by J. Lee Butts
Started back for Fort Smith the next day, after Billy and Carlton planted dynamite everywhere they could find a hole in the ground. Set an extremely long fuse, and we had gone almost a mile east of the entrance before we heard the explosion. My God, but it shook the ground like one of them earthquakes I’d heard they have so often out in California. Blast couldn’t have left more than three or four twigs stacked on top of each other. Those fun-loving boys put so many of them flame-red sticks under what was left of Big Eagle’s logs, their final efforts at blasting turned the whole thing into a hazy cloud of blood-tinted powder that shot up over the invisible canyon rim like a Pacific Island volcano belching gas and fire.
Barnes went back out to Red Rock about a year after our adventure. He told me you could barely find a stone fragment left down there that was much bigger than a saddle blanket for a brown dog tick. Said those last few detonations caused the cave those murderin’ thieves used as a stable to collapse and create a massive cavity in the east side of the canyon. Left a scar that had been considerably smaller before our arrival. Guess some folks might call our activities destructive, but we didn’t want to have another bunch come in right behind Big Eagle and get resettled anytime soon. Besides, Barnes said travelers used the spot as a shelter when they camped there on the way west, and had named it Tilden’s Hole.
Hard to believe, but folks on those western treks even named the sandstone totem Carlton and Beulah created with the first two shots. Called it Walking Rock. Still standing today, from what I hear. Got trees growing in the fissure, but you can find it if you look hard enough.
Old Bear and Three Bones stayed around until Carlton and Billy’s final display of fireworks. The little Kiowa really enjoyed all the noise, dust, and movement. Three Bones pointed and talked in his own language for long stretches. Old Bear smiled and patted his friend on the shoulder. Think he got almost as big a kick out of Beulah as Carlton.
Maybe an hour or so after the last big explosion, they pulled up and dismounted. Old Bear led his friend over to me and said, “Three Bones has something he wants to say before we head south.”
Mahogany-skinned fighter held his arms out like he wanted to hug me. When I extended mine, he clasped me by the elbows and spoke for almost a minute before he stopped. Then, he smiled, nodded, and stepped back beside Old Bear and waited for the translation.
“He says—this best time he’s had—since his people forced to come to the Nations. Reminded him—of the life he’s missed—for many years—life of a warrior—life of a man respected by those who fear him. If you ever need his help—if you have need of a warrior—you send word.” Old Bear placed his left hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Says he would be honored to die with you, Tilden.”
Well, a lot of men have said a lot of things to me over the years since the day we stood on that grass-covered hill. Good and bad. Don’t think anyone else ever told me it’d be an honor to stand by my side and die with me. Powerful stuff. For a while, I couldn’t think of anything to say in reply. How do you respond to a man who honors you in such a fashion?
Finally, I managed to mumble, “You tell Three Bones I won’t forget him, and that it has been a great privilege fighting by his side. We will meet again. And tell him I’d be honored to have him with me anytime.” Hugged Old Bear ’cause I didn’t know when he’d show himself in my life again. They mounted up, waved their rifles in one final salute, and kicked it south for the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Nations.
Every one of the evil sons of bitches we brought to book was wanted. Five of them bad enough to have posters out that offered nice rewards. Most valuable of the group, after Smilin’ Jack and Big Eagle, was a killer named Orpheus Black. Orpheus had been captured before. Even got jerked up short with a conviction of murder for killing a farmer named Abraham Neely and a Negro woman in his employ. Poor folks lived on a vegetable and grain farm over in the Chickasaw Nation near the town of Stonewall.
Orpheus stopped at Neely’s home on a lightning-spiked night back in ’78. Killed the poor man with an ax he found in the yard, then beat Jezabelle Boston to death with a stick of stove wood. Stole a pair of boots, Neely’s coat, and the woman’s pantaloons. Neighbors who testified at the trial said the poor woman had so many splinters in her scalp, they thought she might grow leaves. Judge sentenced him to hang, and Maledon braided up a rope for him. But he got loose, killed a jailer in the process, and stayed out on the scout until we brought him down at Red Rock.
Court found him guilty of another killing done after his bold escape. Judge Parker sentenced him to hang again. But late in 1883, that got commuted to life over at the federal penitentiary in Detroit, Michigan. Sorry son of a bitch should have hung at least twice, but got off because men with a lot less intestinal fortitude than Judge Parker got their bleeding hearts involved, and saved his worthless hide one more time. But thanks to Providence, it just didn’t matter. Another convict caught ole Orpheus sittin’ in the outhouse one day, and stuck a piece of sharpened water pipe in his left eye that punched a hole in his brain and ended his days on this earth.
Story of our adventures got to Fort Smith ahead of us. The Elevator, New Era, and the Western Independent were full of it. Even heard some of the Indian papers like the Atoka Indian Champion and the Vinita Indian Chieftain ran extravagant versions of the tale. Must have been a hundred people on the ferry dock when we arrived. Spotted Elizabeth while I was still on the other side of the Arkansas. She almost waved her arm off before I could get to her. Don’t think anything in the world feels like holding a woman who loves you. I kissed every square inch of her glowing face. Then turned and said, “Brought someone you know back with me.”
Birdie Mae Blackwell rushed past me, fell on Elizabeth’s neck, and burst into grateful tears. Never seen two people cry like that. Elizabeth stroked the poor girl’s hair and mouthed “Thank you” at me. Altogether, it was the best reward I ever got. Money just can’t match a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman with tears streaming down her cheeks whose gratitude would be flowing my way for some time to come.
We put W. J. McCabe down in the holding cells with all them other black-hearted villains. Lucius stuck around for about a week. Then one morning, he showed up on the porch for breakfast. Wolfed down six eggs, three biscuits, and most of a slab of bacon. Mixed some whiskey in his coffee, leaned his chair against the wall, gazed off toward the river, and said, “You are one lucky man, Tilden. Beautiful wife who loves you, house on the hill with a view right out of a dream, and a town full of people who think you walk on water. Don’t get much better’n that. Hope you’re properly grateful.”
Poured myself a cup, motioned for his bottle, and said, “Lucius, if you had told me things would come out like this on the day Saginaw Bob shot me over at Winchester, I would have laughed right in your face. Probably sound like a court-certified loony from the state hospital for the criminally crazy over in Little Rock.” Leaned over and tapped my cup against his.
He finished off his coffee and shook my hand and said, “If you ever make it to Fort Worth, look for Company B of the Texas Rangers. They’ll help you find me no matter where I am. By the time you get down there, everyone who knows me will know who you are. You’ll be treated to the best Texas has to offer in hospitality and respect. It’s been a privilege, Marshal Tilden.”
He did his Texas mosey across the plank floor and down the steps. Big Mexican rowels on his silver spurs sang a right nice song when no one was shooting at us. Pulled the reins loose from my hitch rail, turned like he was lost in deep thought, and said, “You know, think I just might swing by Willard Rump’s place and visit for a bit with Eleanor Little Spot. That is, if her daddy and mama will allow it.” He grinned, tipped his palm-leaf sombrero, jumped on Hateful, and hoofed it to Fort Smith. Billy said our Texican friend picked up ole W. J. about an hour later, and headed back to the Lone Star State. Several years passed ’fore we saw each other again.
Cecil and I took Beulah back to Cletis Broadbent a few days after that
. He damn near had a stroke when he saw all them bullet holes in her wheels and carriage. But when Carlton started peelin’ ten-dollar bills off a stack I’d given him before our arrival, ole Cletis’s eyes got about the size of pewter dinner plates. He quickly settled for a lump-sum payment, and a nice bonus, for the piddling damage his plaything had sustained. Hell, the scruffy bootlegger was happier’n a hog in slop when we left him standing in his nasty yard, knee-deep in screaming kids, barking dogs, and chickens.
Of course, us deputy marshals had to testify at the trials of all those worthless gobs of spit we’d caught out there at Red Rock. Spent a lot of time sitting around on cane-bottomed instruments of torture waiting to tell the same story over and over again. Don’t remember a whole lot about most of those trials, because they involved petty criminals of the thieving and bootlegging variety. But I do remember what Judge Parker said the day he sentenced Smilin’ Jack.
He leaned over the edge of his desk and almost shoved his index finger up Paine’s nose. Thought there for a second the Judge would hook it into one of Jack’s nostrils and jerk him off the floor. “Your numerous crimes have been proven in this court beyond any question. Evidence has shown you to be a man of repulsive and abhorrent character. The jury heard grisly tales of murder and rape by your hand. These lurid accounts have inflamed local citizenry to the point where open discussions of lynching have been reported to my own ears. Such actions on the part of the public will not be necessary, or tolerated, so long as I sit on this bench. It is only through respect for the law, and the certain belief that justice will be carried out by it, that you are not today hanging from a tree somewhere outside the city limits, and already in the hands of your close friend Satan.
“The enormity and stunning wickedness of your criminal activity leaves no ground for sympathy, sir. You can expect no more compassion than experienced by those victimized by your dastardly behavior. Perhaps God can bestow mercy upon your head. His infinite understanding, care, and grace can wipe out even your horrible crimes. The sinful activities for which you are guilty rest upon your hateful soul. I beseech you to seek atonement for your revolting actions and sincerely hope you find it.
“But it falls upon this court to carry out the sentence required by the laws that you have broken. Listen now to the sentence of the law, which is that you, Alonzo Jackson Paine, for the crimes of murder and rape committed by you in the Indian country and within jurisdiction of this court, and of which you stand convicted by the verdict of a jury in your case, be deemed, taken, and adjudged guilty of said crimes and hanged by the neck until you are dead.
“The Marshal of the Western District of Arkansas, by himself, or deputy, or deputies, shall cause execution to be done in these premises upon you on the thirty-first day of October 1882, between the hours of nine o’clock in the forenoon and five o’clock in the afternoon of that day. May God, whose laws you have broken, and before whose tribunal you shall then appear, have mercy upon your immortal soul.” He punctuated all that with a gavel rap that sounded like a pistol shot.
Paine, who still suffered mightily from the injuries he’d incurred when his horse fell on him, gathered up enough fire to snap back, “I want to appeal my verdict to the Supreme Court, Your Honor.”
A wicked smile snapped across the Judge’s face. “Thought you would, Alonzo. But believe me when I tell you, sir, my prosecutors will fight it tooth and nail.
In the end you will hang, and everyone who is even remotely interested will get to watch your departure from this life.”
Unfortunately, that happy dream didn’t come to pass. Alonzo Jackson Paine, called Smilin’ Jack by those who feared the son of a bitch, died in his jail cell from a bout of pneumonia barely a month later. Needless to say, Mr. Maledon, the court’s official hangman, and his admirers expressed considerable dismay and disappointment at being cheated of their entertainment.
Jack’s passing made Carlton so mad he went on a spitting fit you could only match by watching tomcats fight. Think that’s part of the reason he never forgot about Paine. And then again, it might have been because about six months after our return, he and Judith Karr stood before Judge Parker in the living room of my home and got married. The way those two looked at each other that day was enough to give even the most downhearted hope for the future.
Elizabeth held my hand, wept, and repeated her vows in my ear as we stood and watched. That beautiful couple stayed together for over fifty years. Think when Judith died it damn near killed Carlton too. But something kept him alive long enough to finally rise above the black funk that fell on him. Maybe it was the fact he spent most of that time with me. Don’t know. No point in trying to understand God’s plan. We just have to live it.
Birdie Mae lived with Elizabeth and me for almost a year. Thought she’d recovered fairly well. Then, suddenly, she jumped up and moved to Kansas City. Said she wanted to be somewhere a bit more civilized than a dusty frontier outpost like Fort Smith for a while. Personally, I’ve always held that the married man she ran off with, Marvin Upshaw, was the sole and only reason for her departure. Unfortunate decision, actually. In 1893, if memory still serves, she stepped into Westport Road right in front of the Wyoming Street Saloon and got hit by a runaway team of horses pulling a beer wagon. Killed her deader’n a cut-glass doorknob.
Elizabeth cried for a week. Never had the heart to tell her how local authorities wrote me that Birdie took the road of the soiled dove and was well-known to all the men of local law enforcement. Seems Marvin heeled it for parts unknown about six months after they arrived, and she took to heavy drink and certain easily obtainable painkilling drugs. Tragic, just damned tragic.
Don’t think Junior’s pencil made a mark during the entire time I tied everything up for him. Stared at me like a man who’d been hit in the face with a ten-pound bag of meadow muffins.
He finally made this kind of strangled frog sound and said, “God, every time I think you can’t shock or surprise me anymore, you manage to do it again, Hayden. Carlton’s assessment of the Nations was dead accurate. Hell on earth. Seems like everyone touched by the place suffered the tortures of the damned while still among the living.”
After dragging himself out of his chair, he started for the door, but stopped and turned back toward the two empty shucks whose stories had helped fill his notebook. “How is it, do you think, that what Carlton described as ‘hell in the Nations’ didn’t have the same effect on you boys as it did on all these other poor people?”
I turned to Lucius and shrugged. His watery, red-rimmed eyes squeezed a single tear loose that trailed down a cheek the boy couldn’t see. “Oh, make no mistake about it, Mr. Lightfoot,” he said. “It affected us as profoundly as it did any of these others—perhaps even more so. The most telling difference between Hayden, or men like me, and them, was we had the responsibility of trying to save everyone we could, and didn’t have time to dwell overmuch on our individual tragedies.” He stopped long enough to consult the contents of his cup again, then added, “Course we outlived all of them too.”
Lightfoot took a step back into the room. “What individual tragedies did you suffer from all this, Lucius? From what I’ve heard so far, you came out of the whole affair in pretty good shape.”
My old friend stared into his cup for a second and took another heavy swallow. “Well, one thing Hayden, gentleman that he still is, didn’t say anything about was how my visit with Eleanor Little Spot went.”
Lightfoot’s eyes narrowed down on the old Texas Ranger like drawn pistols. “What the hell does that mean?”
Lucius ran his finger around the rim of his cup. It made a soft humming sound. “When I got there, her parents took me straight out to visit her grave, son. Seems she’d stepped on something sharp hiding in their chicken-shit-covered yard. Got the lockjaw. Sweet, beautiful girl died a horrible death. Still remember how she looked when she smiled at Handsome Harry and me. Even after all these years, her face still pops up in my better dreams.”
&nb
sp; For several seconds, it got so quiet you could hear the schoolhouse clock out at the nurse’s station. Twisted toward Junior and said, “That’d be a great title for this chapter, don’t you think?”
He looked surprised. Like I’d snapped him back to reality from someplace he’d visited before, but hadn’t thought of much. “What would be a great title?”
“Hell in the Nations, Junior. Hell in the Nations.”
His face lit up like a ball from a Roman candle. “Damn, you’re right.” He turned and ran for the door. Over his shoulder he shouted, “Look for it about a month from now. Hell in the Nations—Chapter Two in the Life and Times of Hayden Tilden! Good God, boys, people are gonna love this stuff.”
EPILOGUE
LUCIUS SPENT A whole week with me. Stayed in a guest room right there in the Rolling Hills Home for the Aged. Hell, he was as bad as Carlton when it came to nurses and young women in general. Actually, sometimes he was worse, because he’d managed to stay in a lot better shape than Carl, and those poor girls had a harder time hoofing it away from him. He could still dance pretty fast for an old dude.
Silver-tongued elf talked me into going back to Texas for a visit on his Sulphur River ranch. Since I enjoyed the freedom commanded only by inmates voluntarily committed to that cell block for those awaiting eternity, it didn’t take much in the way of expended effort to persuade Leona to turn me loose. Oh, I did have to threaten to shoot her in the foot a time or two, but she finally relented. Mainly ’cause she had good-sized feet. Think we sealed the deal in her office one afternoon when Lucius whipped out one of them big ole .45’s, and told her he was still a pretty fair shot even at his advanced and decrepit age.
Took the Flyer from Little Rock to Texarkana. Had a great time on the way down. Met a couple of real nice-looking middle-aged ladies in the club car who came out to the ranch and visited with us twice while I was there. One of them was a blue-eyed blonde. And hell, you already know my feelings ’bout girls like that. Her name was Kathleen.