“Who was that?” Dart asked before they’d had a chance to get seated.
Sometimes F. G. wouldn’t use ten words when nine would do. “Name’s Olive. Print Olive. Cattle driver up from Texas.”
Nine weren’t near enough to satisfy Dart. “So, what’s he want?” he prodded.
And then sometimes F. G. would elaborate like he was getting paid by the word. “Appears Cody is in the process of inventing the next chapter of his life, a metamorphosis to something a little more civilized.” Keens, born and raised in England, had a fondness for the King’s English, and was wont to toss in a multi-syllable word every now and then in an attempt to raise the level of discourse among his colleagues. F. G. loved the game, tossing out bait that attracted Dart like a rainbow trout to a salmon fly.
Dart hated his role, patsy he considered it, and didn’t want to admit that metamorphosis was a new one on him. “You want to expand on that a little?” hoping the meaning might reveal itself in F. G.’s requested expansion.
“Seems like the days of killing buffalo for a living have petered out. He’s changing his colors, going from mud-brown and blood-red to the patriotic red, white and blue. Now that he and his bunch have about eradicated the herds, and the Indians who counted on them for room and board are, shall we say, softened up a bit, he’s got a scheme to put them on his payroll for what he’s calling a “border drama.”
F. G. hesitated. He couldn’t stop himself. Dart bit, knowing his part in the theater. This sounded too juicy to let a little pride interrupt the flow. “Border drama?”
“Cody figures there’s a market for a western spectacle, an outdoor show with riders and shooting and roping and cowboys and real, live Indians. And flags. Lots of flags. He’s assembling a cast on his ranch and figures to do a trial run right here in Kearney.”
“Sounds a little frivolous to me,” inserted Nightengale, who was somewhere on the verbal sophistication scale between Keens’s King’s English and Dart’s barroom-style faculty.
“It sounds a little lightweight to me too, “Keens added. He’s just a hustler, a promoter, looking for his next buck.”
Dart spotted an opening to pick up a morsel of conversational credibility. “Since we’re here to talk about forming a promotional organization, a Board of Trade, a Chamber of Commerce, wouldn’t we qualify as promoters too? That’s not a dirty word.”
“That’s not the way I see it,” Keens responded. “Cody is promoting himself. He’s not building anything but a reputation. I’d characterize our efforts as building a community, a place where people can build a healthy life, a place that heralds the advent of Christian civilization upon the Great American desert.” Keens paused a moment, heady with exhilaration at his unexpected outburst.
Nightengale had heard enough. “F. G., you can polish up your political speech some other time. Tell us what Olive wants from us, so we can get along with our Board of Trade planning.”
“Fair enough. Cody wants us to promote his drama show trial run. He sent over a stack of promotional flyers and photographs of several of his star Indians.”
Radical Winds ~ by Steve Buttress, posted by Chuck Peek