"It's Cullen, Mike, and I'm in trouble."
"Come on in."
Caddo Mike was a short, square man of powerful build, no longer young. This was solid ground, a litde higher than most of it around here. Suddenly I realized this was one of the strange mounds that had been built here long before the oldest Indian could remember, and ages before the white man first came to the country.
Mike took my horse and dipped suddenly from sight. Following him I found him tying the horse to an underground stable concealed among the trees, and dug into the side of the
mound. The stable walls were of ancient stone, built ages ago. There were four other horses, all fine animals. It was cool there, and quite pleasant. Caddo Mike had opened a skylight on a slope of the hill which he had covered with canvas. It allowed a litde light.
"White men dig for gold," Mike explained, "long time ago, in the time of my grandfather. No gold. The Old People had no gold. Just bones here."
Caddo Mike's face was seamed and brown. I felt as if I had known him forever. When I was a boy, the first month we had been here from Tennessee we had found Caddo Mike staggering and delirious with fever on the edge of the swamp. We had taken him home, and dosed with quinine, he had survived to become our good friend.
One night he was in bed, and in the morning he was gone, but a few days later we found a haunch of venison hung from the porch, and on another morning, two fine wild turkeys. It had been Mike who taught me most of what I knew about the swamps where he had lived all his life. He was now, I guess, at least sixty. But he was strong and able to travel for miles on foot or horseback.
Mike made black coffee that was more than half chicory and laced it with rum.
Then he brought out some corn pone, brown beans and venison.
In this remote corner Mike cultivated a field of corn, and a good-sized vegetable garden. He rarely went into any of the towns, and almost never to the same one twice in succession. White men as a rule he did not trust, and he avoided their questions or any contact with them other than involved in his few business transactions.
Over the food I explained to Mike all that had happened, and ended by telling him, "Mike, I need to know what happened back there. And I must get a message to Katy Thorne."
When Mike had ridden away I stretched out on the bed with a pistol at my side, and trusting to the dogs who were wary of strangers, I slept.
In the late afternoon I awakened suddenly, and for a moment, as always when I awaken, I lay still, listening. There was no sound, so swinging my feet to the floor I padded across to the window and peered out into a sun- bright world.
Going out back I dipped a bucket in the tank and sloshed water over myself. The water was cold and it felt good. Four more buckets and I began to feel human and alive,
so I dried off in the sun and then went back in and dressed.
First off I checked my guns. There had been a pistol on the horse and Mike had offered me another which I accepted. The rifle was my own Spencer, although how Jane Watson came by it I don't know and can't guess unless John Tower got it somehow.
It was a hot, still afternoon. There were a few scattered clouds.
Locating the feed bin I fed Mike's chickens, and then the horses. Somewhere out on the bayou a loon called, a lonesome sound. Returning to the cabin I sliced a chunk from a ham and fried up some ham and eggs, and made coffee.
The sun was low by the time I finished eating and I was growing resdess. Mike was not about to be back so soon, so I rummaged around for something to read. Right now I might as well admit I'm not much of a reader. I make out to read most things, given time, but I've got to have time and quiet.
Caddo Mike, whom I never figured to read at all, had a sight of old magazines and books around, most of them mighty old. There was a magazine there, a copy of Atlantic Monthly for August, 1866, and I started
reading a piece in it called "A Year in Montana."
Reading that article, I'd nearly finished when I dozed off and awakened to find myself scared ... I'd no business sleeping so sound or so much. And me with the light burning. Putting out the light I stood in the door until my eyes were right and then stepped out. One of the dogs came up and stood near me, and I spoke to him, mighty soft. His tail thumped my leg, and I walked down off the stoop.
The night was too quiet to suit me, edgy the way I was, and I walked out away from the cabin and turned to look back. A man could have stood where I was, within sixty feet of the house, day or night, and never known it was there.
Near Caddo Mike's the bayou described one of those loops so common among bayous, and even in the main stream of the Sulphur, which was well north of here. The bayou took a loop and then doubled back until it almost met itself, and at this point it was shallow and almost choked with hyacinth and old logs. The road at this point followed the outside of the loop, going up one side around the end and down the other side. Nervous as a bobcat about to have kittens, I crossed one arm of the bayou and started across toward the trail on the other side. Yet I'd gone not thirty feet when I heard riders.
Stopping dead still, I heard a voice grumbling, then another ordering silence. That grumbling voice was the Barlow man whom Katy had nursed, and this must be the Barlow crowd!
Listening, straining my ears to hear, I then heard someone ask a question of someone called Sam . . . and it figured to be Barlow himself.
They had drawn up, stopping on the road that cut me off from a return to Caddo Mike's. Did they know of him and his place? Had they caught Mike, and were they now searching for me?
No! Mike would die before he would talk, and there was no connection between us that anyone could figure out.
Nevertheless, I started on, moving across the narrow neck toward the other side. When I was on the inside bank of the bayou and hunting a place to cross its fifteen yards of water, at this point a fairly deep pool and clear of growth I heard another party of riders.
Squatting on my heels, I waited.
This party was walking their horses and from the jingle of accoutrements could only be a party of soldiers.
The neck of land I had crossed was barely a hundred yards from bayou to bayou, but it was all of a half mile around the loop by following the road. The idea came to me suddenly.
Calling out in a low but clear voice, just loud enough for them to hear me, I said, "You fellers huntin' Cullen Bakuh, you better cut an' run! He's a-comin' raht down the road toward you all, an' he's sure set for trouble!"
"Who's there?" The voice had a sharp, military ring that I hoped couldn't be heard on the Barlow side. "Come out and show yourself!"
By that time I was moving back toward the other side. I wanted to get to Caddo Mike's and a horse just as fast as I could make it. If all went the way I hoped, all hell was going to break loose any time within the next fifteen minutes or less.
Barlow's boys had moved on when I reached the far side, but I was only in the middle of a log, crossing the bayou, when I heard a voice ring out, "Hey, there! Who's
that?" And a moment later a ringing command, "Fire!"
There had been at least a dozen men in the Army command, and probably twice that many.
The blast of gunfire smashed into the night's stillness like a breaking of a gigantic tree limb, and like it was followed by a deafening silence.
The silence lasted a moment only, then there was a ratde of gunfire, a quick exchange of shots, shots, yells and then more silence.
On the edge of the bayou I started to cross the road, then heard a rush of horses' hoofs and a man riding. He pulled up, listening for sounds of pursuit. And then I heard someone running. He fell, scrambled up and came on, his breath coming in great gasps.
The man on the horse started, then stopped and walked his horse slowly back up the road.
"Bravo?" By the gasping breath it was the running man.
"Sam, anybody else make it?"
"Ed, I think Ed did. He dove into the swamp."
"The rest all gone?"
Carefully, I eased myself across the road, then waited a bit. Sam Barlow was a man could stand some talking to, but shooting right now would bring the Army down on us, and I'd no wish to be captured again . . . I'd come too close to stretching my neck as it was.
"Somebody set us up like pigeons," Barlow was saying.
"Thorne, he figures he don't need us no longer."
"No, not Thorne," Barlow replied, but he didn't sound very convinced.
"Let's get out of here," Bravo suggested. "Come daylight they'll shake this patch down like they was huntin' coons. We better be far off come daylight."
There was no sign of Mike at the cabin. Packing up some grub, I slipped away from the cabin and hid in the brush near the hidden stable. From where I lay I could observe the cabin and the road approaching it. The way I saw it I needed to talk to Mike before I moved, I needed to know whatever he'd found out about the others. There was no possibility of going home now, and somehow I wasn't sorry. Both Lacy and Katy had been right all along, for they'd give me no chance here. Out West, well I could find a place for myself and make my own way, maybe in the mines or the cattie business. Maybe I could, with Katy's help, even learn to read and write better and make something of myself.
With Katy's help? I blushed there in the darkness. Who was I to think a girl like that would go on the dodge with me? The more I thought of it the more I figured she did indeed like me. But maybe I was wrong, and I'd no right to ask her, anyway.
To go West I had to go through the country I'd just come out of, or skirt around it, which was mighty near as bad, so whatever , Mike could tell me would help. But most of all, I had to know those who helped me got clear; it just wasn't in me to go scot-free and leave a friend in the lurch.
Suddenly two riders came down the trail and drew up nearby, far enough away to hear them talking. "Why waste our time? No matter what the sergeant says, they're gone. That wasn't Cullen Baker, anyway, that was the Barlow crowd. You think I don't know that bunch? I used to run in the Thickets my ownself."
There was a mutter of voices I could hear, and then the first man spoke out again. "Six
Barlow men dead and nine wounded or captured. It was a good haul."
"Who d'you suppose that was who yelled at us?"
The first soldier chuckled. "Who d'you suppose?"
When daylight came again I went into the stable to saddle up, but before I could get the saddle on the horse, I heard the dogs barking and knew from the sound they were welcoming someone they knew.
It was Caddo Mike. And he was alone.
Chapter VII
Rifle cradled in the hollow of my arm, I stepped from among the trees.
"You got to git from here."
"Did you see Miss Katy?"
"You know Willow Bluff? West of the old ferry in Bowie County? She gonna meet you there."
Few people lived in that remote pine- covered area across the Sulphur, and there was a chance to reach the place unobserved. And it was on the way out of the country where I was known.
"She shouldn't be riding there alone."
"I don't figure she gonna be alone." Caddo Mike did not enlarge upon the statement, but went on, "They huntin' you. The sodgers huntin' you, the sodgers huntin' Sam Barlow, Sam Barlow huntin' you."
"What about Bob Lee?"
"He had a runnin' fight with sodgers. Joe
Tinney, he dead. Buck ride back to pick him up, he dead."
It would be like Buck to ride back for his brother. It was the end for them all. The feeling was on me that I would never reach Willow Bluff, nor see Katy again. Their luck had played out.
The urge was on me to ride into Jefferson and kill Chance Thorne. Deeply, bitterly, I felt he was the cause of all that had happened, and that until he died there could be no peace for me, no matter where I went or what I did. Had it not been for his hatred of me Bob Lee and Bickerstaff might now be at peace with the Union Leaguers.
No, that was untrue. They were men who would fight and alone if need be, for whatever they believed. They were men who got their backs up at tyranny.
"You ride careful, ride skeery," Mike advised. "They bad people."
Mike insisted I take his dapple-gray mare, and she was a good horse, a better horse than Jane Watson had found for me. Still, I was wishing I had that ornery buckskin mule of mine. He could eat a handful of grass, drink a cupful of water, and he was already to go again.
Stepping into the saddle I looked down at
Mike, reluctant to leave. "S'long, Mike," I said, and walked the horse away, not looking back.
From this point every step was a danger, every mile an added risk. Right then I was sure I was going to be killed, it was a feeling I had not had before, and one that I could not shake. I should never have returned after the war, but to abandon the land would take all the meaning from the years of labor Pa and Ma had put in. Come to think of it, Pa himself had moved on a couple of times, and in such a case, he would move, too.
The mare was a good one with an urge to travel. She stepped out with her ears pricked forward like she knew she was going into new country, like she wanted to see what was beyond the hill and around the bend. This was a traveling mare.
So north we rode, away from Jefferson, away from Caddo Lake. I was in Louisiana with the Arkansas line somewhere to the north and the Texas line just to the west, only a few miles away. When I crossed into Texas I would be in Cass County, which was my home county, but I had just to hope that I'd see nobody who knew me. After crossing Baker Creek, I turned west.
Avoiding roads I kept to old trails the
Caddos used and that Cherokee hunting parties had used when they came down from the Nation. When I forded the river and rode up to Mush Island I took it almighty cautious to see before I was seen.
A broken branch with green leaves lay across the path ahead of me, so I walked the mare along until I saw the three stones beside the trail. The triangle they formed pointed into the woods.
They were signs our outfit used, but they might also be a trap, so I reined the mare over and hooted like an owl, waited, then hooted again.
After a minute or so a frog sounded back in the woods, and only Matt Kirby could do it so natural-like.
So I sat my horse and kept my eyes open for trouble, and waited for him to come up to me, but when he came he had a stranger with him. "It's all right," Kirby said, "This here's a cousin to Buck and Joe. I know him."
The stranger was as large as either Kirby or me, and he was almost in rags.
Mike had said Katy was bringing some clothes to their meeting at Willow Bluff so I dug into my saddlebags. "You could use a shirt," I said, and hauled out my old checkered shirt and a pair of homespun jeans made by a Mormon woman near Cove Fort. They were none too good but better than what the fellow had on. "You take these," I said. "I've had my wear out of them."
"Thanks." The big fellow was mighty embarrassed. "I'm beholden. We uns are fresh out of cash money up on the Red. Man gits mahty litde for his crops nowadays."
"What are you down this way for?"
He looked up, honest surprise on his face. "Why, they kilt my cousins. Somebody kills our'n, we kill them. That's the way it is up on the Red."
"You go home," I told him, "you just go back up there. You'll catch nothing but trouble down here."
"I got to do it," he said soberly. "Pa says so an' I got a feelin' he's raht. Them Tinney boys. I growed up with Buck an' Joe. Can't hear of them bein' laid away without the men who kilt 'em laid away, too."
"You go home," I insisted.
Bob Lee came up through the woods, Longley a length behind, and both of them grinned when they saw me. "Figured you for swamp bait," Bob said, "figured they'd tacked up your hide."
"Take some doing," I said.
"Bickerstaff went to Johnson County."
We squatted on our heels and talked commonplaces while Kirby and his new partner rusded wood and started some coffee. Bob Lee lo
oked tired and even Longley, the youngest of the lot except for this new man, looked beat. Bob Lee, he looked around us. "I never liked this place; makes a man spooky."
"You going to Mexico?"
"Uh-huh. I figure to ranch down there." Bob Lee took the broken stub of a cigar from his pocket. "Down in Chihuahua I have friends. I'll send for the wife later."
"I'm riding West."
It was on us now, the feeling that we were leaving was riding us, and a man could feel the uneasiness among us. All of us had been riding elbow to elbow with death for months, and yet now that we had a chance to get out we were more scared than ever.
I never figured it was a cowardly thing to be scared. It's to be scared and still to face up to what scares you that matters. A man in our way of life faces guns many times, and he knows a gun can kill, but now we had our chance to get out and away and we were ready. No sense in prolonging it. Taking the coffee Matt offered me I drank a mouthful.
"I'm pulling out," I said. "I'm getting shut of this place."
Lee glanced up at me as I straightened up. Longley got up, too. Matt poked at the fire, and the youngster sat there and looked at us like he couldn't understand. All of us knew that we weren't about to see each other again, and we had shared troubles.
"Wait a spell," Lee told me, "and I'll ride as far as Fannin County with you."
My clothes itched me and I felt cold and lonely. A little wind came through the trees and I shivered. The feeling was on me that there was death in this place and it was my death that was coming. "Bob, I wouldn't go to Fannin County if I were you."
"I've got to see the wife."
"Don't go! Write to her. You light out for Mexico and don't stop until you've got Laredo behind you. I'm telling you, Bob, we should all get shut of Texas. You ride out, Bob, and you keep going. You're a good man, one of the best I ever knew, and there's no sense you spilling blood of yours for a cause that wasted itself away. You keep riding."
"Never saw you jumpy before."
Turning around I looked at that long, tall, handsome Bill Longley. "You hang up your
guns, Bill. They'll get you killed, believe
me.
"A man has to die," he said.
the First Fast Draw (1959) Page 13