by J. Lee Butts
“You shouldn’t be here, Mr. Tilden.” She shook a scolding finger in my direction.
“Think he’ll die this time, Heddy?”
She came over, linked her arm in mine, and winked. “Oh, he’ll be all right. Dr. Matthews just left. He said this was just a small one. According to him, Carlton should be up and around in a few days.”
Thing I liked most about the beautiful Heddy was her seeming lack of fear of old people. You’d be amazed how many young folks these days seem to think old age is something you can get on you like a glob of horse manure stuck to your boot. They act as if accidentally touching someone past a certain age will cause an instant condition of no hair, wrinkled skin, and paunchy bellies—and that it will just get all over them faster’n ugly on a loggerhead turtle. It’s distressing as all kinds of hell. Sometimes think the thing I miss most about my youth is the fact that no one seems to want to touch me anymore unless it can’t be avoided. Course I don’t include Heddy in that bunch of idiots.
“What did you say to him when you whispered in his ear, my black-haired beauty?”
She blushed, batted long lashes at me, and rested her head against my shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to see that, Hayden.”
Liked it when she called me Hayden, and she knew it. “Well, I just don’t want ole Carlton beatin’ my time with the best-looking woman at Rolling Hills.”
Her fingers tightened around my arm. “I told him he had to get better so he can take me to our Thanksgiving dinner in three weeks.” When she looked back up at me, tears had formed in the corners of her eyes. “Thought maybe if he could hear me, it would give him something to look forward to.”
“Well, I have a message for him too. Think it’d be okay if I sneak over there and whisper a little something in his ear myself?”
“You go ahead, Hayden. I’ll stand in the hall and keep watch. Wouldn’t want Leona to catch us, would we?”
Shuffled over to my friend’s bed and just stood there and looked at him for a bit. Time had worn Carlton down the same way waves beat rocky beaches into sand. Then, all at once, it hit me like a Hereford cow dropped from the threshold of St. Peter’s gate. We’d come a long way together and—if he died—I couldn’t imagine the impact it’d have on me.
Placed my hand on his withered old arm and said, “Listen to me, you old coot. Those folks who make oatmeal and prune juice sent me in here to tell you they won’t stand for you going out on the scout right now. Hell, way I’ve got it figured, you’re single-handedly keeping Quaker Oats in business. Weren’t for that shriveled-up chunk of gut you call a colon, those folks would have to close up shop tomorrow. Not going to be any dying done around these parts just yet—you hear me? We’ve got too many things to do. Too many stories to tell. Franklin J. Lightfoot’s hooked big-time, and I don’t know for sure if I can keep him interested forever by myself. Need your ugly carcass around to spice things up a bit. You go and croak out on me and I’ll come back down here and beat hell out of you with this hand-carved cane your daughter gave me last Christmas. You get all of that, you stringy old bastard? One more jig, old man. You’ve got one more dance to do.”
I’m not sure he heard a word of it, but he moved his head and his eyes opened up for a second. I’ve seen dead folks do as much. Thought I even spotted a faint smile play across his purple parched lips. Course I could have been mistaken. Maybe it was just gas.
Around three in the morning, I sat in a chair in my room and stared out the window. The old fart had me worried and I couldn’t sleep. My door creaked open and the beautiful Miss McDonald stuck her head in.
“I knew you wouldn’t be asleep, Hayden. Wanted you to know he’s turned the corner again. By tomorrow morning he’ll probably be chasing the nurses up and down the halls like nothing ever happened.”
Didn’t want her to see the tears on my cheeks and tried not to let her hear the relief in my voice. “Awfully nice of you to think of me, Heddy, awfully nice of you.”
Then she tiptoed across my room, bent over, and kissed me on the cheek. “You have my word on it. He’s much better, and you can talk to him in the morning.”
Sure enough, right before breakfast I went down and peeked in on him. He spotted me at the door and motioned me in.
His voice cracked, but got stronger as he talked. “You know,” Carlton said, “had a dream about your wrinkled-up ugly ole ass last night. We were out in the Nations riding around looking for L. B. Ledoux. Remember that sorry son of a bitch? He’s the one what met some Texas feller out on the trail outside Pawhuska, shot him in the head six or eight times, stole his fancy handmade boots and horse. Threw the body in a creek. Wasn’t that just the way of it? All them stupid jugheads thought throwing the body in a creek or river covered up what they’d done. Anyway, you got mad at me about something, can’t remember what, and started ranting about how you wuz gonna kick my sorry behind if I died out there on the trail and you had to break up all that frozen ground to bury a stinking old fart like me. Made me madder’n hell.” When I grinned at him, he snapped, “Yes, it did, by God. Chased you all the way to Okmulgee and promised every step of the way to kick your skinny behind when you stopped running.”
Well, the fight was on and I snapped back, “Tell you what, old man. You get your bony, rusted-up, cadaverous self out of that bed and I’ll let you kick my behind right in front of Leona Wildbank’s office door and give you a week to draw a crowd. Hell, I’ll even buy ice cream for all the toothless drooling codgers you can keep awake long enough to witness such a debacle. Course I’ve never seen anybody kick anything while seated in a wheelchair. Should be a real enlightening experience.”
“Well, by God, they’s a first time for everythang. Just so’s I do plenty of damage when that golden moment arrives, gonna have Heddy fish out my best pair of boots. You know, them with the pointy toes capped in silver and the big star on front. Tattoo your antique backside real good with them clod-kickers.”
About then, Nurse Willett fluttered in and hustled me out. “You fellows get way too excited. Seems like I spend most of my waking efforts every other day trying to keep the two of you out of a fistfight.”
Carlton grinned, tried to slap his own leg first with one hand, then the other, finally gave up, and called behind us, “That’s right, Nurse Willett. Drag that troublemaking old fart outta here. Awful hard on a man in my kind of delicate condition to have to get off this here deathbed and beat hell out of a loud-mouthed old fool like Hayden Tilden.”
Convinced me. Couple more days and the nursing staff would have to hike their knickers up pretty tight again, because Carlton J. Cecil—the Terror of Rollings Hills Home for the Aged—had fought off the devil again and God help any part of a woman within arm’s reach of his wheelchair.
Next morning, Junior came back all fresh-faced, rested up, and ready to go. He’d bought himself a brand-new pad of yellow paper and had a fistful of freshly sharpened pencils. Hell, the boy reminded me of a kid who was loaded for bear on his first day at school. Figured I’d give him one to remember.
Things went pretty slow what with our wagon, dragging the cannon, and extra animals to take care of. Since every outlaw in the Nations probably already knew when and why we’d left Fort Smith, I figured a stop at McAlester’s Store couldn’t do any harm. Course you never knew back then what might pop up out in the wild places—and sure enough something did.
Handsome Harry, Lucius, and I leaned against the side of the tumbleweed wagon while Billy and Carlton rummaged around in the mercantile looking for anything they thought we might need on the trail.
Just as we lit us one of Harry’s panatelas, this reed-thin farmer whose rough pant legs came almost to his knees walked up with his hat in his hand and said, “Er, yew fellers lawmen from Fort Smith?” He shook so much, it got to be something of a question mark as to whether he might be able to keep from falling down.
Harry knocked the ash from his cigar against the front wheel of the tumbleweed and gazed at the glowing tip li
ke a man interrupted while conducting the most important business of his day. But he smiled when he looked up at the quaking plow-chaser and said, “That’s right, sir. Can we be of some service?”
“Well, done fount me a body in the creek not fer from my house, and was on my way to fetch any kind of law I could lay a hand to when Mr. McAlester tole me yew fellers was in town.”
“We don’t have time for this, Hayden,” Harry said.
Carlton threw a burlap bag of commodities into the space under the jockey box and yelped, “He’s right. Don’t need to get distracted now. Seems like every time we come out here, one of these sad cases shows up and gets us going in a different direction. Let the Choctaw lighthorse police take care of it.”
I moved away from the wagon and closer to the shaking dirt-kicker. “What’s your name, mister?”
“Be Willard Rump, formerly of Sequatchie County, Tennessee, Marshal. Come out here during the last few months of the war. Married me a Choctaw woman so’s I could farm and raise kids in peace. Done been athinkin’ to get myself away from all the shootin’ and killin’. Guess I needs be doin’ some more thinkin’. Never expected to be a-findin’ murdered-up bodies in my creek.”
“How far away do you live from here, Mr. Rump?” Harry asked. He’d perked up and gotten a lot more interested with the mention of murder.
“Jest a few miles west of Atoka. Got a place not fer from the Choctaw-Chickasaw line ’bout a hoot and a holler off the Clear Boggy. Mill Creek runs from north to south behind my house fer about a mile. Went out day afore yestiddy to check on a five-acre patch of mine north of the house. Heard shootin’ whilst the boy and me was restin’ a bit. Sent him home double quick. Skulked my way up the creek fer a piece ’fore I fount this here feller looked to be a cowboy a-layin’ in the water facedown. First off, I was so scared didn’t know exactly what to do. Watched him fer ’bout an hour to make sure no one wuz around, then pulled him up on the bank. That’s where I lef’ him ’fore I struck out huntin’ you lawdogs.”
“How could you tell he was cowboy?” Lucius asked the question like a man who needed convincing.
Rump didn’t back off any, though. “Only thangs left on him was his boots and hat. Ain’t seen no farmers round these parts wearin’ hand-tooled, high-heeled boots or Boss of the Plains sombreros. Looked to me like he had a fallin’-out with some of his compadres, and they done kilt him and went on their way a-takin’ most of his kit, clothes, and sech-like with ’em.”
Harry blew smoke over his shoulder and said, “Guess maybe we should take a look at this one, Hayden. If the dead man was Indian, I’d say pass on by and let the lighthorse take care of it. But this one is obviously ours. Carlton and Billy can strike out for the Canadian, and we can catch up at Big Cougar Bluff as soon as this all shakes out. Billy knows his way around about as well, or better than any of us, and he’ll know when to stop even if we haven’t shown up when expected.”
I didn’t care for the idea at all, but what could I do? Man standing right in front of me had just told what had to be a story of murder and robbery and was asking for our help. Way I had it figured, we had to go.
“Mind if I tag along on this one too?” Lucius had his right foot stepped up into the wagon’s back wheel and was spinning the fancy rowel on his Mexican spur.
“What do you think, Harry? Reckon we’ll be safe out here in the Nations in the company of a Texas Ranger?” Stretched the words Texas Ranger out so they sounded a bit like they might be something you wouldn’t want to find on the bottom of your boot.
Harry pulled his hat down tighter on his head and laughed. “Hell, if we’re not safe in the company of a man carrying as many pistols, rifles, and knives as Lucius By God Dodge, we wouldn’t be safe anywhere in the civilized world. Personally, I kinda like the idea of traveling with a real live one-man army.” Dodge grinned at the gibe, but Harry hadn’t finished. “Now, if he could only play the fiddle and sing us to sleep every night out here in the big cold and lonely, things would be just about Georgia-peachy-perfect.”
Well, that’s the way it all shook out. Carlton and Billy took the tumbleweed, cannon, their horses, and the mules and headed straight west. The rest of us followed Willard Rump to his farm out on Mill Creek. Seems to me like these days there’s a one-dog town named Clarita not far from the site where Rump spent a good part of his life raising kids and turnips.
Anyway, we pulled up there in the middle of the afternoon, but didn’t stop at his good-sized log house to socialize. Willard wasted no time, and led us to the body in pretty short order. He’d covered the dead man with some heavy stones to try and keep the animals away. By the time we finally got to the poor departed gentleman, his four-day-old corpse had turned pretty ripe.
Near as any of us could tell, the dead fellow looked to be about twenty years old and had at least four bullet holes in him. One hit under his heart; one punched a hole about a finger’s width above his left eye and was as big around as the end of my thumb; a third one fractured his right collarbone; and he sported a smaller, almost undetectable, wound in the lower right abdomen. None of ‘were as deep as the Palo Duro Canyon or as wide as the Red River, but taken altogether, they killed him deader’n Judas just the same.
Rump grunted, pointed back upstream, and said, “The blastin’ me and the boy heard come from back yonder. Maybe a mile or so up and, ’less’n my ears done fooled me, the killin’ got done on t’other side of the crick.”
Before we scratched a hole in the ground, buried the corpse, and covered it back up with Willard’s river rocks, Harry and I removed both the cowboy’s boots. Some of the foot, and a toe or two, came off with the right one—nasty business for Harry. Found the name Jeff Diggs stitched in bright red on the inside of the left one. We were all somewhat puzzled at why the boots hadn’t gone with the rest of his clothing and belongings. Lucius pointed out the obvious.
“Too conspicuous. Man spent a small fortune havin’ them things made. Most likely, everyone who knew him would recognize snake-stompers that cost as much as these. Give ‘another look. Should be something on one of ‘somewhere that identifies the boot maker. Be willing to bet whoever took this man’s life and other belongings knew him. He just might have even called them friends.”
Harry pulled his bowie, ripped each boot down the back, and spread them out like filleted fish. Embossed around the top of the right one, but barely visible because of the water damage, were the words Staples-Denton.
“Ever heard of a leather worker by that name, Lucius?” Harry handed the boot to the Ranger.
“Yep. That’s the mark of Bradford ‘Big Foot’ Staples from Denton, Texas. Made the pair I’m wearin’.” He pushed the top of his right boot down, and there it was plain as day, a perfect match for the stamp in the one we’d pulled off the foot of the very dead Mr. Diggs.
Didn’t take long after that for Harry to find where the killin’ took place. Bloodstains, scattered clothing, and a pile of personal belongings like tintypes and letters made it pretty easy. We collected everything we could lay a hand on and wrapped it all in the fallen man’s undamaged shirt. None of us could come up with a good reason to explain why he’d been stripped before getting shot. Even Lucius couldn’t do anything but shake his head on that one. By then the sun had begun to fade, so we made our way back to Rump’s house and set ourselves up to spend the night in his barn. Got us a fire going and cooked coffee. Laying in the hay and sipping on a hot cup of stump juice that could float a Colt’s pistol almost made a man feel cozy.
About an hour after we arrived, Rump’s wife and a daughter, who appeared about half-grown, brought out plates loaded with beans, corn, smoked meat, and hot bread. Those Choctaw ladies wore dresses decorated up with lots of brightly colored needlework. Vividly rendered belts and necklaces of detailed beadwork emphasized narrow waists and dark-eyed beauty. Harry and Lucius both got all fumble-fingered and stuttery in the presence of the stunning Eleanor Little Spot, eldest daughter of Willard Rump and Mary Bold
Woman. Her mother must have seen the sparks flying. She hustled the girl away as quickly as she could, but on the way out the door the dark-eyed beauty turned and flashed a brilliant smile at my two wifeless friends. Lucius Dodge looked like a man who’d been hit in the head with a galvanized water bucket.
I couldn’t let the opportunity for a little fun at his expense slip by. “Well, Harry, appears our heavily armed Texican compadre has a soft spot for black-haired, fiery-eyed females.”
“Don’t be making too much fun of him, Hayden. She’s a beauty. Even caught my eye.”
“Aw come on, Harry,” I shot back. “Eleanor Little Spot caught more than your eye. Thought for a minute you two fellers were gonna be over here in the horse stall gnawing on trace chains and snapping at each other.”
They grinned like schoolboys, and tried to put an end to it by devoting all their attention to abundant helpings of fried chicken and yellow squash.
Next morning, Mary Bold Woman brought us breakfast, but the girl didn’t put in an appearance. Both my friends were sorely disappointed.
Lucius sopped a biscuit around his plate and mumbled through grits, sorghum, and bacon. “Most likely got that steamy, dark-eyed gal chained to a wall. Don’t blame her mother for wanting to keep her away from me, though. Women and girls around the world just naturally find a good-looking Texas man such as myself downright irresistible.”
Harry got choked on his biscuit, and spat a laughing piece the size of a barn owl’s egg onto the ground, where a flock of wild, scraggly chickens cackled, fought, and pecked at it before a black rooster muscled his way to the front of the crowd, seized the prize, and strutted away with it over the heated and noisy objections of his flock.
When his coughing fit finally resolved itself, Harry growled, “Only two things uglier than hammered manure are armadillos and Texas men. Kind of amazing, isn’t it, Hayden, both of them come from the great Lone Star State.”
Lucius decided to take the funnin’ in stride. “Well, just where in the hell are you from, Mr. Handsome Harry Tate?”