by J. Lee Butts
Lucius had an ancient rattletrap of a truck parked in the depot lot. Surprised the hell out of me that he could still drive. Took us about an hour and a half of paved back roads that bled out to gravel, then turned into dirt trails, ’fore we finally arrived. But, hell, bubbas, it was damned sure worth it. Barn, corral, and all were in fine shape. Well-kept and recently painted, from all I could tell.
Ranch house had a screened back porch that looked right out onto the river, and we spent every evening snugged down into a couple of broken-down wicker chairs, sipping our coffee and remembering all the things we missed about the past. Mostly, though, it was the people. Ain’t much about living back then that was real good—’cept the people we loved. And some we very definitely hated.
When it got too cold outside, we’d move to his tiny living room where he kept a tin stove. He’d fire it up red-hot, and keep it going all night. You city boys should know that nothing smells as good as burning oak on a cold night.
After a couple of days building up to it, he even managed to get me back on a horse a time or three. But as Carlton always liked to say, it warn’t good judgment. My poor aching ass hurt all the way up to my shoulder blades, and I’d be willing to bet I didn’t spend twenty minutes in the saddle—all totaled—at the end of my stay.
Got to admit, though, that after about a month of roughing it, I missed green Jell-O and Leona Wildbank so bad I couldn’t wait to get back. He hugged my neck just ’fore the train pulled out. Said he’d see me again on the other side. Man had tears on his cheeks when the train pulled away. Guess maybe I might have had some on my face too.
’Bout three weeks after I got back to the Home, a twine-tied bundle of big, thick Arkansas Gazettes showed up one Sunday morning. Had a pull-out feature section inside named Hell in the Nations—Chapter Two in the Adventures of Hayden Tilden. Thing sported lots of pictures of Lucius and me hugging each other and wiping our faces with big bandannas. Some of me and Junior. Junior and Lucius. Lucius and the nurses. One of ‘showed Leona with a look on her face like she might pinch the photographer’s nose off.
Lightfoot’s article hadn’t been out more than a week or two when a feller named A. Maxwell Vought started calling me long distance from California. Said he wanted to discuss the possibility of making a movie about my life based on Franklin’s newspaper piece, and my first-hand recollections. Hinted that maybe me and the boy could come out to Hollywood and visit with him. Said he’d pay for the whole shebang. Something he mentioned got my brain to chewing over the Brotherhood of Blood for the first time in years.
I sat there and thought, what in the hell is Franklin J. Lightfoot, Jr., gonna do when he finds out about Hayden Tilden, Carlton J. Cecil, Charlie Two Knives, and the Brotherhood of Blood? Sweet Jesus, now there was a hell of a story. Horse manure and gun smoke galore.
Too bad Carlton won’t be around to help me tell it. Damn his sorry hide for dying. Heddy McDonald, General Black Jack Pershing, and I miss that randy old bastard.