by J. Lee Butts
Fell on my knees next to her bed and wept. Sobs, too deep for a grown man to stand, racked my body like someone beating me in the back with a singletree from a Butter-field stagecoach. Ran a fevered hand over her cold, dead face and slid my fingers through her hair like a comb.
Leaned over and placed my head against her arm. Despite the odors of dried blood, carbolic, other antiseptics, and death, I could still smell the sweetness of her. She favored a toilet water that gave off the slightest hint of the fragrance from roses. To this very moment, every spring, the smell of roses has the power to transport me back to Ruby's side—and the edge of bitter tears.
"Why'd you have to leave?" I whispered into an unhearing ear. "We had wonders ahead of us, darlin'. So many years to share. Children to bring into this world. They'd have been beautiful, and smart, like their mother. You were supposed to grow old with me, Ruby."
I prayed to Adamson's tin ceiling. Questioned God's poor judgment in the matter and, finally, had to give her up. In those days people died. At times they went out singly, in pairs, even in large groups. Children passed in such numbers funerals for them were fairly commonplace—a daily occurrence. Disease, horrific accidents, or murder took them, right and left. Some killed one another for no good reason. I knew all those things to be true. Such knowledge didn't help me with her departure. Not even the least bit.
After an hour's worth of praying over unanswerable questions, from the deepest recesses of my wounded heart, I came to the startling realization that what passed for love between the two of us could well have been little more than misunderstood passion.
My status as the hero who'd saved her drew Ruby to me in a way that might never have survived the test of time. Hell, such a prospect could very well have been the way of future events. But, by God, Bull Tingwell had no right to keep us from the joy, or heartache, of discovering the error of our ways. The son of a bitch had stolen the future from us. I promised God he'd never again have another opportunity to commit such a heinous act.
Eventually Boz, Rip, and Doc Adamson came in and pulled me away from Ruby's lifeless body. They dragged me back to the jail. The walk helped, and by the time we arrived, I could think of little else but how Bull Tingwell would die.
In one of the blacker corners of my heart, I made plans for the old bastard's journey to his place in a festering Hell. Knew I might swing for his death; at that point, I didn't give a hoot in hell what befell me.
Perhaps the state of a troubled mind explains my reckless behavior a few hours later. My friends still hovered over me like two old-maid aunts. The Tingwell-Pitt situation had seemed to have calmed a mite when the jailhouse door popped open and a Pitt cowboy named Rusty Woolner hopped inside. The nervous Nellie danced from foot to foot like he had snakes in his drawers.
Boz said, "Well, what is it, boy? Spit it out."
Woolner held his hat by the brim and said, "Y'all best come on outside. Figure they's 'bout to be some killing done yonder in the street. Casper Longstreet done got Nick Fox hemmed up against the wall on t'other side of the Fin and Feather. Says he's gonna kill Fox and anyone else what gets in his way."
The words had barely tumbled from Wolner's lips when events beyond our control snapped everyone's head toward the door. Three pistol shots—one right after the other—shook the jail and rattled our windows. Sounded as though the shooter had thumbed them off as fast as humanly possible. Could barely detect a breath of silence between each blast.
All consideration of Bull Tingwell's unforgivable sin vanished. The four of us hit the door at a run. We grabbed shotguns on our way out. Remember thinking, this godawful mess'll never end. Wondered how many more would have to die before God's vengeful wrath was satisfied.
Then a thought hit me like lightning from a clear blue sky. If things went badly in the next few minutes, I just might meet Ruby again on the other side. All it would take amounted to a single mistake.
With an overabundance of killers skulking around town, shaking hands with eternity was a fair likelihood. Just outside the jailhouse door, the acrid smell of spent gunpowder hit my nostrils. Very real prospect of cruel death came down hard.
Heard Boz say, "Keep your wits about you, boys. Don't want any of us dyin' today."
17
"HE'S DEAD AS JULIUS CAESAR"
SPOTTED CASPER LONGSTREET as soon as we rounded the corner of the Fin and Feather. He stood rooted to the ground in the middle of the street. Man appeared slightly humped over like he had a putrid stomach.
Cowboys and hired killers, from both clans, crowded the boardwalks in front of their chosen saloons. I passed through a swirl of drifting gunsmoke as we hoofed it in Casper's direction.
Like angry red wasps, me, Boz, Rip, and Stonehill fogged to within ten feet of Tingwell's ashen-faced gun-fighter. Rip covered Pitt and his bunch. Boz and Stonehill took a bead on the Tingwell clan. I brought my weapon up on Longstreet. I was just before sending him to Kingdom, and final judgment, when he turned my way like a man under six feet of water.
A wine-colored, sticky-looking stain covered the hand clutched against his chest, and spread from the man's upper left side to the cartridge belt strapped high on his narrow waist. He took a single step my direction, stumbled, and almost fell. Cocked pistol dropped from his right hand and landed in the dusty street.
Bright bubble-filled blood oozed from the corner of his quivering mouth. Sounded bone-tired when he stammered, "J-just be damned. Nick Fox was b-better'n I thought." He glanced down at the holes in his chest and said, "Shit. B-bastard ruined my brannew shirt." Looked back up as though totally confused by the stunning turn of events, then dropped slap on his face like a head-shot steer. Once down, he didn't so much as twitch.
I knelt beside the man. Even when enjoying the best of health, Longstreet resembled one of those who'd already shaken Satan's scale-covered hand. Rolled the gunfighter over, and pressed a finger against his pockmarked neck. Nothing. It'd taken a lot of years, and a boatload of dead folk at Casper Longstreet's own hand, but he'd finally got his just deserts.
Threw a quick glance over at Boz and said, "He's dead as Julius Caesar." Quickly stood and swung my shotgun around on Pitt's crew.
Longstreet's bunch of loutish friends were rooted to the Matador's entrance by our show of force. Didn't stop them from yelling all manner of the bluest kinds of curses. Entire Tingwell crew realized their man was about to wake up shoveling coal in the furnaces of a sulfurous hell. That shattering insight didn't sit well with any of them.
Not to be outdone, Romulus led the Pitt gang in an equally rousing, and even more aggressive, response. Their hotly delivered blaspheming laced the air with the lewdest, most confrontational language an itinerant hard-shell Baptist evangelist could have imagined.
The disagreement escalated noticeably after about fifteen seconds of such vigorous profanity. With itchy fingers wrapped around their pistol grips, men jumped from the boardwalks on both sides of the street. Death-dealing threats were shouted back and forth.
Whole scene settled a bit when I boldly stepped to within a few feet of where Nick Fox stood. He insolently leaned against the board fence that hid an empty lot between the Fin and Feather and the only barbershop in town. Bold son of a bitch had rolled, and lit, a cigarette during all the yelling. Smoke curled around his head like a shroud. I leveled my shotgun on his guts and cocked both barrels.
Didn't take long for everyone in attendance at that particular prayer meeting to realize another killing just might be in the offing. Leaders of both belligerent camps waved their angry men into silence. Of a sudden, the entire scene got so quiet a bald man could have heard the only hair left on his head grow. You would have needed a South Texas peon's razor-sharp machete to cut through the tension.
Fox had propped himself against the fence about twenty feet down the boardwalk from the Fin and Feather's batwing doors. Both the killer's holstered pistols still leaked pale wisps of blue-gray smoke. He held his hands out, palms facing me like a man pushin
g a door open. His eyes went dead. I could detect no sense of fear or remorse.
Fox said, "Tried to talk Casper out of this dance, Ranger Dodge. I harbored no desire to fight the man, given his deadly reputation and all. But, as you well know, comes a time when some folks wake up one morning and just seem determined to die." He waved at the crowds gathered in front of each saloon. "You can ask anyone on either side of the street. Casper goaded me into this shooting match. I even let him draw first."
Behind me I heard Boz call out, "That the way of it, Hardy? Did your hired gun bring this death down on his own head?"
I turned slightly. Watched Hardy from the corner of my eye as he flicked a cigarette butt into the street and said to Boz, "Can't rightly say, Tatum. I wasn't in attendance when the disagreement started. Was inside the Matador havin' myself a whiskey repast. Why don't you look to someone else? Maybe one of these townsfolk seen it."
Crowd of locals had gathered on the street off to my left. Horace Breedlove stepped out of the swarm. Took a lot of gritty sand for what the man did next.
He kind of danced from foot to foot, tied and retied his apron four or five times, while rivers of sweat ran down his cheeks. Finally he said, "I seen it just the way Fox described, Ranger Tatum. Hell, everyone here seen this killing. Including you, Hardy. Ain't no reason to lie 'bout it now."
Can't say for sure, but I think it was John Roman Hatch who yelled, "Best keep your yap shut, you tater-dealin' son of a bitch."
Surprised me when the mild-mannered shopkeeper bulled up and shouted back, "I won't, by God." He gestured at the gathering of townspeople that milled about in a nervous knot behind him. "The good folk of Iron Bluff have had all we're willing to put up with from you two packs of murderous skunks. It's way past time for all you belligerent bastards to get your comeuppance. Sure wouldn't hurt any of our feelings if the whole damned lot of you ended up just like Longstreet."
Beat all I'd ever seen. Remember thinking, by God, the man's nervier than I would have ever given him credit for being. Course, near as I've been able to determine over the years, you never know just how far you can push men like Breedlove before they bite back.
The well-liked merchant's speechifying seemed to take substantial fight out of Hardy Tingwell and his boys. Then Pruitt Pitt, who'd been quiet up to that point and should have kept his stupid mouth shut, popped off with the worst possible thing he could have said.
Boy stood behind his father and pointed at Hardy when he shouted, "And we stand ready to send all you living Tingwells to Hell on an outhouse door right here and now." Romulus Pitt turned as if to quiet his smart-aleck son, but never got the chance to say a single word.
Don't exactly know where the first shot came from. Way I stood in the street made it hard to see most of them boys. But it sounded like someone from the Pitt bunch fired the round that tipped us all into a bloody inferno. Could have been someone from either camp, though, I suppose.
Truth is, simply doesn't matter in the end. Felt like the concussion from that first blast almost blew my hat off. Marshal Stonehill went down like a burlap bag of horseshoes. Every hair on the back of my neck turned into barbed wire.
Nick Fox went for his guns. We were so close to one another the highly concentrated wad of a double fistful of lead damn near blew him in half. Dropped both hammers of the shotgun on his sorry ass. Splattered him all over the board fence. Pistols popped out of holsters all over the street like rabbits from a traveling magician's hat.
I headed for the doorway of the barbershop fast as I could hoof it. Arrived just in time to turn and watch as men from the Tingwell gang pushed their way into the Matador while wildly firing over their shoulders. Front window of that cow-country oasis exploded in a hailstorm of shattered glass.
Somehow Boz and Rip had managed to match me step for step, plus some, and crashed against the door as they fell beside me. We scrunched against the half-wood, half-glass door as tight as we could. Truth was, though, it didn't offer much in the way of shelter.
Turned to my right and said, "Either of you boys hit?"
Boz patted around on himself like a man looking for a smoke. "Not me. Leastways I can't find any extra holes right now."
Rip shook his head, but I noticed blood on the side of his head. I yelled, "Look to your ear, Rip. Think someone notched you up on top."
He fingered the gash and yelped, "I'll just be goddamned. Shot me again. Bet it was that sorry-assed Hardy Tingwell. Hell, I'm just now gettin' over the last time the evil bastard plugged me."
Boz snugged up against my back, tight as he could. Together we tried to peek around the door frame at the entrance of the Fin and Feather. Shattered glass, wood splinters, and dirt clods flew in every direction on both sides of the street. Horses screamed, and ran in all directions. One, still tied to the hitch rail, squealed and flopped sideways. Ran in place and tried several times to stand, but couldn't.
Boz leaned back against the barbershop door. "What'd you boys see?" Rip asked.
I said, "Not much. But I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, it does appear as though Stonehill has about as much pulse as a pitchfork." Intensity of the shouting, shooting, cussing, and general turmoil from both sides of the street made it almost impossible for me to hear either of my friends.
At first, all three of us thought we'd found a position of relative safety. Such dreamy notions only lasted until someone in the Matador spotted us. Bullets peppered the entry, front window, and plank boards of the walkway all around our hidey-hole. Hot lead blasted holes in the door frame, wall, and the barber's glass window.
Boz grabbed the shop's shiny brass knob and twisted. Entrance popped open. We fell across the threshold, and scrambled inside to a higher degree of safety behind the building's facade.
Rip lay down, rolled on his back, and kicked the door shut. Leonard Skaggs, feller who owned Iron Bluff's only tonsorial parlor, cowered behind his leather-covered chair. Boz spoke to him, but the man shook all over and appeared unable to reply.
Rip squirmed and wiggled himself toward the front glass for a view outside. He yelled, "God Almighty. Sounds like full-blown warfare out there. What we gonna do, Boz?"
My friend didn't reply. Before Thorn had a chance to look outside, Boz motioned us toward the shop's back door. We crawfished that direction. Rip grabbed Skaggs and pulled him along. Got outside. Cover was much better behind the flimsy building. Bullets had to go through at least four walls to get to us instead of one.
Original builder had put up a six-foot-tall board-and-batten fence that was as wide as Skaggs's hair-cutting operation and twelve to fourteen feet deep. We headed for the corner on the south side, next to Romulus Pitt's Fin and Feather saloon, and flopped down against the barbershop's back wall. Everyone let out a sigh of relief, then sucked air for a spell to try and calm down a bit.
Boz said, "Well, I knew when the final brawl came it'd be bad. But hell, boys, no better'n most of these jackasses can shoot, maybe we can keep the number of graves folks around here have to dig to a minimum."
Rip shook his head. "Don't know about that 'un, Boz. Put as much lead in the air as we've got flyin' around right now, and any yahoo pullin' a trigger don't have to be much of a shot to hit something."
I couldn't help but laugh. Surprised my friends. "What the hell's so funny, Lucius?" Boz asked.
Shook my head and said, "Well, just think about it. Only thing these idiots have killed so far, even with all this gunfire, is a town marshal owned by the Pitts that none of us really trusted, and a horse. Not much to show for a fireworks display that rivals the one they do over in Dallas every Fourth of July."
A few seconds of silence passed between us as the thunderous blasting from the Fin and Feather grew more intense. Mr. Skaggs sat on his back entry stoop and covered both ears with quaking hands.
Boz yelled, "Load 'em up. We've got to do something to stop this, or we might well end up with a massacre on our hands."
"What do you propose we do, Boz?" I ask
ed.
Rip shouted, "Maybe we should just wait 'em out. They can't keep up a barrage like this forever. Most of these cowboys ain't carryin' a tubful of ammunition around with 'em."
'That might well be true," Boz shouted. "Then again, if we don't take some kind of action, a lot more people could end up dead."
"I'm game, Boz. What's the plan?" I asked.
He stood, and peeked over the fence, then quickly sat back down. 'There's a back door to the Fin and Feather not thirty feet from where we're sittin'. Think what we'll have to do is sneak in, throw down on the Pitt crew, and force them to give up their guns."
Sounded good. Rip and I nodded as Boz rubbed his ear and tried to figure out the rest of his plot. After about a minute of scratching and thinking, he said, "Once we've got 'em unarmed, we'll herd the whole bunch into this fenced spot. Rip, you can guard 'em, while me and Lucius see what we can do with all them boys over in the Matador."
Before we had an opportunity to respond, Boz jumped to his feet and went to kicking at the fence. Took him a right smart effort to make a hole. The planks didn't appear to have been in place for very long. Green timber held to the nails so tight, he really had to apply some force to knock enough boards loose to allow a man Rip's size to get through.
We rushed the Fin and Feather's back door, and stopped long enough to make sure our shotguns were primed. Boz said, "Lucius, go left. Rip, go right. Once we get inside and set up, I'll give the signal. Fire one barrel into the air. Gonna have to hope all of Pitt's boys will be behind whatever offers some degree of protection and facing the street. Our entrance should surprise 'em some."
Rip and I nodded. Boz got his leg cocked to kick hell out of the door. Rip reached down and turned the knob. Heavy entrance swung open like it'd been waiting for our arrival.