The Branch and the Scaffold

by The Branch

  “I’ve never robbed a stagecoach. I wouldn’t know how to go about it.”

  He smiled in his beard. The man had a sense of humor, rare enough in his position and remarkable in his circumstances, which she knew to be unique in its challenges from high and low. “It needn’t succeed. The object is to provide noise and color, with blank cartridges and the usual theatrical claptrap on the order of Buffalo Bill’s extravaganza. Your”—he tasted the word—“notoriety will draw customers. If you’re concerned that I’m asking you to play the clown, I must tell you I’m placing my own dignity on the line as well. I’ve agreed to be a passenger, and Mr. Clayton has consented to accompany me, along with one or two other officers of the court.”

  Belle reflected later that she must have been singularly in possession of her poker face. Any light that appeared in those lifeless eyes at that news would surely have caused Parker to reconsider the invitation.

  She set her cup and saucer down on the desk with a thump. “I’ll do it. I never could resist a fair.”

  The exhibition was gay even by the standards of that jaded city, where until recently inebriated cowhands had ridden their string ponies up the steps of the Two Brothers Saloon and recalcitrant Comanches had terrorized visiting tenderheels with their scalping knives and a snootful of Old Pepper. Covered wagons clogged the streets, bearing all the comforts of home for those who had arrived too late to book rooms in the hotels, the girls in the Row worked double shifts, and vendors prowled the boardwalks, selling ice cream and cotton candy for prices that would have made the dollar-an-egg merchants of Creede and old San Francisco curse the lost opportunity. Patent-medicine showmen burst the hinges on their strongboxes with banknotes before they were sent on their way by city policemen, a Frenchman spent a night in jail for sorcery on the evidence of a demonstration of pictures that moved. A bicycle salesman from St. Louis made his case for the obsolecensce of the horse. Opium dens on First Street exhausted their inventory and substituted pipes filled with loco weed scraped from the soles of boots fresh from Texas. From his window on the ground floor of the old courthouse, Judge Parker looked out upon the barbarism of his age and recalled his wife’s early judgment: “Isaac, we’ve made a great mistake.” Then a string of firecrackers went off with a volley that reminded him of the tense days with the Union Home Guard, spooking a horse into spilling a cartful of some vendor’s baked potatoes, and he returned to his desk to review a case of rape, robbery, and murder on the Osage reservation. He burned a cigar over the explicit details. It was a wicked world.

  Belle had not lied about her inexperience; holding up stagecoaches was a distinct gap in her resumé. She researched the method with all the solemnity that poor Cole, rotting away cording jute in Minnesota, would have brought to the enterprise. Quietly and without ostentation, she polished a live cartridge on the velvet of her skirts and inserted it into a chamber of her borrowed Colt among the blank rounds charged with powder and harmless wadding, singing to herself softly: “Old Bill Clayton lies a-mould’ring in his grave . . .”

  On the day of the event, Belle, got up in a pulp-writer’s idea of female-bandit regalia—flowing skirts, frilly lace bodice, and a cocked hat with an imitation ostrich plume of dyed turkey tail feather—trotted up Garrison Avenue sidesaddle aboard a fine sorrel stallion, and reined in beside the requisite politicians’ platform draped in red-white-and-blue bunting with town dignitaries pressed against the railing in silk ties and sashes of office. She posed obligingly for a little German photographer, soon to be anointed with the responsibility of committing Ned Christie’s conquerors to the graphic record, then spotted a fresh opportunity for legend. Albert A. Powe, he of the Fort Smith Evening Call, an unpopular local reputation, and a celebrated whipping at the end of Belle’s riding whip, made the mistake of showing up, and was seized by citizens and borne, short chubby legs kicking, to within Belle’s reach. She uncorked her rare, compressed smile and lent an arm to help haul him up onto the cantle. She quirted the reins across the horse’s withers, and as it pounced forward, the little man threw his arms around her waist, gasping asthmatically as she galloped around the fairgrounds at a Sam Starr pace, depositing him at last in a whimpering heap in full sight of the spectators around the arena. “The pen,” wrote one journalistic rival, “may indeed be mightier than the sword; but it is no match for the Bandit Queen of the Indian Territory aboard a prime example of Arkansas horseflesh.” She did not fail to note that the jackals of the press tore into their own with the same relish they reserved for everyone who fell into their den.

  Her scholarly studies had informed her that few successful stagecoach robberies had taken place entirely from horseback; when the crisis came, the true highwayman relied far more strongly upon his own resources than those of an animal with a brain the size of a turnip and all the courage of a journalist. As the lacquered red Concord trundled out onto the grounds, she gave the crowd its money’s worth, whooping and hollering with the tame Indians from the Nations in their beads and feathers, then leaned back on the reins, leapt from the saddle with the force of the horse’s momentum, and bore down on the coach, snapping the hammer on the punk cartridges and keeping count before she came to the live round with Clayton’s name on it.

  Live cartridges had a will of their own, and found their way despite the best intentions. But she never had a chance to put that explanation to the test of an inquest. Clayton’s arrogant bewhiskered face failed to appear among the three passengers sharing the facing seats with Judge Parker. She held her fire one short of the fatal round.

  Clayton had bowed out at the last minute, claiming the burden of his caseload. She didn’t accept it. Parker’s was heavier, yet he had found time for digression in the interest of his community. There in the clamor of cheering and dust and the driver’s gees and haws, her gaze locked with Parker’s, as cold and blue as drift ice in the Arkansas in January; and she knew that she had underestimated the old buzzard. It was a defeat for him as well as for her, for she would not repeat the mistake.

  The Hotel Le Flore, relentlessly Parisian, cloaked its dining room in tatted curtains, framed rotogravures of the French capital, the Mona Lisa, and the gardens at Versailles, and featured thick slices of veal swimming in champagne sauce with hearts of artichoke looking like little vaginas floating in pools of red wine. The menu was engraved in French on paper as thick as a Creek blanket, with the prix fixe appearing only on the copy handed to the gentleman. Reed’s eyes went directly to the bottom, recorded the information with the crunch of an adding-machine lever inside his skull, and lifted his gaze without reaction to his client’s. “How do you prefer your oysters?”

  “With Blue Duck on the side.” Her eyes were like open graves. She wore widow’s weeds, black as fresh tar, with a veil pinned to her hat with bow-tie flourishes that looked like tiny suspended bats. He could not know that she was in mourning for her lost opportunity with Prosecutor Clayton. “What’s the news? I reckon it’s good, or we’d be eating greasy fish on paper down by the Arkansas.”

  “It’s good. Escargot good, with a burgundy chablis, if they have it and you don’t mind eating snails.”

  “I’ve eaten wolf’s liver, still warm with the wolf studying my throat. They’re a long time giving up the fight. Me, too. When do I get to take Blue Duck home?”

  “Let’s not get premature. There’s a deal of paperwork to make out, and two or three bureaus to put their stamp on it. Let’s just say for now you’ll be celebrating the anniversary of the birth of our Lord with your friend, in the place of your choice, with none looking on. I don’t expect Judge Parker to pray for my immortal soul come Christmas morning, but I gave up on his friendship when I came to Fort Smith.”

  “Does that mean you’ve got the pardon?”

  “It does, barring unforeseen delays. Um—”

  “Um,” she said. “I’ve picked up half a dozen tongues in the Nations, but I wouldn’t know how to translate ‘um’ for a one.” She made room for her carpetbag on the line
n-draped tabletop, hauled out bricks of currency, and arranged them in neat avenues between the candle and his bread plate. “Are we square?”

  He looked around quickly, meeting the gazes of neighboring diners, and scooped the banknotes into his leather briefcase.“I am always at your service,” he said. “You’re the only client with whom I’ve never had to bring up the delicate subject of compensation.”

  “Take care I don’t steal it back,” said Belle.

  FOURTEEN

  Mrs. Lucy Surratt ignored her neighbors every day of the year but one, when the bleak winter on the Canadian River got to her and she invited them into her husband’s home to commemorate the anniversary of the birth of Christ. On the Friday before the holiday, 1886, Belle Starr got tired of watching Sam drink and fret about his upcoming trial, threw him a clean shirt, and announced that they were going to the party.

  She needed the change. J. Warren Reed had underestimated the stalls in Blue Duck’s case, her daughter Pearl had told her she was about to become a grandmother out of wedlock, and son Ed was in jail in Fort Smith for peddling whiskey in the Nations. Belle blamed her absences from her children’s side for the way they’d turned out, despite whipping them with extra enthusiasm during visits to make up for the neglect. As a result, Pearl was terrified of her mother and Ed hated her.

  Sam Starr was a hostile drunk whose every brush with the law had followed a session with busthead. He was snarling when he and Belle drew rein before the Surratts’ past sundown, and once inside proceeded to find fault with the punch, the close climate on the dance floor, and the way the fiddler played. When a bottle made the rounds he emptied it and hurled it at the poor musician, striking him on the neck and ruining “Jack o’ Diamonds.”

  “Simmer down, Sam,” Belle said. “We need the music.”

  Sam responded by wheeling their hostess out on the floor and jostling the other dancers. One lunged toward him, but was restrained by a companion. Everyone knew Sam bit when he foamed.

  It was Frank West’s poor timing to come in from a smoke out back just about this time. The Cherokee Lighthorse policeman wasn’t wearing his uniform, but Sam recognized him from a previous encounter.

  “You’re the son of a bitch shot me and killed my horse that day in the cornfield.”

  West regarded him with oak-colored eyes. “That wasn’t me, Sam. It was Chief Vann and Marshal Robberson done that.”

  “You’re a liar.” Sam drew his Colt and shot West in the neck. It was Sam’s night for necks.

  Blood spouting from his jugular, the policeman pulled a short-barreled revolver from the pocket of his overcoat as he fell. The powder flare caught Sam’s shirt afire. The bullet shattered his heart. Male guests helped Belle load him into her carriage. The next day, a hired hand moved a cord of wood to dig a hole in the only unfrozen patch of earth at Younger’s Bend. Belle laid a bouquet of dried lady’s slippers on the mound.

  When the report of Sam Starr’s death reached Judge Parker, he told Stephen Wheeler to strike his name from the docket. The clerk noted the relief in his superior’s tone. He had seen often the traces of dust on the judge’s knees after he had prayed for the souls of the men he had sent to the scaffold.

  The cabin at Younger’s Bend yawned large and empty without Sam’s larger-than-life presence. Belle missed Blue Duck more than ever, but his case was still crawling through the logjam in Washington; Grover Cleveland had troubles of his own that season, with a hostile Congress and the worst winter on the plains in a hundred years driving the price of beef through the roof and threatening another panic. On an impulse, Belle wired her children to join her, the telegram to Ed reaching him in his cell where he was finishing out his sentence. She warned Pearl not to bring her bastard with her when she came. The lessons of the Carthage Academy for Young Ladies died hard. She could abide any sins except those against social decency.

  For a time after the passing of Sam Starr, a pall of peace settled upon the Indian Nations. Of all the chronic felons wanted perpetually in Fort Smith, Ned Christie now stood alone. Five years, and the health of several deputy U.S. marshals, would pass before he made his final stand. The wild West lurched a step closer to tame.

  Belle meanwhile settled into the quiet life of widow and mother. Those who knew her by sight paused as her apparently dutiful son helped her down from her carriage when she went to McAlester’s store for provisions and supplies; those who knew her by reputation only professed disbelief that this plain woman decked out in the pinnacle of Eastern fashion was America’s own Bandit Queen. They turned again to the Valkyries borne of the fistulous imaginations of self-styled journalists, who never disappointed.

  Blizzards laid claim to the prairie. Thousands of cattle froze in huddles, children lost their way, crouched, and turned crystalline scant yards from shelter. Meteorolists—a new term for readers of the Eastern sheets to wrap their lips around—cleared their throats at podiums and predicted a new Ice Age. Evangelists dusted off Revelations. Chicagoans brawled over tins of corn and peaches in markets, convinced that a cellarful of foodstuffs was all that stood between them and starvation when the snow drifted to the roof of the Mercantile Exchange. But on the Canadian, Belle Starr rocked on her front porch, drew her shawl about her shoulders, and warmed her vitals with coffee laced with brandy, obtained through the ladies’ entrance to the House of Lords in Fort Smith (the skullbender they sold in the Nations tore her up inside). At forty-one she considered herself retired from the adventurous life. It was a good bargain, given her history and the lies everyone told about her; Wild Bill had made only thirty-nine, Jesse thirty-five, and poor Cole had been buried alive since age thirty-two up in squarehead country. That little fat nance Albert A. Powe had let his mercenary instincts get the better of his fear long enough to approach her with a proposition to help her write her memoirs.

  She rocked and thought about that. It was a story worth telling, better than anything she’d heard about the pack of howlers that Judas Pat Garrett had published about Billy Bon-ney, who it seemed to her she could have set on the right path with a sound whipping the first time he’d strayed. There was war in the thing and betrayal, and Sam’s twenty-foot plunge horseback into the river; she hadn’t been with him on that occasion, never went out on raids except when he was unavailable to lead them, but Powe didn’t know that and neither would the readers until she told them, and she wasn’t about to let truth get in the way of the record. Those Missouri wildwood boys had taught her a thing or two about stretching yarn. She wondered if publishing paid better than highway work.

  Seasons changed while she was contemplating the literary life. The snows out west receded, leaving behind carcasses in heaps and scattered corpses, the spring rained hard and the summer ran hot and dry. Lawyer Reed wrote her a litany of Grover Cleveland’s travails that made her wonder if he wanted her to transfer her concerns from Blue Duck to the president. Another harsh winter hammered the continent all the way to New York City. Entrepreneurs in that wicked town charged elevated train passengers two dollars a head to conduct them down ladders from their stalled positions to the street. Belle shot a deer and had to quarter it to get it up the drifted hill from the river.

  Spring again, and she put in corn and potatoes and fattened a hog, whether to feed her grown children or to enter in Parker’s fair she wasn’t certain. She wondered if she’d have been free to slop and till if Clayton had been aboard that stagecoach. It would have made a dandy chapter, and an object lesson to cowardly counselors. She might write it regardless. Clayton had sure showed the white feather there.

  Her children made her feel old. She took up with Jim July, a nephew of Sam’s, and gave him harbor when the marshals and Cherokee Lighthorse sought him for horse rustling. He wasn’t as loyal as Sam, disappeared for days at a time while she suspected he was seeing other women, but she was realistic about her prospects and made no scene when he returned. When during one reunion she learned he’d fled a tumbleweed wagon and hid out overnight in a ditch, she to
ld him he ought to follow his uncle’s example and turn himself in; the jail in Fort Smith was no less comfortable than a ditch, and the meals were regular. “And Sam never spent a day,” she added.

  “That’s because he got shot.”

  “That didn’t have anything to do with the business.”

  “It just seems to me a powerful lot of men wind up shot around you.”

  “Well, I didn’t shoot them.”

  “Not seeing nobody else did comes to the same thing.”

  Belle had no answer for that that wouldn’t have started the row all over. It was her first indication that Jim resented her as much as her son Ed. Of all the people under her roof Pearl was the most trustworthy, and she’d betrayed her by running off and getting with child. Belle still caught her from time to time, staring out the window and mooning over the bastard girl she’d left with friends. This domestic existence had nearly as many snares as the bandit life. Such was the course of her thoughts as she curried her mare, Venus, clawing away fistfuls of dead hair and wishing all the dying things in the world were disposed of as easily, exposing the glossy fresh growth beneath.

  She heard skulking outside the barn and challenged the intruder to show himself, curling her fingers around the handle of a pitchfork leaning in a corner of the stall. When the man entered the doorframe she recognized Edgar Watson, a neighbor. He was good-looking, in a dissipated way, broad-shouldered and straight in the legs, but he had a wet mouth and bitter little eyes like buckshot, and was one of those men who trailed their pasts behind them like snails. She’d ridden with his kind, dishonest men twice over who broke common bonds with no more thought than they showed when they broke the law. It didn’t do to show them one’s back.