Pinto Lowery

by G. Clifton Wisler

  “Ma said I can heat up another kettle,” Ben offered as he observed Pinto’s reaction to the tepid bathwater.

  “It’s jus’ fine, Ben,” Pinto insisted. “’Mos’ as fine as de company.”

  By and by those weeks passed at the Oakes place in Wise County etched themselves into Pinto’s heart. He tried telling himself Tully would be back from Kansas soon and find little use for a hireling. And there was the call of the open sky and the windswept plain, too. But at night, sitting in the loft swapping tales with Ben and Brax, Pinto Lowery found a piece of himself he thought he’d lost back in Pennsylvania when Jamie Haskell fell.

  “You tell stories just fine,” Ben proclaimed.

  “Used to tell my cousins,” Pinto said, remembering. “And come summer, when we could skin out on our chores some, I’d run off with my friends to de river bottoms and swap a few lies.”

  “Ain’t all o’ them stories lies, is they?” Brax asked.

  “No, sir,” Pinto declared. “Dere’s particles o’ truth in every one.”

  Better still were mornings and evenings when Pinto took his meals with the family. Elsie was a rare wonder of a cook, and she near had the flesh Pinto had run off in a season’s mustanging back on his ribs. He’d almost forgotten what real coffee tasted like, and Elsie was forever putting a platter of biscuits and a tub of butter on the sideboard for him to mix with slices of jerked beef.

  Fer a job a man’s paid fer, dis watchin’ over Elsie and the youngsters’s got to be marked down at de top o’ my lis’, Pinto thought.

  But with three-fourths of the male population of Wise County driving cattle to Kansas, some took notice. Not all came to see women and children through the steaming June afternoons. Many arrived with larceny in their hearts. Big Nose Joe Hannigan was among the worst.

  It was Jared Richardson first brought word of Hannigan’s arrival in Wise County.

  “Thought to warn you,” the young man told Pinto late one afternoon. “Didn’t want to worry anybody, but we had some trouble day ’fore yesterday with some visitors.”

  “Oh?” Pinto asked.

  “Come ridin’ up to the house, screamin’ like Comanches and demandin’ our money. All they got fer their trouble was a load o’ buckshot courtesy o’ Arabella’s twelve gauge. That sort o’ discouraged ’em.”

  “I’d judge it did,” Pinto said, grinning at the notion.

  “Well, they went and set fire to the bunkhouse and shot up our chickens some. Scared Jim and Job considerable. Worse part’s they sailed into Defiance, guns blazin’, and robbed the bank. After that, they took both saloons and the mercantile.”

  “How many were they?” Pinto asked nervously.

  “Seven to begin with,” Jared explained. “Harry Allen over at the mercantile kilt one ’fore they shot him dead. They gunned ole Miz Pegram, too, who only come in to buy some gingham cloth. And a crazy kid outside the Lucky Seven Saloon got murdered, too.”

  The picture of a grinning face flashed through Pinto’s brain, and he grew cold.

  “Boy wasn’t even doin’ anything!” Jared exclaimed. “Shot him for the sport.”

  “Who was it did de shootin’ ?” Pinto asked.

  “Young fellow, as I heard it,” Jared explained. “But it’s his brother’s got folks boltin’ their doors. Big fellow with a busted nose.”

  “Joe Hannigan,” Pinto muttered.

  “You heard o’ him then?”

  “Yeah, I heard o’ him. It’s bad luck’s blew him here, and that’s certain.”

  “Thought you ought to know. Some men tracked ’em a ways. Lost the trail just west o’ here.”

  “And you rode out here by yerself?” Pinto cried. “Won’t get old takin’ chances with yer hide, boy! Bes’ I see you home safe.”

  “No, don’t you worry over me,” Jared argued. “I’m smoke on the wind out here. I know every prickly pear and brier in all o’ Wise County. You look out yourself. Ain’t much to stop Joe Hannigan from payin’ you a visit. He’s got plenty o’ food from the mercantile, but he’ll be needin’ water. If he turns shy o’ the creek, I expect he’ll see your cook smoke.”

  “Could be,” Pinto confessed.

  “You could bring Miz Oakes and the little ones out to our place. We’d enjoy the company, and those outlaws ain’t likely to come lookin’ for more buckshot.”

  “Wouldn’t bank on that, Jared,” Pinto declared. “These men got memories.”

  “But there’s nobody here to hold ’em off!”

  “Dere’s me,” Pinto pointed out.

  “Not much when you put it against six killers.”

  “Guess it’ll have to be ’nough,” Pinto said, sighing. “Now you bes’ ride along home, Jared. I thank you fer de news, but I got no time to bury neighbors jus’ now. Vamoose.”

  Pinto waved the young man along, then made his way solemnly toward the barn. Ben and Brax were busy toting well water to the house, and Pinto joined them for a moment. Once inside, he pointed to a shotgun resting over the door.

  “Know how to fire her?” Pinto asked.

  “That’s Ma’s gun,” Ben explained. “But there’s a Springfield in the cupboard I fired lots o’ times.”

  “Well, you leave de shotgun to her then,” Pinto said, scratching his chin. It was hard to imagine prim and proper Elsie Oakes firing a load of buckshot at anybody. “You see riders come, you take out that rifle and be ready. You shoot any strangers come callin’, hear?”

  “Expectin’ trouble?” Brax asked excitedly. “That what Jared rode out to say?”

  “Was,” Pinto admitted.

  “Was what?” Elsie asked, stepping over to join them.

  “Trouble,” Pinto explained. “Wors’ kind.” He then motioned her outside and related the tale of Big Nose Joe Hannigan.

  * * *

  Pinto Lowery had never been a man to wait for trouble to come calling. No, he believed in meeting a thing head on. After satisfying himself Elsie understood the peril and insisting the children stay close to home till the danger passed, Pinto saddled the black and prepared to track down the Hannigans.

  “You ain’t goin’ for good, are you, Pinto?” Brax asked.

  “Lef’ my blanket roll in de lof’, didn’t I?” Pinto responded. “I’ll be along in a bit. Tomorrow. Or maybe de day after.”

  “I could go with you,” Ben offered.

  “You got a job,” Pinto told the youngster. “And I got one, too.”

  Thereupon he set off to locate the Hannigans.

  Joe Hannigan had ridden the outlaw trail often enough to know the difference between real danger and a pack of farmboys and saloon owners out to get some bank money back. Pinto supposed the Hannigan gang spent a whole hour losing their pursuers. Currently the bandits were camped just above a winding creek west of the Trinity River. Big Nose Joe and his brother Pat were splashing in the shallows with two youthful-looking companions. The other two outlaws kept watch from the hillside.

  Pinto drank it all in from the far side of the creek. A stand of locusts offered good shelter there. He’d left the black fifty yards back in a narrow ravine. Best not to alert a nervous lookout, and a restless stallion was apt to stir or whine any moment.

  For close to an hour Pinto watched the swimmers. Eventually Pat spelled the guards, who then took to the water. It was a terrible temptation for Pinto. One bullet through the forehead of Pat Hannigan, and the outlaws would be helpless before the barrel of the Henry. It wasn’t half so hard a shot as others Pinto had made. Still, a miss spelled death, and killing the whole gang would be less than likely.

  Ain’t got de stomach for it anymore, Pinto thought. At Fredericksburg he and Jamie Haskell had stood there firing round after round into the surging blueshirted mass coming up the heights. Whole companies had been cut down. What were six men to the thousands?

  If’s different when you can see their faces, Pinto told himself. And no matter what they had done, Pinto Lowery lacked the anger to boil his blood.

  It wa
s later, toward nightfall, that Pat Hannigan took out a mouth organ and started playing haunting tunes.

  “Joe, that noise’ll carry for miles,” one of the gang complained. “Sure to draw that posse.”

  “Maybe they’ll bring that girl and her shotgun,” Pat said between tunes. “Eh, Joe?”

  The big-nosed killer scowled and kicked a rock into the creek.

  “Might be I’ll swing back that way and visit that gal,” Joe growled. “As for a posse, I almost welcome ’em. It’s gotten too fool quiet hereabouts for my likin’. In the old days, you could depend on a Comanche to make a try for yer horse or some farmer to happen along. Nowadays you got to ride into town to find any excitement.”

  “Hard to stay long when you rob the place,” Pat observed. “Wish I’d got a bottle ’fore you shot that pup outside the saloon.”

  “He got in my way,” Joe grumbled.

  “Well, he didn’t learn much from his mistake,” a sandy-haired outlaw said, laughing.

  “Try another tune,” Joe suggested, and Pat struck up a melody.

  The music plagued Pinto near as much as the conversation. As the Hannigans told stories of this outrage or that, Pinto fumed. It was bad enough to hear such talk, but listening to the mouth organ brought back Muley’s face.

  Be nightmares dis night, Pinto knew.

  Then there was the matter of the boy. What was his name? Pinto didn’t even recall. Nobody would trouble themselves much about it, either. What a sad thought it was to imagine the poor kid tossed in a hole without even a marker for remembering!

  Eventually Pinto lay back against a boulder and tried to catch a bit of sleep. The outlaws were resting in their blankets, and the intervening creek promised continued concealment. Even so, Pinto never slept more than half an hour at a time. Too many ghosts haunted his dreams.

  Come daybreak the Hannigans began breaking camp. They did so in no great hurry, and more than once Pinto thought to fetch help and take the killers then and there. He dared not leave them to visit the Oakes place, though.

  Joe Hannigan made his way to the creek and drew out a razor. As Hannigan soaped his face, Pinto thought of the day poor Muley had begged the use of Pinto’s strap.

  “Got my pa’s old razor,” the boy had said. “Just need to put an edge on it.”

  “And to grow some whiskers,” Elmer Tubbs had said, laughing. “Now get to work you no-account!”

  No-account? Pinto thought. The boy was worth a dozen Elmer Tubbses.

  That was when Pinto saw the watch fob. Joe Hannigan twirled it in one hand while slicing off the beginnings of a beard with a razor held in the other. Pinto Lowery recalled that fob. Elmer Tubbs was partial fond of it. He’d held it himself the day Pinto had ridden away.

  So, Tubbs, you caught up with’ em, did you? Wasn’t the first fool to rush to his death. Faye and the youngsters would have a hard time of it now.

  “Joe, ain’t you ever gettin’ finished down there?” Pat finally shouted.

  “Didn’t know you to be in such a rush,” Joe answered.

  “Ain’t generally,” Pat admitted. “Got a feelin’, though. Feel better when I put this place behind me.”

  “Gone seein’ omens in the clouds like Pa?”

  “No, but there’s somethin’ just the same.”

  Joe finished his shave and wiped his face clean. He was preparing to climb the hill when one of the younger outlaws let loose a howl.

  “Lord, Jimmy, what’s got you befuddled?”

  “This!” the young outlaw exclaimed, pulling a small object from his saddlebag. “What is it, Joe?”

  “Oh, that,” Pat said, laughing as he tossed something to his big brother.

  “Why it’s ears, boy,” Joe explained, tossing them back. “Cut off that freight boy back in Doan’s Creek.”

  “Ears!” Jimmy cried.

  “We took fingers once,” Joe explained. “Makes a man think hard ’fore he takes to followin’.”

  “And you cut ’em off him live?” a horrified bandit asked.

  “This time,” Joe explained. “Mostly the fool’s already dead, though. Take that boy in Defiance.”

  The words bore into Pinto’s soul like fire brands. Without thinking he raised the old Henry and took aim. At the last minute Joe Hannigan knelt over to pick up the ears, though, and Pinto’s bullet missed the big-nosed villain and splintered the cheekbone of a younger outlaw at his side.

  “Coley?” Pat yelled as the young bandit clasped his face and rolled his eyes back into his head. Then the knees buckled. The outlaw died before he hit the ground.

  “Over across the creek there!” Joe yelled, ducking behind his horse.

  Pinto paid it little mind. He was angry now, full of fury. He scanned the hillside and located each outlaw in turn. Mostly they kept to cover. Jimmy, though, made a run for his rifle. Pinto fired, and the Henry sent a round slicing into the young raider’s side and down into his insides. Jimmy threw back his arms and clawed the air.

  “Best we bring him along, Joe,” Pat said, inching his way toward the wounded man.

  “No need,” Joe said, firing a pistol ball through Jimmy’s head. “Only slow us down. Get mounted. Let’s put some space ’tween us and that there posse.”

  Pinto fired twice more, but the Hannigan gang moved quickly. In an instant it seemed they were atop horses and riding north. They left the better part of their camp behind. What did that matter? They’d only steal what they needed later.

  “Leas’wise dey gone north,” Pinto muttered. The Oakes place was south. It was in that direction that Pinto Lowery turned.

  Chapter 9

  After his encounter with the Hannigans, Pinto never again slept soundly in the loft of the Oakes barn. Even the slightest sound brought him rushing to the loft window, Henry rifle at the ready. Word came that the Hannigans were raiding Chickasaw trading posts up in the Nations and robbing stagecoaches in Kansas. To others Big Nose Joe was a distant threat at best. For Pinto the broken-nosed bandit lurked in every shadow.

  Elsie took note of his unease and quizzed him about it.

  “It’s not somethin’ the children’ve done, I hope,” she said. “Ben and Brax can be awful pests, and Wmnie’s forever carryin’ on about the chickens or some such nonsense. It must be tiresome to a man.”

  “Is it tiresome fer you, ma’am?” Pinto asked.

  “I fear I’m used to it.”

  “Me, I’m not,” Pinto confessed. “See, de thing is, a man can get pure tired o’ what he’s used to. It’s de fresh times keep him alive. Hate to confess it, but I gone and got real fond o’ dem youngsters. Feels like fambly almos’. Be missin’ it when yer man gets back and I ride back onto de Llano.”

  “Haven’t you ever considered starting a family of your own, Pinto?”

  “Pondered many a thing. But I been wanderin’ too long. Too many wild ways in me fer a woman to tame.”

  “You make it sound like breakin’ a mustang.”

  “Ain’t it jus’ so? Way I figure things, a horse’d be easy compared to gentlin’ a stubborn ole cuss like me.”

  She laughed at the words. Then she rested a hand on his shoulder. It remained but an instant, and thereafter Elsie hurried to get her washing done. Pinto watched her with a perplexed look on his face. Then he, too, set off to tend his chores.

  Summers weren’t entirely to be spent working, though. Pinto had told his mother that often enough. As he slaved away in the cornfields, thinning plants under a blistering June sun, he recognized the first traces of despair creeping across the faces of his young helpers. Neither Ben nor Brax were of a size to long endure heavy toil, and Pinto brought that fact to Elsie’s attention.

  “Don’t you figure I know it’s wearin’ ’em down?” she asked angrily. “How else’s the work to get done, Pinto? Tully and Truett aren’t back yet, and if the plants aren’t thinned, they’ll not a one of ’em grow a proper ear. Soon we’ll have to tote water to ’em as well. Farmin’s not an easy life. For man or boy
. Next year we’ll have Winnie out there, too. And as it is, she works half the day helpin’ me with washin’, cookin’, and tendin’ the garden.”

  “Didn’t mean to complain,” Pinto apologized. “Was only thinkin’ a spot o’ swimmin’, maybe some noontime fishin’, even a hunt, jus’ might raise some spirits.”

  “Fresh meat would be welcome enough,” Elsie admitted. “We’ve eaten about as many of the chickens as we dare. I thought to butcher a hog, but with Tully not accounted for, best we save the hogs against winter need.”

  “He’ll be along ’fore long,” Pinto reassured her. “Ole Richardson was haulin’ a fair number o’ pitiful critters. He’ll be givin’ ’em time to fatten up for sellin’.”

  “I’m certain you’re right,” she said. “Still, it does give cause for a hunt. Tru and Jared Richardson shot a pair of wild pigs up near the river crossin’ in April. Fair number of ’em, to hear Tru talk of it.”

  “Shot myself a javelina once,” Pinto said, scratching his chin. “Was eleven. Javelina’s a sort o’ wild hog.”

  “I know,” Elsie said, smiling. “I was born and reared in Texas, Pinto. These pigs down on the river don’t have tusks, though. I’d guess they wandered off some abandoned farm durin’ one of the Indian scares.”

  “Not much to sing about, shootin’ a pig without tusks,” Pinto muttered. “But I’d guess de meat’ll be tasty jus’ de same.”

  “We’ll turn it slow, on a spit over a bed of coals. Basted with honey.”

  “Can already smell it,” Pinto said, nodding. “Bes’ I get a pair o’ boys and set about shootin’ it. Elsewise smellin’s all we’ll be doin’.”

  And so early the next morning Pinto led Ben and Brax out toward the Trinity. Ben’s shoulders sagged beneath the weight of the ancient Springfield rifled musket, a relic of the war. Pinto wasn’t sure a man could hit what he aimed for with the piece since the rifling was worn nigh smooth, and the hammer didn’t always strike the cap quite right.

  “Tru took it into Defiance when a travelin’ gunsmith come through,” Ben had explained. “Man said twenty Yankee dollars’d fix it just fine. That was the price he was askin’ fer one o’ those new Winchesters.”