Lou Gore pursed a lip.
“Well, we’ll get the trunk in,” said she. “Now, child, you go into my room there and lay down until I get the water het. You’re that nervous, you jump when you see a young man standing around.”
Taisie Lockhart, clinging to Lou Gore’s hand, flung herself upon the white bed, the flame of her hair all about her shoulders, concealing her face. She began to sob indeed, utterly unnerved. Lou Gore understood this to be the fatigue of a thousand miles.
She must have slept. It seemed hours later that she was awakened by what seemed to be the sound of a door slammed shut. A few moments later came the sudden sound of a horse galloping. That was Del Williams, passing out of town.
Lou Gore heard the arrival of the railway train, saw men passing from the train. When she met Hickok and McMasters at the foot of the stair they told her what she would see if she went upstairs. But to the sturdy soul of Lou Gore hysterics were unknown. She did go upstairs, did make a certain discovery, did perform certain offices for the first man in Abilene to pass with his boots on. Then, whether in care of Abilene’s reputation or out of kindness for her sleeping guest, she did not open the door of Taisie’s room to tell her what had happened. Well, a man was dead. There would be others. Lou Gore sighed, her great hands wrapped in her apron.
“Milly,” said she at length to the black woman, whom she found in the kitchen, “you come help me get supper. It takes an awful lot of fried mush. And these men keep coming here, though I ain’t got this hotel really opened yet.”
When the party from the herd jogged into town the first man they met was McCoyne, and now he had news of his own.
“Wild Bill told me about the little trouble upstairs.” He nodded toward the Drovers’ Cottage. “One man seems to have left town. I didn’t want anybody to think we’ve got a tough town here. Fact is we haven’t got any courthouse or coroner or anything. We’ve got to hold an organization meeting and get these things fixed up before long. I just got a couple of men that was standing out near the door to go over and dig a good grave on the hill yonder; you can see it from here. First grave in Abilene, July 4, 1867. Well, Mr. Nabours, they buried your man fine; they fixed up some sort of a box for a coffin. I seen them two carry him over to the hill all right. I declare, I don’t believe there is a coffin in this whole town—our storekeepers is that negligent, got that poor a notion of goods. Now think of my getting so busy, forgetting to have our merchants order plenty of coffins! I don’t want Abilene to be back of no town in Kansas. You understand, in the hurry of getting things started, gentlemen, a man’s liable to overlook a lot of things.”
They informed McCoyne of the sale of the Del Sol herd. He shook each by the hand effusively.