Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr

by Phil Truman

  “Howdy, Henry,” Boone said. He looked toward the barn, spotting Frank. He spat to his right. “Howdy, Frank,” he added. The cat wriggled up out of the saddlebag, and jumped to the ground. It stretched fore and aft, looked around, and ambled toward the barn.

  “Boone,” Henry said in greeting; Frank nodded, watching the cat approach him.

  The group of standing men looked over Boone’s companion, as the two newcomers remained in their saddles. He was a square man who looked burly. Henry thought him to be in his latter twenties, but the diagonal scar running from the right side of his forehead, across the bridge of his nose, and down to the bottom of his left cheek made him look older. His thick bare arms looked powerful, and his left arm displayed a blue-black writhing dragon breathing red fire. Despite the severe look given by the scar across his face, he grinned merrily at the group below him.

  “Who’s your friend?” Henry asked Boone.

  “Name’s Happy Jack,” the man said before Tyler could introduce him. He spoke kind of funny with an accent Henry couldn’t identify.

  “Got a last name?” Henry asked.

  “Not since me mum dropped me off at an orphanage when I was four. Nuns just called me Jack, that is, when they weren’t strappin’ me.” He said all this still wearing his grin.

  “What makes you so damn happy, then?” Link asked.

  Happy Jack looked at Link with black eyes and a bigger grin, “It’s freedom, mate. No one shackles old Jack.”

  “Where you from?” Henry asked.

  “Lately out of Frisco; before that shippin’ on the seas. I run away from that orphanage when I was fourteen and signed on with a whaler. That was down in Australia. I think I was born there. There was a Chinaman on a freighter I worked on out of Singapore started calling me ‘Happy Jack.’ I liked it, so’s I kept it.” He held up his left forearm displaying his tattoo. “He’s the one give me this beauty.”

  The group of men stood digesting the stranger’s comments when Boone spoke up. “I couldn’t make it here yesterday before dark, Henry, so I set up a camp. Happy Jack here come up on my camp and we shared supper. As we got to talking I told him about you, and that I’uz coming to join up with you. He allowed as how he’d like to get in on some of this, too; so I brung him along to see if you could use him.”

  “Kind of curious how you got all the way out here to the Territory from Frisco,” Henry said to Jack.

  Jack laughed and swung his head around looking at the countryside. “Had to get out of there, mate. I killed a man was the First Mate on the whaler I last shipped on. I heard a man didn’t have to worry much about the law out here in Indian Territory.”

  The group nodded in unison, seeming to accept the man’s story and assessment of the local law enforcement. Henry looked at Happy Jack. “Can you handle a gun?”

  “Aye, mate, but I better prefers me knives.”

  “Knifes?” Link asked with a sneer. “Whut kinda knifes?”

  Happy Jack looked over at Link and with a dark grin said, “These kind, mate.” He reached behind his neck and in one swift move threw a knife which stuck firmly in the ground between Link’s feet. Before anyone could respond, he reached inside the side of his right boot, and with an underhand flip, sent another blade solidly into the barn door beside Frank’s head.

  Frank looked at the knife still vibrating in the wood six inches from his left ear, then reached up and pulled it out.

  “Pretty impressive,” Henry said. He scratched the back of his head, pushing the front rim of his hat forward. “Onliest problem I see with that is, once you throw them, you’ll most likely want to retrieve them. I ain’t so sure we’ll have time for that on our jobs. Thing about guns is we don’t have to retrieve bullets.”

  “To be sure,” Happy Jack said. “Like I say, I can handle a gun. Just prefers me knives.”

  At lunch Henry addressed the group.

  “I got some jobs in mind,” he said. “Several small ones and one big one. We’ll pull the small ones to get tuned up for the big one. And before we do the small ones, we’re going to train up on shooting, and riding, and tactics.

  “I think we got us the makings of a pretty good gang here, but right now we’re just a bunch of individuals. We’ve got to coordinate our actions and learn some discipline.”

  Henry paused to let all that sink in. He spooned up and swallowed three bites of Frank’s squirrel stew, then downed a gulp of water from a clay mug before him. He sat the mug back down on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before he continued.

  “You boys also got to learn, without a doubt, who’s in charge here,” he said.

  Henry stood and walked over to one of the open windows in the small cabin. He put both hands on the sill and leaned forward looking out. “First thing we’re going to do is rob a train,” he said. “One comes in every day over at Pryor Creek at about ten in the morning. It’ll be good practice to see if we can work together.”

  Chapter Four

  About a mile from the Pryor Creek Station, Henry rode up beside the huffing black and brass train engine and swung from his saddle into the cab. The engineer, still in his seat, leaning out and looking forward down the track, hadn’t seen Henry come on board, but his fireman did.

  The fireman, a big black man shining with grease and sweat, had just thrown a shovel full of coal into the open firebox, and had turned to get another scoop full when Henry entered the cab behind the engineer. At first, the fireman looked surprised at Henry’s appearance, but seeing the drawn six-shooter, he realized what was up. He drew back and swung the huge shovel scoop at Henry, intent on knocking him off the steam engine.

  Still oblivious to Henry’s entrance, the engineer pulled down on the whistle cord to announce the train’s arrival to the approaching station and small crowd standing on its platform. The whistle emitted two short screams and one long one, but not loud enough to drown out the gunshot two feet behind the engineer. He turned around just in time to see his fireman stagger backwards and hear the man right behind him holler, “Drop that damn thing!”

  When Henry saw the shovel scoop heading toward his head, he pulled the trigger and blew a half-dollar sized hole through the heart of it. The bullet’s impact slowed the shovel’s forward momentum and changed its angle of attack, but part of the scoop still clipped the end of his gun’s barrel. Henry dodged backwards stumbling toward the opening where he’d entered the engine’s cab. He could feel himself falling back into space, and flailed his arms in a frantic attempt to gain control of his balance. His feet and legs moved in a frenzied dance as his boots slipped on the coal dust covered steel floor. In a momentary insight of terror and odd resignation, Henry could see himself falling backward and head first onto the moving gravel rail bed behind him. At the last second, his right hand banged into the vertical brass hand bar at the cab’s rear, and he managed to grab it. That hold prevented his outward fall, but as he put his foot on the metal step below the cab entrance, his ankle turned and all his weight came down on twisted bones and flesh and tendons. He screamed in pain. The fireman had started to advance again, but Henry quickly cocked his pistol, pointed it to a spot between the black man’s wide open eyes, and from a half crouch hollered at the fireman to drop the shovel.

  The engineer swung out of his seat holding a long pipe wrench in a threatening manner. “Git off my train!” he hollered.

  “Shut up!” Henry yelled back at him, as he swung his cocked pistol toward the engineer. “Unless you want to get dead, you just get back in your seat and pull into that station like nothing’s wrong.”

  Henry grimaced from the intense pain shooting up his right leg. The engineer, a nasty-looking old codger, held his ground. Henry fired another round into the steel ceiling above the man’s head, and the bullet whanged twice in its ricochet. Henry hollered, “Next one’s going between your eyes, mister!” Reluctantly, the man lowered the wrench and slid back into his seat.

  Henry hopped back into the engine’s ca
b with moans and curses, holding his right leg up like a stork. Pointing his gun at the fireman, he yelled, “Git!”

  The fireman looked uncertainly back at Henry, and Henry waved the barrel of his gun toward the open back of the cab. “Jump,” he said to the fireman. “Get off the train!”

  Without much hesitation, the fireman complied.

  At the time Henry entered the locomotive’s cab, Happy Jack came out of the brush beside the track and ran alongside the rear passenger car of the train. He grabbed the vertical handrail, and jumped up onto the steps and rear platform of the car. There, he adjusted his hat and pulled his pistol from its holster before opening the door. Once inside the car, he reached down and pulled his eight-inch knife from inside his boot with his left hand.

  None of the five people in the last train car—a matronly woman, an adolescent girl, and three men—had noticed Happy Jack’s arrival.

  “What the hell is he doing?” one of the men near the front of the car said. He was looking out a window on the right at a cowboy running alongside the train.

  “Did you see that?” the lone woman sitting on the left side shouted. She pointed out her window where a large black man tumbled along the roadway and down its sloping embankment.

  “See what?” the man across the aisle from her asked. He stood slightly and looked where she looked.

  “Someone must’ve fallen off the train,” she said, bringing her fingertips to her lips.

  The rest of the passengers moved to her side of the car looking out the windows, still paying no attention to Happy Jack standing near the back door holding a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.

  Happy Jack cleared his throat to announce himself. The passengers turned to look at him then. “That’d be yer engineer, I’d say.” He cocked his pistol’s hammer back, keeping it pointed to the ceiling.

  “You might be interested to know you’re about to be robbed by the ’enry Starr Gang,” Happy Jack told the small group. “All you men keep your ’ands where I can see ‘em.

  “You there,” Jack said, pointing his pistol at the nearest man. “Take out your piece and slide it on the floor toward me.” The man did as told.

  “Now you other two do the same,” Jack instructed. One obeyed; the other held out his suit coat to reveal his waist. “I ain’t armed,” he said.

  “Everyone relax,” said Jack. “When we pull into the station, get off the train keepin’ your ’ands up.”

  One of the men at the back of the group, opened the door behind him and jumped from the train.

  “Oy!” Jack hollered. When he saw the man moving past him on the other side of the window, he fired his pistol at him, but he missed and the man leapt into the woods beside the tracks. Jack turned and went back out the door behind him. He stood on the rear platform of the car, firing his gun again and again into the woods where the man had disappeared.

  The train started to creak and groan and squeal as it slowed, pulling into the Pryor Creek Station. The four people remaining in the car, still with their hands in the air, watched Happy Jack standing with his back to them outside the door at the other end of the car shooting his gun into the woods over and over. They looked at one another and, as if a single animal, quickly turned and exited the front door of the passenger car, jumped to the ground, and ran toward the town.

  Happy Jack turned again to the inside of the car just in time to see one of the men helping the woman off the last step, and the both of them hightailing it with the girl and the other man ten yards ahead of them.

  “Oy!” he screamed. He leaned off the back platform of the train car and fired his pistol into the air, but none of the fleeing passengers slowed. “OY, DAMN YOU!” he yelled and pulled the trigger on his gun again, but it only clicked into the back of a spent cartridge. “’oly bleedin’ ’ell,” he said and started pulling bullets out of his belt and reloading the gun.

  Earlier, when he saw Happy Jack mount the rear platform of the last car, Link broke from his hiding place near the track, and ran up to the steps at the rear entrance to the first passenger car as it passed by. He reached out to grab the handrail, but it stayed just beyond his reach. He tried to run faster, but the loose gravel of the railroad bed slipped beneath his boots, hampering his pursuit. He ran on, desperately trying to catch up to the rear steps of the passenger car. For a while he stayed even with the train, but not close enough to grab the handrail; then the train began to inch away as he tired and fell back. He kept running as fast as he could; he ran on and on, but lost ground with each painful pound of his heart. And then, just as he was about to give up, the train began to slow. He had no kick left, but he staggered on, finally grabbing the handrail as it came back to him. He pulled himself up onto the car’s platform and slammed against the door. His chest heaved and he rapidly sucked in and exhaled ragged gulps of air. His right side stitched up into a painful knot almost doubling him over. Drawing his pistol, he crashed through the door. The seven people sitting in the car—three men, three women and a boy—jumped and turned toward him.

  “Don’t...,” Link started, but his laboring lungs wouldn’t allow him enough breath for another word. He held up his left hand in a gesture which said his audience should give him a second. After a few, he summoned the strength to continue, “...nobody... move!” he said with difficulty to the startled group. His legs began to quiver uncontrollably, and he plopped himself down onto one of the seats, still panting raggedly. “And hand... over... your valuables.” He pointed his gun in their general direction, but its barrel bounced around as his hand shook.

  One of the men started to reach inside his suit coat. Link pointed the pistol above the man’s head and pulled the trigger. The big Colt boomed and sent the bullet into the car’s ceiling above the passenger’s head. A woman screamed, the others cringed.

  “I said... don’t move,” Link reprimanded. The man returned his hands above his head. “Gimme your valuables, I said,” Link reminded them.

  The passengers looked back and forth at one another. Finally, the man who’d started to reach into his suit coat said, “Mister, can’t none of us give you nothing if we can’t move.”

  “Well... ”Link said. He had to think about that for a minute, while he continued to catch his breath. He put his forehead on the seat back in front of him, and pressed the gun barrel into the spot in his side that continued to stab him with pain.

  The train slowed and then lurched as it came to a halt at the station platform. “C’mon,” one of the men whispered to the others, and led the way hastily out the door and off the train.

  Link heard them exiting and raised his head. “Hey!” he said, but they ignored him. He started to raise his gun, but let his forearm fall onto the seatback when he saw it would do no good. “Well, crap,” he said to no one.

  The passengers from Link’s car were greeted with gunfire when they stepped onto the station’s platform, and saw a small huddled crowd already there. Frank, with Henry’s horse in tow, and Kid Wilson flanked the platform firing their pistols into the air repeatedly, keeping the herd of passengers and train greeters bunched together. Henry, his arm around the engineer’s shoulders using him for support, his pistol in the man’s ribs, half walked and half hopped back toward the platform. When he got to the front of the small crowd, he said to the engineer and the station master standing there, “Help me up onto this thing,” indicating a wheeled baggage cart. The two men helped Henry onto the cart as he yelped and groaned in discomfort. Once atop the cart, he stood to face the crowd.

  “Folks,” he addressed the group. He panted some and winced in his pain. “I’m Henry Starr, and these here men is my gang. Won’t nobody get hurt if you just peaceably hand over your valuables.”

  Link and Happy Jack started to move about the crowd holding out gunny sacks. The people obediently deposited their belongings into the sacks. Frank and The Kid, still on either side of the station platform, stayed mounted with their guns drawn. Watt, who’d been stationed on the far side o
f the train, came riding up and dismounted. He walked up onto the platform to assist in the crowd control.

  Henry, still standing unsteadily on one leg atop the flat baggage cart, spoke to his colleague. “Hey, Watt, I sprung my ankle. Flip that tongue up here so’s I can use it for support.” Henry, using his pistol as a pointer, indicated the cart’s tongue laying on the deck of the platform. Watt picked up the tongue and bent it on its hinge toward Henry’s waiting hand. Then he walked around to the other side of the cart and leaned against it.

  With his left hand on the handle of the cart tongue, his weight shifted to his left leg, and his pistol held up in his right hand, Henry spoke to the crowd again. “Now, folks, this ain’t...” he started to say, but he paused as he felt movement. The cart, nudged by Watt’s leaning, started to roll. It moved slowly at first, but picked up speed quickly heading for the edge of the platform.

  Henry tried to steer the rolling cart with the tongue, placing both his hands on its end. “Whoa, dammit!” he said to the unresponsive cart. Watt tried to grab the end of the cart as it moved away from him, but couldn’t maintain his grip. His boot toe stubbed against a warped board sticking up from the platform, and he stumbled headlong into a stack of canvas mail bags.

  Henry managed to turn the cart slightly left and into Link, who had his back to Henry while collecting valuables. He’d turned somewhat when he heard his boss holler. The cart collided with Link, running over his foot, then veered right again heading for the edge of the platform. It went nose first over the three foot drop sending Henry flying face first into the butt end of Kid Wilson’s horse, which whinnied with surprise and started bucking away from the scene with the Kid holding on tight and cursing at the animal.

  By this time the small crowd had broken into gales of laughter, still standing with their hands raised high, some bending at the waist in their mirth. Even Frank Cheney’s firing a couple more pistol rounds into the air didn’t seem to stop them. Happy Jack, still standing amongst the crowd, couldn’t contain his own amusement, and joined in the laughter.