by J. Lee Butts
Harry picked at a piece of errant bacon caught in his teeth and over his finger got out a muffled “Boston.”
Lucius took that one and ran with it like a scalded cat. “Bah-ston? Bah-ston? Where the hell’s Bah-ston?”
“City of culture and refinement back East in the great state of Massachusetts. Not surprised a Texican brush-popper like you wouldn’t recognize the name.” Harry winked at me and finished off his last bite of bacon and biscuit.
The lanky Texas Ranger threw the remnants from his plate to the scrappy chickens and began strapping on his arsenal. “Oh, I’ve heard of Boston. Known a whole slew of you beaners. Evidently, the state doesn’t have much hold on its citizens, though. Seems to me like damn near half of them live in Texas—and they’re all bootleggers, thieves, or murderers. You must have come from a more refined section of town than the folks I’m accustomed to dealing with, Mr. Tate.”
He grinned, whacked at the holsters of his pistols to get them in just the right spot on his hips, slapped on his hat, and said, “Marshal Tilden, Marshal Boston Beans, let’s throw the coffee on the fire and put that big yellow hound on the trail. They’s murderers to be caught and they’ve got four days on us.”
We thanked Willard Rump profusely for his hospitality and said our good-byes. As we thundered away, heard Harry ask Lucius if he’d made a map that could get him back to the farm and Eleanor Little Spot. Lucius confidently replied he could easily find that beautiful girl again, even if her father’s house was on the bottom of the biggest lake in the Nations.
We headed for the spot where Jeff Diggs saw his last few seconds of life. Hadn’t been there but about five minutes when Harry and Lucius found the trail. They made a good pair in the brush. Felt safe with those men on either side of me. Hell, I just knew when things started to get rougher’n a petrified corncob, I couldn’t have been in the company of better men. Good thing those feelings gave some comfort, because the corncob—armed to the teeth and ready for a fight—waited for us a few days up the trail.
5
“LUCKY’S ALWAYS BETTER’N BEIN’ GOOD.”
CAESAR TOOK THE scent of those murderous bastards with his nose to the ground, his tail in the air, and running for all he was worth like he always did. We’d only been following the dog for a matter of hours when Lucius said, “No point pushing our animals so hard for this bunch. They’re not in any hurry. Appear to be meandering along like nothing happened. Near as I can make out, there’s four of ’em. That sound right to you, Harry?”
We’d stopped for a minute, and Harry scratched around in the dirt as he examined each print to make sure he’d recognize all of them, even if crossed by someone else’s tracks further along.
“Best I can tell, you hit the nail right on the head, Lucius. But I’d be willing to bet my next month’s wages they aren’t in any hurry ’cause someone’s awaiting their arrival a bit further up. That’s the only reason I can think of would keep them from scorching everything within shouting distance to get away from the killing.”
It all sounded reasonable to me at the time. Figured both men for better trackers than I would probably ever be, and no doubt existed in my mind that Harry Tate could outguess the vicious sons of bitches no matter what they did to try and throw us off the scent. But Lucius was right. The killers took their time and left a trail a hymn-singing near-blind Ohio spinster could have followed.
We caught up with them east of Chickasha out on the Washita about a week later. Unfortunately, by then, we’d got kind of sloppy in our tracking and stumbled right into their camp. Harry had the lead, and I still don’t know to this day whether he went to sleep or just missed some sign that would’ve kept us from ending up in a situation none of us would have wished on anybody. Whatever the reason, we made a simple mistake—simple and deadly.
The way it happened is still a bit muddy in my brain. I remember Gunpowder and me brought up the rear right behind Lucius. All of a sudden he stopped and, before I knew what had happened, we were facing at least eight men milling around a campfire right in the middle of the trail. Lucius pulled up on Harry’s left. I went to the right. We moved as far away from each other as the cramped tree-lined pathway allowed, but that still left us much too close to each other for my taste. Made awful good targets all bunched up like that.
The appearance of three heavily armed men wearing badges had a sobering effect on that gathering of Satan’s students. Tin plates clattered to the ground, coffee got pitched into the bushes, cups rattled off rocks, and things tensed up real fast. Pretty soon, quiet dropped over the whole shindig like a wet blanket saturated in the aroma of bad coffee, sweat, and horse manure. For a second or so I thought for sure I could hear earthworms breathing. Fingers twitched over pistol butts, and everyone got to blinking like a hot wind from hell was swirling around all of us.
Harry kind of turned toward me. I could see the worry in his eyes, but he didn’t waste any time with the killers when he zeroed back in less than a second later and said, “About a week ago we buried a cowboy named Diggs over near Willard Rump’s place on Mill Creek in the Choctaw Nation. Some of you men killed him.”
A feller with a hooked nose and dank stringy hair squatted by their fire, and didn’t sound a bit perturbed when he spat tobacco juice into the smoldering coals and said, “Well, now, is that a fact?” He took his hat off and wiped the brim out with a dirty blue-and-white bandanna snatched from his hip pocket.
Lucius urged Hateful up about half a step ahead of Harry, and propped his left arm on the pommel of his saddle. He leaned over slightly to cover the fact that his right hand slid to the grips of the cross-draw gun resting against his belly. Harry already had himself cinched up for the fight, and since I usually rode with the Winchester across my saddle, it wasn’t much of a trick to bring it to the ready.
The lawdog from Texas jumped right into the middle of the hooked-nosed man with, “That’s a fact, Brutus. And here’s another one for you back-shootin’ sons of bitches. We’ll take all those willing to Fort Smith after you’ve buried the ones that don’t want to go.” His outburst just about snapped everyone’s garters. Didn’t know at the time why he popped off like that, but it was done, and he couldn’t call it back. Besides, he’d just managed to say it before Harry or me could.
One he called Brutus looked surprised, and gave the Ranger a long careful eyeballing, then spat in the fire again. “Ah, we’re in the company of the famous Texas lawman Lucius Dodge, boys. You’re a long way from home aren’t you, Lucius? Folks round Fort Worth will probably get to missin’ you if you don’t get back home soon.” The man’s voice rasped through his words like a crosscut saw.
Our Ranger friend didn’t even blink. “Hayden, I want you and Handsome Harry to meet the one and only Brutus Sneed. So many people in Texas have posters out on this ugly son of a bitch, you could wallpaper every day parlor in Fort Worth with his ugly face. If he ain’t raped it, killed it, or set it on fire, God’s a possum, preaches services in the Alamo every Sunday, and Saint Peter leads the hymn singing.”
Sneed brought himself painfully to a standing position in much the same way you’d expect of a man whose spine was kinked up because age, rheumatism, and gunshot wounds had turned it into something like a rusted chain attached to a boat anchor.
He motioned to the men standing on either side of him. “Looks to me like you and your friends are slightly outnumbered here, Dodge. Why don’t you do-rights back off, and we’ll pack up and go on our way.” I could tell he didn’t like the proximity of all the guns sitting on the horses less than twenty feet from him.
“Sorry, Mr. Sneed,” I added, “but Texas Ranger By God Lucius Dodge is right. Someone’s gonna either swing in Fort Smith or die right here for what happened to Jeff Diggs. One way or another, some of you men are gonna pay for what you did. Might not have been any law there when you killed him, but it’s here now—and we’re it.” By the time I got to the end of that speech, my voice had dropped to the colder-than-Montana-in-Janua
ry stage.
Guess Lucius had talked all he wanted and listened to all he cared to hear. Both his hands filled with fire-belching pistols and, in half the time it’d take to blow out a candle, he’d dropped at least two of those yellow bellies. Bullets whizzed all around me, but none of those poor boys were a match for the three of us. Way I’ve got it figured today, if you’d have been able to take all the gunfighting skills of every man in the bunch and lump ‘up together in one man, he wouldn’t have stood a chance against any of our party. Especially Handsome Harry Tate. But hell, don’t ever let anyone tell you different, being lucky’s always better’n being good. The truth of it all is when it comes right down to the nut-cutting, the least little thing can render all the experience and talent you have to the not-worth-spit level. And be goddamned, that morning when the best man there had his luck run out so fast, it was like watching lightning hit a hundred-foot-tall oak on a hill.
For a about a minute I couldn’t talk anymore. Franklin J. Lightfoot, Jr., stared off into the space above the ceiling fan, and then started tapping his pencil against the top of the yellow notepad.
“You okay, Hayden?” He leaned over and patted the side of my left thigh. Shook my leg like he wanted to wake me up or something.
Had my elbows on my knees and my head propped in my hands. Couldn’t believe after all those years the memory of that dreadful, deadly day still had the power to affect me the way it did.
“Them low-life scum-sucking bastards killed Handsome Harry, Junior.” My revelation came from between fingers, like I was trying to hide the horror of it from him and the words just managed to escape.
“What? What did you just say?” Don’t know who was more astonished—him or me.
When I looked up, I could see the shock in his eyes. Guess the tears on my cheeks surprised him. Hell, they surprised me. Always did. “They killed Harry. Those sorry bastards Lucius didn’t knock down in the first volley, and who managed to get a gun up, must have all fired at ole Handsome at the same time. That monster Sneed led it all. Never understood how it happened, but I think it was because Harry was in the middle and easiest to get a bead on. Kinda like me and Thunder at Drinkwater’s Store.”
Junior slumped back in his chair and rubbed his brow with the tips of his fingers. “Sweet Jesus.” He sounded like a man who’d just lost a good friend.
“Exactly the way I felt at the time, Junior. They peppered him pretty good. Just like Jeff Diggs. His falling horse brought Gunpowder and me down at the same time. Over the years I’ve come to believe if man and horse hadn’t pushed us aside when they tumbled, Sneed’s bunch would’ve killed me too.”
Silence dropped between us the way night sounds vanish when something dangerous prowls around in the dark. I’d known from the very beginning of our little talks there would be a lot of pain bubbling up to the surface if we went on long enough. Hell, Harry Tate was the leading edge of an iceberg made from a lifetime of grief.
“You already know by then I’d killed my share of men, Junior. Rubbed out some because I had to. Others got snuffed because they deserved it. And even shot hell out of my share because Judge Parker secretly wanted them dead. When Gunpowder and I got bumped, it caused me to miss at least two shots, maybe three. Didn’t matter a whole lot. Ole Lucius must have fired every round he had from those pistols hanging on that wiry mustang of his. But you know, that hooknosed son of a bitch vanished like fog burned off by the morning sun.”
“Damnation, Hayden. You mean to tell me Brutus Sneed got away?”
“Don’t know how, Junior, but he did it and took one of his sorry trail mates with him. After Harry went down, Lucius rushed the rest of those ole boys and blew craters in anything what moved. If you’ve never seen a skilled Indian fighter practice his trade, you’ve missed something close to a work of living art. Those Texas boys had been killing Comanches for so long, they tended to take the fight right to anybody who came at them in a group the way Sneed and his bunch did.”
I had to stop for a minute and get my breath back. “What’s that old saying, Junior? Something like, life’s hard and then you die? Well, dying can be hard too. Mostly for those who have to watch it happen, then get left behind, I think. Harry had a tough time of it—quick, but tougher than swallowing thumbtacks. He saw death coming and faced it a lot better than most.”
“Well, hell. They didn’t kill him outright?”
“No. I crawled over to where he fell and dragged him to the base of a gnarled-up oak tree. He had a nasty wound in his right cheek just under the eye. A lot of bone and stuff got pushed into his skull. At least two more perforated his vest on the left side, and the holes drilled through the garment still smoked. Don’t know how he held on to the gun in his right hand. The way his wrist was shattered, he never would have drawn a pistol with any kind of authority again.”
Lightfoot’s amazement deepened. “He managed to live for a bit? God Almighty, that’s just incredible.”
“Yep, but ole Harry’s being able to survive getting shot to hell didn’t even come close to the oddest thing that happened right then.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I rested his head in my lap and had my right hand over the holes in his chest trying to stop the sucking and frothing from the wound. He didn’t appear conscious. His face twisted up from the pain and his breathing came in ragged bloody gasps. He coughed one time, and a couple of his teeth landed in a gory wad on his chest. And then, Old Bear kind of appeared right at Harry’s feet. I never did get used to the way he could show up like smoke that took living form. Some people in the past have said I’ve exaggerated his ability to go invisible and then reappear like he did, but—with God as my witness—he could do it.”
My old would-be Indian friend dropped to one knee, placed his hand on my shoulder, and said, “Let me see his wounds, Tilden.”
We moved Harry into a semi-sitting position against the tree, but I felt pretty certain he didn’t have a chance in hell of making it. Then again, anything was possible, especially when you had a man who could make himself invisible trying to keep you alive.
Old Bear gave Harry a quick going-over, reached into the fringed and beaded pouch that always hung against his hip, and pulled out a piece of what looked like pond reed about four inches long. Then he whipped out that big bowie and cut a hole in Harry’s throat so fast I almost passed out watching it. Blood spurted all over the front of our wounded friend’s shirt as the old man shoved the reed into the hole, then quickly punched some wads of cloth into the chest wounds. Harry seemed to kind of inflate like a kid’s carnival balloon. His eyes popped open and he started trying to talk, but nothing came out for several seconds. Finally, he made this tiny motion with a finger of his left hand for me to lean closer.
Bent over as near as I could, and barely heard what he whispered in my ear. “Hayden.” Bloody foam bubbled from his lips.
“You shouldn’t talk, Harry.”
Old Bear tugged at my sleeve. “Let him say his piece.” He turned away and said under his breath, “He won’t have another chance.”
Harry’s liquid words came slowly, between ragged gasps for air. “Hayden . . . letter . . . inside pocket . . . write my father . . . tell . . . how . . . I died. Tell him . . . sorry . . . he’ll understand. Good friend . . . pistols . . . you take them . . . saddle and traps . . . for Billy Bird . . . horse for Old Bear . . . you’ll see to it . . . won’t you?”
I pulled the bloodstained envelope from his breast pocket and said, “I’ll take care of everything, Harry.” Not since the murders of my family had anyone’s death affected me so profoundly. It reminded me of Travis Teel’s killing out on the Muddy Boggy and the way Harry and Billy wept for the man when they buried him. I hadn’t known Travis that well, but memories of the way they mourned the loss of their good friend suddenly swept over me in a wave of emotion like I’d never experienced.
Harry had helped me save Elizabeth from Saginaw Bob, and almost died when Tollman Pike shot him out
of the saddle on the trail to Dallas. We’d fought side by side in gun battles from the Nations to the wilds of North Texas and even Dodge City. We froze in the winter, burnt up in the summer, and did it all together. I loved the man, and now his life drained into the mossy bed below him, and I couldn’t do a goddamn thing to stop it. Let me tell you something. There’s nothing in this life can compare to the hopelessness of watching Death reach into the chest of someone you love and steal them away from you right before your unbelieving eyes. It’s theft of the most extreme kind.
Harry came back around long enough for one last run at the world. “Hayden . . . there’s a woman . . . Fort Smith . . . Nancy Childress . . . find her . . . tell her . . .” His voice faded, and his head fell to one side. A single, tortured, blood-soaked breath escaped his lips, and unblinking, tear-filled eyes fixed on mine as he passed.
When I finally looked up at Old Bear, Lucius stood behind him holding the reins of his horse in one hand, his hat in the other. For several minutes I couldn’t move. Wanted to stand, but my legs didn’t seem attached to the rest of my body. Old Bear leaned over and pulled me to my feet.
Everything got so quiet for a while. The drifting smell of gun smoke and death hung over us, but as I looked away from what had been my friend, my eye landed on a patch of yellow wildflowers a few steps away from his feet. Their beauty and fragrance overwhelmed my senses. Then I noticed the sprayed specks of Harry’s blood that decorated many of those pale petals. Still believe it was a sign from his departing spirit.
For a second or so, it seemed like I really needed to be away from that dreadful spot. Turned and started toward Gunpowder. Felt like a blindfolded circus performer on a tightrope. My balance left me. Must have staggered some. Old Bear grabbed me on one side, Lucius on the other. Could tell they were concerned. But eventually that helpless, drunken feeling passed, along with the nauseous wave of loss which accompanied it.