Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr

by Phil Truman

  Henry relaxed his hold on his pistol grip. “You picked a heluva time to come job hunting. What makes you think I’m hiring?”

  The lad shrugged, then spit to the side. He looked coolly over at Frank. “Sooner or later you’re going to need more help. Figured you could use someone good with a gun.”

  Henry looked at Frank and they both laughed. The boy lost his smirk and got steely-eyed. “How old are you, son?” Henry asked.

  “Don’t see that it matters,” he said. He looked back and forth from Henry to Frank. His expression had quickly become cold; his eyes danced with fury. “You want to try me?”

  Henry looked at the ground and let out another small laugh. He leaned in closer to the boy and spoke to him in a lower voice. “Look, kid, we ain’t looking for a fight. We got a job to do right now. It’s kind of a small job, but it’s only because we need to outfit ourselves for something bigger… Tell you what, you want to join us on this job, I’ll give you a try. If I like what I see we’ll consider letting you join up with us.”

  The boy nodded.

  “What’s your name?” Henry asked him.

  “Wilson.”

  “That your first name or your last?”

  “Last,” the boy said. “First name’s John. Most folks just call me Wilson.”

  Henry leaned in closer to the boy, and spoke in an amicable tone. “Now, c’mon, tell me how old you are.”

  “Eighteen,” the boy said.

  Henry knew it was a lie. He smiled and nodded back. “Well, I already know enough Johns. Think I’ll call you, Kid... Kid Wilson. That okay with you?”

  A small smile cracked the boy’s stony glare and he returned a slight nod.

  “Awright, then,” Henry turned to his partner Frank, then looked up at the door of the mercantile. “Let’s do this,” he said.

  Just before he grabbed the knob of the store’s door to enter, it swung opened to the inside and a heavy-set woman came out. Henry stepped back and to the side, grabbing the rim of his hat in a tipping gesture to the woman. She nodded and smiled, moving on across the wooden sidewalk and down the steps. Watching the woman cross the street, Henry turned back to the boy behind him. “One other thing, Kid. Don’t shoot nobody,” he said.

  * * *

  No one followed them after they rode out of Inola, so they proceeded across the prairie at a leisurely lope heading for Frank’s cabin down near the town of Wagoner. Henry and Frank, the backs of their horses laden with gunny sacks full of merchandise, rode in silence. The Kid, carrying his share of the loot, chattered on like a dog-treed squirrel.

  Henry and Frank were bone tired. It’d been a long, hard week. Six days earlier they’d gone up to Caney, Kansas where they’d robbed a bank. A posse had doggedly pursued them nearly ninety miles into the Territory, before the two finally lost them in the Osage Hills. They’d ridden fairly hard all night and by dawn couldn’t detect the men chasing them. It was Henry’s first bank robbery, and he discovered he liked it. He liked it so much, he decided those would be the main thrust of his criminal activities. The store robbery in Inola, as well as those other two or three in the past few days, they’d done more out of necessity than for fun. Henry had another bank plan in mind, and robbed the stores in order to provision up. They took mainly guns and ammunition from those, enough for ten men. They took the till money, too, but that never amounted to much, maybe a hundred dollars at the most. Henry thought they could use that to buy food. It never occurred to him that they could steal it from the stores. He felt only low-life outlaws would steal food. He had a higher calling.

  “Shut up, Kid,” Frank said, finally.

  It worked. Kid Wilson pouted quietly the rest of the ride to Frank’s.

  Henry was glad for just the rhythmic sounds of the hoof beats, as it allowed him to mull things over. The Kid confronting him on the street in Inola seemed sort of providential. It started the wheels turning, and now his thoughts began to galvanize into a real plan. If he was going to pull off the job he was thinking about, he already knew he’d need more hands, preferably gun hands. That’s why he’d started stockpiling guns and ammo. But he didn’t want a bunch of rag tag yayhoos. He wanted to enlist who he wanted, men he thought he could trust, and train them. His gang, The Henry Starr Gang, would be more efficient and skillful than anyone who’d ever ridden on the wrong side of the white man’s law, and they’d rob more banks than anyone ever had. This kid showing up when he did was a good omen. He might be his first recruit.

  Frank poured some coffee he’d set to boil after they’d arrived at his cabin. Henry slouched on one of the bunks; the boy sat at the table, a tin cup of steaming coffee in front of him.

  “Where you from, boy?” Henry asked. He was half reclined, his back against the cabin wall.

  “Missouri,” Wilson said. He still wore sort of a pout. “Been here in the Territory for about two weeks, looking for work.”

  “You got family?”

  “Not here. My folks and my brother died of the cholera when I was five. Had an uncle back in Joplin I lived with after that, my ma’s kin. Got some other people back in Missouri, but don’t know ’em very well.”

  “Why’d you leave your uncle’s place?”

  “I shot the sumbitch. Got tired of his beatings, so I shot the sumbitch and left. Come on over here to the Territory. He may still be alive, I dunno; don’t care, neither.”

  Henry nodded, but didn’t say anything. He thought of his own stepfather and the beatings he’d dished out on Henry. He’d left that home at about this boy’s age, too.

  “You did okay today, Kid.” He said after a bit. “You kept your cool; didn’t shoot nobody. I think we’ll let you join up with us.”

  Henry looked over at his partner who leaned against the rough fireplace mantel, drinking his coffee. “That okay with you, Frank?”

  “Reckon so,” Frank said.

  “I got me in mind another bank,” Henry said to the both of them. “A bigger bank than that one in Caney. Bigger town, too. We’re going to need about four or five more men for the job.”

  Frank and the Kid remained quiet, waiting for Henry to elaborate.

  “Can you really shoot them pig irons you got on?” Henry asked the Kid.

  “Damn right I can,” Wilson replied.

  “How’d you come by them?” Henry asked.

  “They were my uncle’s. I took ‘em and then I shot the sumbitch with ‘em.”

  “Well, in the morning you can show me what you can do.”

  * * *

  Henry stood next to Kid Wilson as they faced the morning sun. It had risen just above the low hills east of Frank’s place and cast a red glow on their faces. Henry had wedged half dollar-sized flat rocks into the tops of four fence posts in Frank’s corral, and walked back to where the Kid waited. The two of them, with Frank watching, stood fifty feet away looking at the fence posts and into the sun.

  “I’ll go first, Kid,” Henry said and drew his revolver. He sighted down the barrel with a squint, and fired after about a five second aim. The stone on the left most post exploded in a cloud of white dust. Henry aimed at the rock on the next post and fired again. A small puff of rock dust came off the edge of the stone, but it stayed wedged in the post. Henry fired again and the rock disappeared. He re-holstered his gun.

  “Not bad,” the Kid said.

  He drew both his guns and aimed with the right, firing with only a moment’s hesitation. The first rock became a small cloud. He fired with the left, and the fence post splintered an inch to the right of the stone about two inches below the top, but the stone kept its perch. He fired again with the left, sending wood fragments flying off the top left of the post; he fired almost immediately with the right again, and blew the rock to bits.

  “Shit!” Wilson said.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Kid,” Henry said. “Pretty dang good shooting with the right, and not too bad with the left. All’s you need is a little more practice, which is what I aim to give you. Y
ou’ll do.”

  Kid Wilson holstered his guns, but his face remained clouded with anger. He sulked.

  Henry decided to offer a little more counsel. “Any good shooter could hit them rocks shooting with the sun behind ’em. It takes a real skilled hand to hit a target that small with the sun in their eyes. That’s why I set it up that way. You got talent, Kid. But talent don’t mean nothin’ without skills. Just keep practicing.”

  The Kid nodded but kept looking at the ground.

  “Well, I got to go look for a feller,” Henry said to the Kid. “You stay here with Frank and help him around the place.” He looked over at Frank. “The two of you might ought to go into town and stock up on some grub,” he said. “I expect we’ll be feeding a few more hands here before long.”

  His partner Frank nodded.

  * * *

  Henry had known Link Cumpelin and a fella named Watt for a couple of years. He’d cowboyed with them on the Roberts Ranch near Nowata. During the long, dusty trails of pushing cattle, he’d listened to them talk about how they’d get rich someday, and that it wouldn’t be by punching cows. Well, he listened to Link, anyway. Watt never said much.

  “How you figure to do that, Link?” Henry had asked.

  “Hell, boy, there’s plenty of rich men out there ripe for the pluckin’. You just need a proper plan, and the guts to carry it through.”

  Link was an older man, somewhere in his thirties, Henry thought. He knew him as a tough man, a hard worker. Most of his talk had been just that, though. The man never had followed through with his bold talk, but Henry thought he could depend on him. All’s Link needed was someone to get things planned and lead the way.

  Watt, the only name he ever gave anybody, was about the same age as Link. He didn’t talk as much as Link, but he rode just as raw and hard. He had keen blue eyes and a fierce look. Henry wanted him to join his group because sitting in a saddle, Watt could shoot the head off a rattlesnake from thirty paces. Henry had seen him do it more than once. And, although he was skinny and only about five-and-a-half feet tall with his hat on, Henry had also witnessed Watt beat the crap out of a man twice his size in a fist fight.

  Henry rode along the eastern fence line of Robert’s land in Nowata County. Earlier he’d spotted a group of cows some men were working, and rode toward them. Loping in from the right rear of the small herd, he recognized Boone Tyler, another cowhand he’d known while working for Roberts. He angled his mare to approach the man from behind.

  “Howdy, Boone,” Henry said.

  The man, thick at the waist and narrow at the shoulders, turned in his saddle. Hearing another man’s voice coming out of the yellow-gray dust cloud and the mewling of the cattle startled him a little. He immediately recognized Starr.

  “Well, howdy, Henry,” he said. Besides being stout and short, Boone Tyler wore a five-day-old growth of whiskers, and had gapped teeth stained brown by chewing tobacco. “Sure never expected to see you out here. Mr. Roberts know you’re here?”

  It was Robert’s wagon Henry had been driving when he’d been caught with the whiskey. That’d been a couple years back, but Roberts had told Henry never to set foot on his land again.

  “No, don’t reckon so,” Henry said. “Just passing through. I’uz looking for Link and Watt. They still around?”

  “Yeah, they’re around. I expect you’ll find ’em fixing fences up east of here. Why is it you’re looking for them two?” Tyler hadn’t seen Henry since Roberts had run him off, but he knew of his exploits. Henry had become somewhat of a celebrity in the two years since Tyler had last talked to him.

  “I got some work needs done,” Henry said. “Wanted to see if them boys wanted to join up with me.”

  “What kind of work?” Tyler asked.

  “Well, it ain’t cow work, Boone. More of a business venture.” He rode alongside the cowboy, keeping pace with Boone’s bay. Henry looked straight ahead, grinning slightly.

  Boone leaned to his left to spit tobacco juice. “Figured as much,” he said. He wiped the residual drool with the heel of his left-gloved hand. “I been hearing about your business ventures.”

  Boone spat again, and asked, “How many men you figure you’ll be taking on?”

  “Already got two besides me,” Henry answered. “Frank Cheney and a fella called Kid Wilson. Link and Watt’d make five, if they sign on. I figure one or two more ought to round it out.”

  “Frank Cheney,” Boone said. He scratched under his chin, and seemed to give that name some thought. “That the Frank Cheney down around Wagoner?”

  “Yep.”

  “I believe I know him,” Boone said. After a few seconds he added, “I been thinking of getting out of cowboying, myself. Always seem to get stuck here riding drag, and I tell you what, I’m plenty dang sick of it.”

  Henry, still looking ahead, nodded. “Yeah I could see where that’d start to wear thin,” he said into the dust cloud in front of him. Riding drag on a cow herd ranked as probably the worst job in cowboying—always at the back of the herd eating dust, rounding up strays, busting cattle out of hard places to reach, and generally doing all the jobs no one else wanted to do. It was the lowest position in the wranglers’ pecking order, and generally reserved for the youngest or slowest-witted hand in the bunch.

  “You reckon I could sign on for your business venture, Henry?”

  “I don’t know, Boone. It’s kind of dangerous work.” Henry liked Tyler, but he wasn’t sure he could keep up, mentally or physically.

  “Couldn’t be no worse than facing down a pissed off steer cornered in a wash,” Boone countered.

  Henry laughed. “Naw, I s’pose not,” he said. He would need someone to stay with the horses during a job; he figured drag-ridin’ Boone Tyler could do that just fine. Henry believed he could depend on him to do what he told him to do.

  “Tell you what, Boone, you ride over to Frank Cheney’s place. Tell Frank I sent you. Tell him I thought you’d fit in. If he says it’s awright with him, you can stay on.”

  “I reckon I could head out tomorrow,” Boone said.

  “Tomorrow?” Henry said. “What’s keeping you from leaving out now?”

  “Well, I need to tell Mr. Roberts I’m leaving, and pick up my wages. Need to get my cat, too.”

  “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” Henry reached out and grabbed the reins of Boone’s horse. “Now you don’t need to be telling Mr. Roberts about any of this or where you’re going.”

  “Well,” Boone said and then he thought for a minute. “I reckon I wouldn’t do that, but I would like to get my wages…. and my cat.”

  “How much wages you figure you’ve got coming?” Henry asked.

  “Well, this here’s the twenty-eighth; I reckon I’m due most of a month’s pay.”

  “How much do you make a month, Boone?”

  “Ten dollars,” Boone said.

  Henry stood in his stirrups and pulled a fold of bills out of his jeans pocket. He counted out a few. “Here’s twelve, Boone. Now if you want to ride with me, you head on over to Frank Cheney’s.”

  Tyler looked at the proffered bills, then reached out and took them. “Wull, what about my cat?” he asked.

  “Go get your damn cat, Boone, but don’t stop and talk to Roberts or nobody else. Okay?”

  Boone nodded thoughtfully. “You reckon I ought to tell Dooley I’m leaving?”

  “Who’s Dooley?”

  “He’s the foreman. He’ll want to know ain’t nobody riding drag.”

  “Don’t worry about that, Boone. He’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

  * * *

  The trio rode up to Frank’s barn and corral at about eight that evening. Henry had found Link and Watt working on the eastern fence just like Boone had told him. When Henry made his proposal, still sitting in his saddle, the two men looked at one another, then at Henry; and without saying a word, dropped their tools and mounted their horses. They rode on toward Frank Cheney’s mostly in silence; Henry and Watt, that i
s. Link talked a fair amount, about what he’d heard concerning Henry’s doings, about his own ideas on robbing banks and such, about what he aimed to do with his future earnings. Henry didn’t say much, only an occasional grunt to acknowledge whatever Link said at the time. Watt didn’t talk at all.

  When they finally reached Frank’s, he came out onto the porch when he heard them ride up. “Did Tyler make it in?” Henry asked Frank as he dismounted.

  “Who?” Frank asked.

  “Boone Tyler. He’s supposed to join us.”

  Although Henry couldn’t see it in the gathering gloom of the spring evening, Frank furrowed his brow in disapproval. “You asked Boone Tyler to join us?”

  “Boone’ll do okay. He said you two knew each other.”

  “Yeah, I know Boone. He’s an idiot.”

  “Don’t disagree that he’s probably that,” Henry said as he undid the cinch to his saddle and pulled it off his horse’s back. “But I figure we can trust him. He’ll pretty much do whatever we tell him to.”

  Frank sighed, but he didn’t say anything more on the subject.

  “This here is Link Cumpelin and Watt,” Henry said. The two men nodded to Frank, and he nodded back.

  “You boys hungry?” Frank asked.

  “I could eat,” Link said. Watt nodded again.

  * * *

  The next morning Kid Wilson and his new companions stood in the barnyard shooting at rocks on the corral fence posts, when Watt spotted two riders about a mile away on the road to the northeast of them.

  “Riders coming,” he said to the other two. They holstered their guns and waited.

  Link yelled over his shoulder toward the outhouse, “Starr!”

  Henry came out of the privy, and walked over to wait with the others. Frank came out of the small barn, and stood there next to the barn door. The horsemen had ridden close enough by then so that Henry could tell one of them was Boone Tyler. He could also see the head of a yellow cat sticking up out of one of Boone’s saddlebags. He didn’t recognize the other man. He was bigger than Boone, but not as round. The two men trotted their horses into the yard and reined up.