Chamomile tea, one of her favorites, when Janie tasted it.

Janie soldiered on asking more questions to get her mind off the shock of learning the date and the trauma of the gunfight. It helped put events of the shootings in the back of her consciousness.

Janie learned that the railroad had only reached the town just over a year ago. It had been a boon to the town and explained the tremendous growth in the population.

“Why, we’re just a booming now. People are moving in all the time. There were about 85 people living in town last time they counted, approximately one hundred and fifty with the people on farms here abouts. There’s even more iff’n you count the dogs, cats, and cows.”

They had a good laugh and Janie settled down a bit. Agnes noticed that something was different with Janie, something she wasn’t able to put her finger on, but Aggie wasn’t one to pry.

They talked of the finer points of Clint. Janie became flushed with the candor Aggie offered in her assessment of the man.

Smitty pondered what he had in front of him and the horses already in stock. He made a close examination of the saddles on all four horses and then checked them once more.

“Forty bucks, and I have a mare already bred, and she’s due to foal any day. She’s sound, and only eight. Do real fine with that stallion you’ve kept. That one’s a good choice. He’s a beauty. No brand, so you’re clear on ownership. The only brand I see isn’t a local brand. I doubt that I’ll have any trouble, and you get a twofer with the mare and foal.”

“Before you ask, a twofer is two animals for the price of one. I am giving you that because of the favor you did for the town. While most of us don’t like Banker Barnes, we need him. Iff’n he goes bankrupt, so does everyone else, including the town.”

Clint chose, with Smitty’s help, the tack already on the stallion and the tack from the pinto mare. He helped Mr. Smith remove the tack from the horses and they led them to a corral out back. The men placed his tack on a couple of barrels in the tack room used for that purpose. Smitty then showed him the mare.

She was beautiful and whiter than snow. While she was not an albino, she was everything else. It was obvious that she was pregnant but what was not obvious, was that she was already in the earliest stages of labor. The mare should foal within the next week.