by J. Lee Butts
Hell, she broke loose and put a set of marks on his face that looked like a Chicago street map. He went to yelping and hopping around like she’d filled him full of pistol balls. Ended up chasing her all over the clearing and half the woods around it before we finally brought her down the last time. She just kinda played out and couldn’t go anymore.
Tell you this for damn sure, we were both gladder’n hell when she finally gave up the fight. Between the bushes, brambles, and her fingernails, we looked like someone had beat the unmerciful bejabbers out of us with a nine-tailed whip.
Later, Billy kind of gingerly handed her a canteen and said, “Do you have a name, little girl?” Have to admit, he sounded a mite sarcastic.
She snapped at him like a stomped-on diamondback rattler. “Don’t be callin’ me your little girl, you smart-mouthed bastard.”
I sat beside her in a rocker we’d hauled out of the wreckage, and couldn’t help but grin when he pulled back like she’d slapped him again. Figured I’d try and help him out. Made a kind of back-door effort to ease in on her. Talked low and like we might know each other.
“Look, miss. You ain’t got nothing to fear from us. We’re deputy U.S. marshals from Fort Smith. We’re here to help.”
Gal nailed me to that chair with a look what made me believe she coulda took an anvil apart with a toothpick. “That’s rich. That’s exactly what the leader of the bunch that killed my ma, pa, and Winslow said when they rode up yesterday.”
Billy slapped his thigh with his hat and kicked out at a wooden bucket most likely dropped by the killers when they made their exit. “Well, now—there’s a new wrinkle, Carlton. Never heard of anyone claiming to be a marshal in these parts without actually being one. Maybe some kind of raggedy-assed Arkansas town law, but not one of Parker’s deputy marshals.”
Few days before we’d struck out from Fort Smith with Hayden, I’d heard of another posse of the court’s lawdogs what moseyed in from a fairly profitable raid and told a similar story. “Billy, you missed Louis Poteet when he and his bunch came back ’bout ten days ago. Think you were in Vinita pickin’ up a prisoner at the time. Anyhow, they happened upon a house over on the Chickasaw-Seminole line where a feller named Johnson Pratt told ‘about a passel of yahoos that sounded almost exactly like these ole boys.”
“The hell you say. Did Pratt recognize any of them?”
“Said their leader was that ever-lovely gentleman we both know and love so much, an African-Seminole breed named Wilson Bowlegs. Two of his party looked like renegade cowboys. The other two were most likely Wilson’s good friends and running buddies Bully May and Loftis Green Grass.”
“Sweet Jesus, Carlton. What a bunch for a dirt farmer to have to try and deal with.”
“Yep. They’re about as bad a crew as we could find out here. Anyway, they all showed up at Pratt’s house, wore badges, and claimed to have a warrant for his arrest on a cattle-theft charge. He resisted when a couple of them grabbed him. They beat the tar out of him and then started on his wife. By the time they’d finished, the whole damnable bunch took a turn with Mary Bushyfoot Pratt. At least in that instance, thanks to a merciful God, they didn’t manage to kill anybody, though. If what we’ve found here is any indication of what you’d just about have to suspect, seems they’re graduated from assault and rape to murder.”
“There was five of them bastards got my parents too,” the girl blurted out. The bile in her voice bubbled up like boiling acid and could have burned through the barrel on Hayden’s monster Winchester. “Leader of that pack of animals was a big black feller, for sure. Heard at least one of his people call him Wilson. He took off his coat and shirt when he jumped on my mother. I could see an ugly scar that ran from the left side of his neck all the way down his chest almost to the waist of his pants. Couldn’t miss it. Looked like somebody tried to cut his arm off.”
She flummoxed Billy to the point where he jumped up, stomped around our hastily made outdoor office, and went to kicking at anything in his way. “Goddammit, Carlton. Can you believe that? This job’s hard enough as it is. Most folks roughing around out here are the worst kind of riffraff wearing boots, and now we’ve got to deal with a bunch of thugs claiming to be us. If that ain’t one hell of a development, I’ll eat one of them trunks over yonder and not use any salt or pepper.”
Couldn’t have agreed with him more. “Marshal Bird and I have both had dealings with Bowlegs and his bunch before. Turkey Creek Jim Painter carved that scar you saw into his sorry hide. Bowlegs and Painter got into a scorching disagreement over napkin-folding, the use of appropriate silverware, tea cakes, or some such thing over in Jamie Stark’s nasty dive one night several years ago. Turkey Creek Jim almost cut ole Wilson in half with an abbreviated ax he calls a bowie knife. Too bad he didn’t finish the job.”
Guess the girl hadn’t completely lost her sense of humor. She shot a glance at Billy. He was still stomping around snorting like a range-crazed steer at a church social. She said, “You gonna kick the hell out of everything left on the ground before you eat it?”
I tried to calm him down a bit myself ’cause I knew he could be real hard to handle when in a fighting mood. “Take it easy, Billy, don’t get yourself all walleyed and bow-necked just yet.”
“Well goddammit, Carlton, we’ve both run into that peckerwood Wilson Bowlegs. Hell, he and his father Simon have bonded out on everything from stealing other people’s horses to murder. And honest to God, every time I think they’ve finally gone just one step too far, another silver-tongued lawyer manages to keep them from getting what they deserve. Remember last year about this time, Barnes Reed jerked Wilson up short for bootlegging, introducing, half a dozen other things illegal, and that slick bastard J. Pinckney Bradford got him off. Wasn’t for ole J. Pinckney, Bowlegs would be up in Detroit breaking rocks right now. But is he? Hell, no! He’s still running loose out here in the Nations thieving and raping. And now he’s gone to killing people.”
Whole time he was blowing off that particular cloud of steam he’d stopped dancing, but whacked at a chunk of wood with his bowie knife. Went at it with such devotion for a minute or so, I began to fear he might lop off one of his fingers.
Went back at the girl and tried to take some of the edge off Billy’s tirade. “Miss, we really are deputy marshals from Fort Smith. Show her your badge, Billy.” He pulled his vest back to expose the rough star covered by a half-moon. But even at that she didn’t buy it.
“Them others had badges too. Flashin’ that little chunk of tin don’t mean spit after what I’ve had to witness. If’n I coulda got to a gun soon enough, both you crazy yahoos would be dead right now.”
She shot that at him like a slug from an old Sharps rifle. He took half a step back before he leaned down toward her again and asked, “Was their badges like this one?” Put his left thumb behind the metal emblem and pushed it forward to give her a better look.
“Not exactly. They wore great big oversized stars. You know, like those five-pointed things you put on your Christmas tree. They didn’t have a little hat on top of them like that one.”
Then Billy managed to ask the one question that really was burrowing a hole in my brain. “How’d they fail to notice you in this bloody business, miss?”
Gal got a look on her face like she was about to rip something real important off a place on his body she hadn’t scratched up in their initial introduction. “Pa sent me off to the woods to look for huckleberries, blackberries, and strawberries. Any kind of berry I could find. He had a real weakness for berry pies. Them evil bastards had just rode up when I got back. I heard and saw it all. Didn’t take them long to finish their raping and killing. Had everything ablazing pretty quick afterward. I hid myself in the woods and waited for them to leave. Didn’t come out till early this morning. Thought you was the same bunch when I heard you come up. But then saw that cannon and figured you couldn’t be run-of-the-mill murderers and thieves. I mean, who in the Indian Nations drags a cannon around the countryside, but the cav
alry or the law. Even at that, I didn’t necessarily want to have anything to do with you.”
Well, she’d opened up plenty enough for me. Jumped in and asked our original question again. “Can you tell us your name, miss?”
If the look she threw me had been made out of volcanic fireballs, she’d of burned me to a crisp. Hell, I’d still be sitting out there in the middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma, smokin’ to this very day. Don’t think hell coulda been any hotter. We stared at each other for a long time, and eventually tears started to pool up in the corners of those big brown eyes of hers.
Barely heard her when she said, “Judith. My name is Judith Karr. Over there under that nasty tarp is my father Burton, my mother Irene, and brother Winslow.”
Then her head dropped into her lap and, with God as my witness, a moan escaped that poor girl’s throat from somewhere so deep inside it must have felt like a saw grinding through muscle, gristle, and bone. Don’t know why, but even now I can remember thinking men a million years ago must have heard women make sounds like that. Sent gooseflesh crawling all up and down my back and arms. For a long while, me and Billy watched and listened as the horror of witnessed insanity and death flowed out of her on a torrent of tears, accompanied by whispered pleas sent to God from between clenched fingers for help to keep on living. Hell, I almost cried myself.
When it appeared she’d just about finished with her grieving, Billy astonished me when he said, “Don’t worry, Miss Karr. Marshal Cecil and I’ll catch the men who did this, and see to it they pay for what happened here.” The steel in his voice could have been used to make swords for the Union Cavalry for the next fifty years. Even so, he’d surprised the hell out me.
Pulled him aside as quick as I could. “What are you getting us into here, Billy? We’ve got to move ourselves, and this Confederate ground-shaker here, up to Big Cougar Bluff as soon as we can. Not sure we have time to chase all over hell and yonder after the worthless scum that did this. At least not right now, and as much as I’d like to.”
He jerked a pistol, flipped the loading gate back, and set the cylinder to spinning. “We’re gonna make time, Carlton. Won’t matter if we’re a bit late showing up for Hayden’s dance. Boy can take care of himself, and besides, Martin Luther Big Eagle ain’t going anywhere.
“Dammit all, we’re supposed to be out here trying to keep massacres like this from happening, Carlton. Hell, I wouldn’t feel like I came anywhere close to earning my pay this month if I let this slide. And besides, I can’t imagine how angels in heaven would feel about it if I did. Ain’t going to church when we get back to Fort Smith and have to ask God’s forgiveness for not doin’ what’s right. The boys what kilt these folks could go on to even more awful endeavors if we don’t stop ’em. You know how their kind is. They’re like wild animals, for Christ’s sake. They get the taste of blood slathered around on their lips and it just seems to make ‘worse.”
It’s real damned hard to argue with sound reasoning. Still didn’t like the idea any, but knew he’d hit that big ole box nail right square on its ugly head. Made one more feeble effort to discourage him anyway.
“We don’t know how long they’ve been gone or where they went.” Pretty poor attempt to slow him down, but I felt like I had to try.
“Judith said they were here yesterday. If that’s the case, finding their trail shouldn’t take me more’n a couple of minutes at the most.”
Turned around and almost run over the girl. She’d eased up behind me, and I didn’t even hear her. She was standing there with her hands on her hips and her chin stuck out like she was about to slap my jaws for the third or fourth time that day.
“I’m goin’ with you,” she snapped.
Popped my garters so hard, set my eyeteeth to ringing. Hadn’t thought about taking her with us. Truth be told, hadn’t thought about her much at all ’cept maybe in terms of dropping her off somwheres along the way. Hell, if they was one thing I didn’t need on top of a hot-blooded Billy Bird, it had to have been a tart-tongued woman with an ax to grind.
“Miss Judith, we can’t—”
“Can’t what? Take me with you? Is that what you were gonna say? Well, you can just save it for somebody else. I’m going along on this hunt. I want to be there when those bastards get what’s coming to them, by God.”
Billy found a splintered piece of oak and whacked himself off a toothpick. Between heavy-duty digs at something in the back of his mouth that must have been about the size of a small calf, he said, “Sorry, Miss Judith, but you’ll have to stay here.”
God Almighty, but that was the wrong thing to say. Little gal took about ten feet in two steps, and damn near climbed him like a tree. Think she was standing on his feet when she shoved her face right up into his and said, “Just you try and stop me. I don’t think you’re big enough, by God!”
Took everything I could do to keep from bustin’ out laughing. But, hell, didn’t want to make her too much madder’n she already was. So I said, “Well, Billy, we can’t leave her here. And if we shoot her ourselves, it’s gonna look real bad should anyone find out. Judge Parker wouldn’t like it much if we started some kind of fashion by rubbin’ out little girls who survive massa-crees.”
It was enough to get her turned my direction for a second or two. Billy kinda snickered, she grinned and dipped her head. But from under fluttering eyelashes and filled with steel, she said, “You’re not changing my mind here, Marshal Cecil. I’m going with you even if it harelips the devil.”
Figured there warn’t no profit to be had in arguin’ with her any further. So I let it go, and started making plans in the back of my brain to drop her off somewheres along the trail. Hell, there had to be a family nearby that’d take her in. Least that’s what I thought at the time.
We scrounged up everything that looked like it might be worth keeping, and piled it all up in one corner of the tumbleweed. The girl fell on a piece of goose-down mattress that managed to survive, and went to sleep like a year-old baby.
She dozed during the whole stretch we worked on her family’s grave. Didn’t have the time or energy to dig but one hole. Had to put all three of ‘in together. I woke her up when everything was ready, but she stood next to that ugly depression in the ground like a stick of stove wood. Not sure she even blinked while Billy and I both made a pretty sorry effort at saying a few words over those poor unfortunates. Didn’t have a good book to read from. Her family Bible must of burnt up in the fire.
Franklin J.’s gaze darted back and forth from Carlton to me. A phenomenon reserved for old, worn-out people surprised both the boy and me. Carlton’s head dipped slightly, his chin rested on his chest, and he took himself a deep and much-needed nap.
Our cub reporter snickered and said, “Well, perhaps it’s time to make a pit stop anyway. Won’t hurt if we slack off for a few minutes.” He pushed himself out of his chair, and wobbled off toward the visitors’ facilities while I kept an eye on Cecil. Wanted to make sure he hadn’t had another of his spells, or even died, and we just didn’t notice. Wouldn’t have looked good, you know.
’Bout fifteen minutes into the nap his eyes popped open and he went right on like he’d never stopped. By then, Junior’d made it back. I could see the shock on his face when ole Carlton picked up the thread and went on knitting his tale like nothing had happened. Some folks don’t believe in such things. Believe me when I tell you, with Carlton J. Cecil, you just never knew where you might end up next once the trip started in earnest.
8
“MORE FUN THAN FORT SMITH’S FOURTH OF JULY CARNIVAL”
GUESS BILLY AND me invested a lot more time putting those poor folks in the ground than it took to find them killers’ trail. Lucky for us the evil scum seemed headed in the general direction we were, and didn’t make any effort at all to cover their tracks. Same kind of thing almost always happened when murderers felt like they’d done gone and got away with the slaughter of everyone who might be able to follow them.
But boys, hon
est to God, Deputy U.S. Marshal Billy Bird took one of the horses tied to the wagon and ripped off after that bunch like a bloodhound on a mission. He went at it with so much enthusiasm, I had to spell him as often as I could, and we finally took turns scouting their trail. He’d work it for several hours, then I’d take over for a while.
Don’t think Miss Judith Karr so much as twitched for the first two days or so. After her hot-mouthed lecture on coming along with us, I had to really work at keeping her conscious long enough to get some food and water in her.
Billy vowed as how it appeared to him like she’d adopted the vacant-eyed look of someone who’d spent time in an opium den. Guess she suffered from what most folks today might call shock and depression. Suppose watchin’ your whole family get viciously rubbed out the way she did could do that. Entire eventuality brought Hayden and Saginaw Bob to memory. After a while, we began to worry she might not come out of her fog at all.
But thanks to a merciful God, third night away from the graves, she finally snapped out of it, and I had to do a serious reevaluation of my thinking up till then. Guess you can get somewheres on the dark side of famished during one of those spells, ’cause, for the first time, she wolfed down everything we could throw her direction. Wouldn’t have been a good idea to drop your hat around that black-eyed gal there for a while.
She gnawed on a piece of jerked beef and growled, “God, I can’t ever remember being so hungry. This stringy stuff’s better’n pork roast.” Washed the meat and some corn fritters down with half a pot of coffee, and then started scratching in our food larder for anything she might have missed. Billy fished around in his war bag and came up with a stick of peppermint candy that she went at like it was the last piece of flavored sugar in the world. On top of all that, Judith Karr couldn’t wait to talk our ears off.
“My father’s brother, Uncle Eli, came down here from Bourbon County, Kansas, and married up with a Chickasaw lady. He always said they’d moved from South Carolina so’s he could ‘get the hell away from all them goddamn people bent on crampin’ my freedoms and sech.’ Said he and my father could plant horseshoes and grow horses back there in Spartanburg County. Papa worked a fine spread out on Tyger Creek about thirty miles south of town. But like most men, they was born with itchy feet. So, we moved to Kansas, and almost starved to death.”