The Sunset Trail

by Alfred Henry Lewis

“It won’t do, Luke,” responded Mr. Masterson, hopelessly, “Ed never’ll last to go the route. Did you ever hear of such a thing? A party has plugged him, and lies there organised with two more loads. Ed, with five shots in his gun, can’t think of anything better to do than beat him over the head. If I wasn’t so worried I’d feel ashamed.”

Dating from that uprising of the lonesome stranger there befell a season of serenity, the peace whereof was without its fellow in the memory of Dodge. The giddy and the careless paid no heed, but pessimists and ones grown old on the sunset side of the Missouri took on brows of trouble. The latter, counting on that inevitable equilibrium which nature everywhere and under all conditions maintains, looked forward to an era of extraordinary explosiveness, when bullets would fly as thick as plover in the fall. These folk of forecast could not tell when this powder-burning would take place, but they felt that it was on its smoky way.

True, that period of deep quiet was occasionally rippled by some tenderfoot who, made foolish of whiskey and the liberal lines laid down by Dodge for the guidance of visitors, was inclined to go too far. Or now and again a Mexican became boisterous beyond what a judicious public sentiment permitted to his caste, and offered a case where the dignity of Dodge required that he be moderately “buffaloed.” These slight ebuillitions, however, were as nothings, and came under the caption of child’s play. It was not until the taking place of what stirring events are to be recounted that those pessimists and ones of prophecy, being justified of their fears, gathered at the Long Branch, the Alhambra and the Alamo, and over their liquor reminded one another how they had foretold the same.

It was brown October; the fat beef herds came winding in from the lowing, horn-tossing south, and Dodge in its shirtsleeves was busy with prosperity. The genial boys of cows, their herds disposed of, were eager to dispense their impartial riches upon monte, whiskey and quadrilles, and it was the chosen duty of Dodge to provide those relaxations.

On the fateful day which this history has in mind, Mr. Walker of the Cross-K brought in a bunch of nine hundred steers. They came trooping and bellowing through the Arkansas with the first dull lights of morning, and, before Dodge sat down to its prandial meal—which with a simplicity inherited of the fathers it took at noon—had been turned over to certain purchasing gentlemen from the East, for whom they had been gathered. Their task performed, the weary riders who brought them up the trail gave themselves freely to those metropolitan delights which Dodge arranged for them. They went about with liberal hands, and Dodge rejoiced in profits staggering.

Among those who rode in with the Cross-K herd was Mr. Wagner. In moments of sobriety no danger had its source in Mr. Wagner. Endowed of strong drink and a Colt’s pistol in right proportions, he was worth the watching. Indeed, within the year Mr. Wagner, while thus equipped, had shot himself into such disrepute in the streets of Mobeetie that he defeated a popular wish to hang him only by the fleetness of his pony. It was then he came north and attached himself to Mr. Walker and the Cross-K.

Throughout those daylight hours which fell in between that transfer of the Cross-K herd and the lighting of what kerosene lamps made gay the barrooms of Dodge, nothing could have been more commendable than the deportment of Mr. Wagner. He imbibed his whiskey at intervals not too brief, and distributed his custom with an equal justice between the Alhambra with Mr. Kelly, the Alamo with Mr. Webster, and the Long Branch with Mr. Short. Also, he drifted into the outfitting bazaar of Mr. Wright and spent fifty dollars upon an eight-inch Colt’s six-shooter, calibre-45, the butt of which was enriched and made graceful with carved ivory. This furniture Mr. Wagner would later swing to his hip by means of a belt, the same corrugated of cartridges.

It was not observed that his drinks had begun to tell upon Mr. Wagner invidiously until the hour of eight in the evening when, from the family circle of the Dodge Opera House, he roped the first violin of a dramatic organisation called the Red Stocking Blondes. It was during the overture that Mr. Wagner pitched the loop of his lariat into the orchestra, and as the first violin played vilely the interruption was well received by the public.

The management, however, came before the curtain and said that the show would not proceed while Mr. Wagner remained. With that, Marshal Ed led the disturber forth, took a drink with him to prove that his removal was merely formal and nothing personal meant, and bid him return no more. Mr. Wagner, acting on the suggestion of Marshal Ed, at once surrendered every scrap of interest in the drama, as expounded by the Red Stocking Blondes. It should be remembered that at this moment Mr. Wagner, in deference to the taste of Dodge, which frowned upon pistols in places of public entertainment as superfluous and vulgar, was not wearing that brand-new Colt’s with the ivory butt.

It was roundly the hour of midnight, and Mr. Peacock’s Dance Hall shone with the beauty and the chivalry of Dodge. Marshal Ed had come over to the Dance Hall to hold the chivalry adverted to in decorous check and keep it to paths of peace.