Gun Work: The Further Exploits of Hayden Tilden

by J. Lee Butts

  Barnes Reed reached out, grabbed Benny Coltrane by the shirtfront, snatched him off his feet, then dragged him to the conference table. Lifted the man up like a corn-shuck doll and stuffed him into an empty chair. Got right up in the accused killer’s face and snarled, “This here’s Deputy U.S. Marshal Hayden Tilden, Coltrane. He’s got some questions for you. Best pay attention.”

  Benny swept the three of us with a wide, insincere, self-important smile, then said, “Why, I live to serve, Deputy Marshal Reed. Hell, you know that. Us Coltrane boys are always ready to offer aid to any of the bold men who wear a badge for Hangin’ Judge Isaac Parker. Should help the law all you can. That’s what my dear, departed ole pappy used to say.”

  Barnes shook his head in disgust. Barely able to control his temper, he glared at Coltrane like he wanted to rip the man’s empty head off and stuff it down his blood-gushing neck. Still fuming like a burning bank building, Barnes backed away and took a position leaned up against the edge of Marshal Dell’s fancy, mahogany desk. Would’ve sworn I could see red under the dusky skin covering his face and hands. Man stared steely daggers into ole Benny’s back.

  As Carl, Nate, and I surrounded the bigheaded bandit and possible child murderer, I said, “You and your brothers have been right busy, haven’t you, Benny?”

  Coltrane studied his twiddling thumbs for a second, arched an eyebrow, glanced up, and flashed that wide, crooked, sneering grin again. “Well, must admit I do come from a long line of hardworking, industrious folks, and that’s a pure fact. Coltrane family’s always prospered, no matter the economic condition of our surroundings. Yessir, we’re a hardworkin’ buncha model citizens.”

  As though completely unconcerned with the proceedings, Carl pulled a folding knife from his pants pocket. Started digging at his fingernails with the tip of the biggest blade. Didn’t bother to look at Coltrane, when he came near whispering, “Hear tell as how you hardworking, industrious Coltrane boys went and kilt a drummer name of Cushman. God-fearin’, upstandin’ citizen of Kansas. Never done a soul any harm. That right, Benny, my boy?”

  Coltrane’s haughty smile bled away and was quickly replaced with a teeth-baring sneer. “Yammerin’ at the wrong man, deppidy. Might as well be talkin’ to this here table, ’cause I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no dead book peddlers.”

  Big, toothy grin popped out on Nate Swords’s face. Knew exactly what he was about to say. My friend leaned back and slapped the protruding grip on one of his pistols. Kinda chuckled, then said, “Nobody mentioned a single thing ’bout the man bein’ a book peddler, you loose-mouthed son of a bitch. Just how’n the blue-eyed hell did you know the dead feller made his living selling books?”

  Coltrane’s eyebrows pinched together, as he squirmed in his seat. Then, swear ’fore Jesus, he rammed a finger up his nose to the second knuckle. Picked around inside like he was mining for gold somewhere up near the top of his skull. Self-importantly examined his discovery for a second. Grinned when he flicked the snotty booger Carl’s direction. My red-faced friend hopped aside.

  No doubt in my mind that things were about to take a decidedly weird detour, when Carl shot a glare at Coltrane that could’ve easily blistered paint off a Pennsylvania barn.

  “Seems I did hear somethin’ about that particular killin’. Can’t remember exactly what, though,” Coltrane offered. He flipped the same finger in the general direction of Barnes. “Hell, big son of a bitch yonder’s already run me through the mill over that drummer once. Don’t know nothin’. Cain’t tell you ignorant sons a bitches what I don’t know, now can I?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Carl growled. “We’ll let Judge Parker, and a jury of your peers, decide your fate over that one. But, we are interested in what you can tell us about the Cassidy girl.”

  Damned near imperceptible, but Benny’s shoulders slumped a mite. He twisted lower into the chair, as though trying to corkscrew himself away from a perceived threat. Went to scratching and squirming like the kid who’d been caught doing something that he shouldn’t have been doing.

  Scratched his chin as though in deep, concentrated thought. “Cassidy girl?” Benny said. “You boys ’er wastin’ all our time, by God. Don’t have no idea what you’re talkin’ ’bout, deppidy.”

  Take it from me when I tell you, the man had a way of spitting the word deputy out like he was trying to knock a yellow jacket out of the air with a gob of spitty phlegm the size of a shotgun shell.

  Nate threw his head back and let out a derisive chuckle. Said, “You just don’t know anything about anything, do you? But I’d bet you’re fully aware that you’re workin’ on makin’ all us lawmen believe, beyond any doubt, that you’d have to go back to school and study up to be a half-witted idiot.”

  Our prisoner humped up and went to yammering at Nate like an angry tomcat. Snapped, “Truth be known, deppidy, Benny Coltrane don’t personally give a royal pile of runny shit what you do-right sons a bitches think about a single by-God thing.”

  Quicker than field corn going through a fat goose, Carl’s hand flicked out. Like a striking rattlesnake, he smacked Coltrane across the lips so hard, just seeing the lick made my teeth hurt. Blow was what Carl would have laughingly referred to as a “love tap.” But the resounding smack for damned sure got ole Benny’s attention.

  To say Coltrane was a bit surprised would’ve been the understatement of the decade. Looked to me like our question-and-answer session was well on the way to getting about as serious as a brain killer of a stroke.

  7

  “. . . BE PISSIN’ BLOOD FOR A MONTH WHEN WE GET DONE.”

  BENNY COLTRANE SLUMPED deeper into the Moroccan leather of his chair and rubbed the fresh weal that glowed on his cheek. He followed that bit of business up with a somewhat less-than-enthusiastic glance of feigned defiance around the room. In spite of his seeming insolence, I detected a definite, although well-concealed, crack in his disrespectful attitude.

  “Where’s the girl, Benny?” Carl said, then flashed a friendly grin.

  Coltrane reared back in the chair, as far from Carl as he could get, then yelped, “Got no right to go a-hittin’ on me like that, goddammit. Jus’, by God, cain’t be treatin’ a feller like that.”

  One-handed, Carlton snapped the barlow closed, dropped it back into his pants pocket, then leaned over in Benny’s face. Hissed, “You don’t tell us somethin’ ’bout the location of Miss Daisy Cassidy that’s useful, and mighty damned quick, I’m gonna beat the unmerciful dog crap outta you, ole son. Get through with your sorry, back-shootin’ ass won’t be enough of you left to run through my granny’s flour sifter.”

  White-knuckled, Coltrane clasped both padded arms of the chair with talonlike fingers. Shot a hot-eyed, inquiring glance my direction. “You gonna let this vicious, redheaded son of a bitch beat on me like he says, Mr. Tilden? Hell, I done heard as how you’re a dangerous man in a gunfight, but a fair one once a man’s caught. Never suspected a famed lawdog like you for such barbaric behavior.”

  In the manner of a starving wildcat, Nate took Carl’s lead. Jumped at Coltrane, pushed Carl aside, and seized the slippery snake by the collar and shook him. “Sweet Jesus, where’d you learn a three-dollar word like barbaric, Benny? Barbaric for the love of Jesus. I personally wouldn’t have bet a single, thin, Yankee dime on whether you’d ever even heard such a word. Sure as hell wouldn’t have ever been made to believe that half a haircut like you would know what it meant.”

  Prisoner slapped at Nate’s hand, then twisted out of his grasp. “Yer all crazier’n a pack of shithouse rats,” he yelped. “Ain’t never had no lawmen go’n treat me like this, by God.”

  “Like what?” a grinning Barnes Reed called out from behind Benny. “Ain’t got a mark on you yet, you evil little sack of rat crap. But there’s the very real possibility that when we let you outta here today, you could very well hobble back to the general-population cells, down in the basement, in a lot worse condition than you came out.”

  Stricken by t
he sudden, and very physical, turn of events, a once self-assured, overly confident Benny Coltrane twirled in the chair so he could see Barnes. Instant rash of beaded sweat poured off his forehead, when he whined, “What in the hell’s that mean, Reed? That a threat? You threatenin’ me with some kinda beating just short of death-dealin’ violence? Might have to complain to the . . .”

  “Complain? Complain to who, you ignert bag of horse dung,” Carl yelped. Then, he grabbed the arms of the chair and jerked the now-quaking Benny Coltrane back our direction. “What my friend Deputy Reed is implyin’ is that we just might be forced to each take a volume of them law books outta that shelf yonder, open ’er up, and beat you silly with it. Paper won’t leave a mark on you. But you’ll be limpin’ like a peg-legged Civil War veteran and pissin’ blood for a month when we get done.”

  Gaze darting around the room, Coltrane had the look of a cornered rat when he said, “You wouldn’t do that. Ain’t no way you’d do that.”

  Carlton smiled. “Tilden won’t. Reed might not. But me’n Swords will. And trust me, ole son, you’ll tell us every secret thing you’ve ever tried to hide from anybody. Hell, you’ll even admit to the time you first peered down the cotton pantalets of little Mary Damp Britches, and commented on how what you saw looked like she’d been hit with a hatchet.”

  Big vein in Benny’s neck went to throbbing so hard I could see it. His worried, restless gaze rubbered around the stuffy room from one of our faces to the other. In spite of looking pitiful enough to make a thousand-year-old angel weep, he couldn’t find a bit of sympathy anywhere.

  Sorry skunk went to scratching and squirming again. Then he said, “Well, uh. Well, uh, uh. Shit almighty, what was the question? Done forgot what you bastards asked me ’fore you went and started beatin’ on me.”

  Carl shook his head and grinned. Said, “You ain’t even begun to have anyone beat on you yet, you stupid bastard. Think someone mighta slapped you a mite, but so far that’s been the limit of it. Screw with me and I’ll jerk your arm off and hammer you into the floor with the bloody end of it.”

  Fingers wrapped so tightly around the chair’s arms he appeared on the verge of shredding them into a pile of sweat-soaked leather, Benny bent over at the waist and yelped, “Mighta slapped me? That what you just said? Shit almighty, you damn near knocked all my teeth loose, that’s what you done, by God. Beat me to death with my own arm? Mean-assed son of a bitch.”

  Carl’s open hand shot forward again. The open-fisted crack, crossways of Benny’s opposite cheek, sounded like a pistol going off in the closed room. Red welt that bore an unsurprising resemblance to a man’s fingers and palm immediately popped up on the flabbergasted gunny’s face.

  Coltrane sucked in an astonished breath, then hocked a glob of red-flecked spittle onto the floor. Wiped his blood-seeping mouth on a dirty sleeve. “Done gone and busted my lip, you son of a . . .”

  With no warning, Carl delivered another mind-boggling, open-palmed rap that caught Coltrane across the entirety of his forehead. Benny’s empty noggin snapped backward like the popper on the end of a bullwhacker’s favorite whip. Would’ve sworn I heard bones in the man’s neck crack. Had he rolled onto the floor with a fistful of his neck bones reduced to powder and a snapped spinal column, scene wouldn’t have surprised me one bit.

  Dazed, the back-shooting slug’s eyes rolled around in their sockets. For a second I thought he really might fall out of the chair. But in that single instant, I witnessed all the swaggering bluster and outlaw bravado drain from his face. Happened quicker than a hot iron can scorch a Baptist lady’s favorite Sunday-go-to-meeting dress.

  Got to say as how I never liked watching a man break. Even one of such reputed low-life orneriness as Benny Coltrane. Hard to work up much sympathy for the kind of murderous scum who’ll slaughter women and children, but we needed what the stink-spraying polecat could tell us. And we needed it as quick as it could be obtained.

  Felt then, and still feel to this very instant, that if slapping the dog stuffings out of skunk like Benny Coltrane could circumvent another heartless murder, then so be it. All you highfalutin pansies, pantywaists, and bleeding hearts who live your lives in a chicken coop and that don’t agree with that blunt assessment had best hope no one ever murders your entire family—two of ’em with a double-bit ax.

  When his head finally stopped wobbling on its long, thin, bony stalk, barely heard it when Coltrane mumbled, “All right, all right. What is it you mean-assed, badge-wearin’ bastards want to know? Just ask. Swear ’fore Jesus, tell you whatever I can. Won’t hold nothin’ back. Got my word on it.”

  Grinning, Carl and Nate backed off a step or two, glanced over at me, then torqued their heads to one side like curious dogs. I took the obvious hint and said, “Where are your less than worthless brothers, Benny?”

  Man looked up at me like he wanted to crawl off and die, but said, “Far as I know they’re still down in Texas, Marshal Tilden.” He shot Carlton a quick glance and added, “And that’s the God’s truth, so far as I know it. Swear on my mother’s grave.”

  “Texas?”

  “Yeah. Said they ’uz goin’ to Fort Worth. Gonna spend some time in Hell’s Half Acre ’fore they come back this direction. You know how it is. My brothers are the kind of fellers what like to drink, gamble, and whore around till they just wear themselves slap out. Six months from now they’ll do it all over again. ’S all I know.”

  Leaned a bit closer. Tried to sound comforting when I said, “Where’s the girl, Benny? Where’s Daisy Cassidy?”

  Coltrane did a corner of the eye check to make sure Carl wasn’t about to slap the bejabbers out of him again. Then, snapped another worried gaze directly into mine. Man suddenly went to shaking as if suffering from malaria. After some effort, he regained control of himself and said, “Please don’t let that little redheaded son of a bitch hit me again. Okay?”

  “Have my word on it. Marshal Cecil won’t hit you again.” Not sure he believed me, because he kept eyeballing Carl before saying anything. “Honest to God, my word of honor, I couldn’t say, Marshal Tilden. Swear, I’m tellin’ you the God’s truth. Swear it. Just couldn’t say. Don’t have no ideas on the subject of Daisy Cassidy’s whereabouts.”

  Nate pulled the makin’s and started rolling a smoke. Said, “Way we heard the bloody tale, them brothers of yours took Miss Cassidy down to Hell’s Half Acre and whored her out to anyone with enough money to pay for an evening’s carnal entertainment. That true?”

  Coltrane’s gaze swiveled around the room, as though his head had somehow become detached from his neck. “Now that ain’t true, by God. Jus’ ain’t true. Ain’t nobody gonna make Daisy Cassidy do nothing she don’t want to do. Gal looks like that ’un has a mind of her own. Does as she damn well pleases.”

  Three of us took a surprised half step backward at the exact same moment. Couldn’t believe what we’d just heard. Benny Coltrane had unwittingly placed himself in Daisy Cassidy’s company, at some point. Think we were all amazed at his astonishing inability to keep the information to himself. Tight mouthed up till that point, he’d inadvertently given away a piece of what might prove vital information.

  I moved in real close to the man and placed a reassuring hand on his arm. “How do you know what Daisy Cassidy would or wouldn’t do, Benny? Sounds to me like you two might’ve known each other a bit better than any of us realized.”

  Mask of twisted panic shot across Coltrane’s unshaven face. “No. No. You musta misunderstood. Not me. ’S my brother. Jesse. The good-lookin’ one. ’S how I know about Daisy. Honest. That’s the God’s truth. Hell, any gal as looks like Daisy ain’t gonna have nothin’ to do with a feller like me. But Jesse, now there’s a different story altogether. He’s always been able to keep company with them good-lookers, you know.”

  Carl made a springing leap toward Benny, kicked hell out of one the chair legs. Drew his hand back again, as though he was about to slap poor Benny’s eyeballs right out of his head. �
�Quit mealy mouthin’ around, you walkin’ bag of manure. Get to it, or swear to bleedin’ Jesus, I’m gonna knock you into next month.”

  Arms and hands covering his face, Benny dodged and weaved in the chair like a sitting boxer in the fight of his life. Once he realized the blow wouldn’t fall, he peeked from between trembling fingers and said, “Went to the Cassidy place after we hit the Elk Horn Bank in Winslow.”

  Nate shook his head. “Why? Seems like a stupid move to slow your getaway after robbin’ a bank. Hell, the Cassidy farm’s just a bit more’n five miles from the scene of the r obbery.”

  Benny’s head bobbed up and down, as though he could-n’t agree more. “Hell, I know that,” he said. “But Jesse couldn’t get within ten miles of that gal’s scent without sneakin’ by her daddy’s farm. Tole us he wanted to stop by and pick the girl up for the trip to Texas.”

  Tapped him on the arm again to draw his attention my way. “You’re telling us Jesse planned to take the girl with him to Fort Worth? That what you’re saying?”

  “Yeah. Yeah. But see, when we got to the farm her ole man said as how she warn’t there. Not at home. Swear on my mother’s sainted head. Soon’s I heard that, I left Jesse and Leroy arguing with ole man Cassidy. Last I seen any of ’em, they ’uz all standin’ in Cassidy’s sorghum field yellin’ at each other. Hell, I already had me a gal. Lives a few miles from Clifton. If’n I hadn’t stopped for a drink with that buncha travelin’ coyote spit peddlers, Marshal Reed never woulda cotched me the way he went and done.”

  “ ’S not what you told Marshal Reed,” Carlton said. “Did some loose-mouthed bragging about your part in a triple murder.”

  Benny’s face and neck turned red all the way up to his hair line. “Didn’t know ’bout them killins till Marshal Reed confronted me with ’em. Just runnin’ off at the mouth when I said I took part. Honest to God. Wasn’t there when them folks got kilt. Swear it. Didn’t even know they ’uz dead till Reed asked ’bout ’em. Had already left the scene. Didn’t have nothin’ to do with none of it.”