Gun Work: The Further Exploits of Hayden Tilden

by J. Lee Butts

  Think it surprised the whole bunch when I threw them a friendly smile, then said, “All too common misunderstanding on your part, Ennis. We’re deputy U.S. marshals. Our authority extends to the farthest reaches of every state and territory. And today, we’re here to arrest you boys for the crimes of bank robbery and cold-blooded murder.”

  Leroy Coltrane had assumed a lock-jawed look similar to that of a rabid dog. Slobbers dribbled from one corner of his mouth when he growled, “That’s a steamin’ load of horse manure, Tilden. Ain’t got nothin’ on us. Any of us. Even if’n you do, it ain’t nothin’ more’n a bag fulla dung, whatever it is. And whoever told you that windy whizzer’s nothin’ but a fork-tongued belly slinker and a son of a bitch.”

  Carl sounded like he just might fall down laughing when he said, “Benny gave you up, boys. Remember him? Little brother Benny Coltrane. Implicated all you skunks in the robbery of the bank in Winslow, the murder of a book peddler name of Marcel Cushman, along with the possible abetting in the murders of this girl’s entire family.”

  “Benny?” Jesse said. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “’Course your loving woman there added more fuel to the fires with what she went and did,” I said.

  Surprised me more then a bit when Jesse Coltrane shot an iniquitous look Daisy Cassidy’s direction. Look of surprised understanding spread over his face when he growled, “You actually went and done it, didn’t you? You crazy, lunatic bitch. That’s why you showed up here like you done, ain’t it?”

  If looks could set fires, Jesse Coltrane would’ve gone up in flames like a burlap bag full of dried pine knots in a depot stove. Thought sure Daisy Cassidy was about to reach down, run a couple fingers up his nose, snatch his head off, then hang it next to the twelve-point buck mounted on the wall behind him.

  “Shut it, Jesse,” Daisy said. “Just keep your stupid mouth shut. Ain’t nothin’ but a bunch of ignorant lawmen tellin’ lies. They can’t prove a thing.”

  “She’s right, Jesse, up to a point anyway,” I said. “But you might want to be aware that she’s already set the law on you, and the rest of your gang, by telling everyone within a hundred miles of Dutch Crossing that you’re the ones responsible for her entire family’s unnatural departure from this life.”

  Jesse Coltrane’s face flushed and eyes almost crossed. “You laid those murders off on me, Leroy, and the boys?”

  “Three murders, as a matter of pure fact, Jesse,” Carl said. “Includin’ her entire family. Couple of them rubbed out with an ax. Gal’s done made you an express appointment with the hangman.”

  Daisy Cassidy went into a kind of semi-crouch. Looked like a crazed, cornered animal when she shot me an overheated glare filled with enough lunacy and venom to kill a Montana moose. “Don’t you listen to any of them, Jesse,” she snapped. “They’re lying. Lying like cheap throw rugs. Bet the truth’s never had any place in either of these men’s lying mouths.”

  “Better find another way to justify your crimes, miss,” Nate called out. “Everyone here, including Jesse, Leroy, and their friends, knows that Hayden Tilden don’t lie.”

  Leroy Coltrane rocked back in his chair and let out a disgusted grunt. Threw down a full shot of whiskey, then said, “If I tole you once, Jesse, bet I tole you ten times. Ten times, by God. This here gal’s nothin’ but bad news walkin’. Somethin’ ain’t attached and workin’ proper in her thinker box. If’n you warn’t doin’ mosta yer thinkin’ with yer crotch, from daylight till dark, you’d a seen the truth of it a long time ago.”

  With a glare of angry, squinty-eyed determination etched into his face, Jesse Coltrane got to both feet faster than I could have imagined. Red-faced killer grabbed Daisy Cassidy by the throat in a heartbeat. Couldn’t believe my ears when he hissed, “Ain’t nothin’ I ever wanted more’n you, girl. Hell, I ’uz willing to do just about anything to have you. But, by God, they’s some things that are just not acceptable no matter how good-lookin’ a woman you are. Or how talented with that thang ’tween your legs.”

  Fingers clamped to the Cassidy girl’s throat, Jesse shook her like a kid’s raggedy doll. Think the three of us lawdogs yelled, “Let her go,” at the same time. But he didn’t hear a single word. Looking back on that day, from the vantage of time and some thought on the subject, the man might have been beyond hearing much of anything by that point.

  Daisy Cassidy appeared in considerable distress when Jesse added, “Some behavior can’t be tolerated when a feller lives the way I do. Rattin’ a man out to the law, for somethin’ he didn’t do, heads a damned short list of such absolutely unforgivable transgressions.”

  Carlton might as well have thrown coal oil on a raging bank of head-high flames when he said, “She’s been living with another man, too, Jesse. Young feller from back home named Jacky White. You know ’bout that? Yeah. She was shacked up with him in a hotel room in Fort Worth, until recently. Real cozy arrangement till she went and sliced his belly open and all his guts fell out on the ground. Probably blame that killin’ on you as well, she gets the chance.”

  Coltrane’s eyes went wild. His grip on Daisy Cassidy’s throat tightened. Figured she’d be dead where she stood in pretty short order, when he growled, “What the hell’d you go and do? Who’ve you been livin’ with, girl? What else have you blamed on me’n my boys?”

  Dry, choked, gagging sounds filtered up from Daisy Cassidy’s closed throat. Girl couldn’t speak. Appeared to me she couldn’t breathe either. Went to clawing at Coltrane’s fingers and wrist. Her eyes rolled toward the top of her head.

  Then, out of nowhere, Jesse’s free hand came around and smacked her across the mouth so hard it made my own cheek burn. The lick rattled Daisy Cassidy right to the soles of her knee-high riding boots.

  “Damn you,” Coltrane yelped. “Who’ve you been sleepin’ with, woman? What kinda lie’d you go and tell on me and my brothers? Best cough it on up, or, swear ’fore Jesus, I’ll choke the life outta you right here, then piss on your corpse.”

  Guess those words had scarcely fallen from the eldest Coltrane’s sneering lips when fate stepped in and took a hand in the situation. What happened next surprised and stunned the bejabbers out of me and everyone else there that day.

  Not sure to this very instant how she came up with the knife. Stood no more than a dozen feet away from the two arguing lovers, and swear I just didn’t see it coming. Neither did Jesse Coltrane. Suppose it’s possible the pigsticker lay hid in one of the folds of Daisy’s dress—my best guess anyway. Or maybe she had it strapped to her leg somewhere. Even after all these years, answer to the question’s still a mystery to me. Doesn’t really matter anyway, I suppose. Long, thin blade—second cousin to a flattened ice pick—flashed up under poor, dumb Jesse’s ribs and snatched all the starch out of him, so quick, no one who witnessed the act realized what she’d gone and done—leastways, not at first.

  Eldest living member of the Coltrane clan suddenly looked right surprised. He coughed, gagged, then grabbed at the gaping hole punched in his chest. Unbelieving, he shot a puzzled glance down at the wound, then made a retching sound like he might puke his socks up. River of blood filled the gaps between grasping fingers as he turned Daisy loose, went rubber-legged, stumbled, and fell backward into his recently vacated seat at the table.

  Brother Leroy’s chair flipped over and noisily bounced several times when he sprang to drunken, unsteady feet. A look of confused befuddlement sat on his face when he said, “What the hell’s goin’ on here? What’s wrong with you, Jesse?”

  “Oh, God,” Jesse Coltrane gasped. “Think she done went’n stabbed me, brother. Jesus, think she might’ve . . . might’ve . . . gone an’ kilt me.”

  Well, quicker than half of no time at all, the whole dance went straight to a sulfurous Hell. A pistol flashed into Leroy Coltrane’s formerly empty paw. Unthinking idiot snapped off a shot that caught a still gagging Daisy Cassidy right between the eyes.

  Least stable of the Coltrane brothe
rs couldn’t have been much more than six feet away when he fired that shot. The .45-caliber slug turned Daisy Cassidy’s head into a blood-filled water trough. Opened a furrow in her skull of blasted bone, brain matter, hair, and chunks of scalp that exited in a hat-sized, misty wad of flying gore that splattered everything within ten feet around. Bullet rocked Daisy up on her heels, then she dropped like a sack of sand, thrown off the roof of a three-story Dallas bank building.

  Carl and Nate responded to the stunning turn of events exactly the way I’d told them to. As a matter of pure fact, none of us hesitated. Daisy Cassidy’s still warm body was on its way to the floor when we cut loose with six barrels worth of heavy-gauge buckshot.

  Coltrane gang’s table exploded in a dagger-filled cloud of flying wood splinters. Out front of a thunderous wave of sizzling black powder, our initial curtain of shotgun pellets swept through all four of those boys. Six-barreled blast shredded clothing and blew hats into the blood-saturated air.

  Storm of shotgun pellets shattered several whiskey bottles and glasses sitting on the table. Sent riddled playing cards into the air like confetti. Chewed through muscle, flesh, and bone, then gouged dozens upon dozens of holes in the wall behind those boys. Smoking cavities filled with rivulets of blood and gore that splattered the wall and slid toward the floor like badly applied paint.

  Hard to see much of anything a second after we dropped the hammers on that bunch. Thick, black, roiling cloud of acrid-smelling smoke filled the cramped corner and sent me to one knee. Knew Carl and Nate had likely got out of the line of fire by doing the same thing. Thank God, we didn’t get so much as a single shot by way of return fire. Not surprising, actually, but I was sure as hell glad of it.

  Smoke finally cleared on a scene of utter devastation. Limp, unmoving, shot-peppered bodies of Ennis Buckheart and Egger Salt sat upright in their chairs. Useless arms dangled at their sides. Caught straight on by the blast from my weapon, the pair of hatless men stared at the ceiling, empty-eyed, empty-handed. We later located their pistols on the floor beneath their chairs. Appeared to me both men had managed to draw their weapons about half a second too late.

  Found Leroy Coltrane’s shot-riddled body under the table. He had fallen backward onto his overturned chair and reduced it to kindling, then rolled into a ball near Egger Salt’s feet. One barrel of shot from Nate’s big popper hit the poor goober in the left side, up under his arm. Man had a hole in his chest you could stick your fist into. Died instanteously. Alive one second, deader than Santa Anna and shaking hands with Beelzebub the next.

  Near as we could figure it, most of Carl’s twin barrels of buckshot slapped the right side of Jesse Coltrane’s once-handsome face and instantly turned it into bloody smithereens. No way to identify the man from what remained of his vaporized head. Nothing left but eight or ten inches of exposed neck bone and a splintered piece of lower jaw that still sported a few teeth. Only way a body would have ever known, with any degree of certainty, it was Jesse was to have been aware of where he sat when the gunplay started.

  We saw to the burials of the entire crew before heading back to Fort Smith. ’Course there was no undertaker available at Morgan’s Cut. No way to get a coffin built, either, much less five of them.

  Wrapped the bodies in blankets we bought at a half-assed mercantile near the saloon. Planted Daisy, the Coltrane boys, and the rest of them in what went for a cemetery atop a tree-shaded bluff overlooking the Brazos River. Had to dig the holes ourselves. Downright beautiful spot, to tell the God’s truth.

  Remember Carlton stuffed his hat on after the last shovel of dirt fell. He leaned on the short-handled spade, gazed around at the site’s stunning natural beauty, then said, “You know, Tilden, not sure folks as evil as these deserve to rest in such a beautiful place. Hell, have trouble justifyin’ the effort we’re going to for these walkin’ rattlesnakes.”

  Clapped him on the shoulder. Said, “Deserve doesn’t have anything to do with it, Carl.”

  “I know,” he said, then pitched the shovel aside. “But, if I’d of had my way, we’d a dragged ’em out into the big cold and lonely. Covered ’em with a pile of rocks to keep the coyotes off, way we done for that poor idiot of a kid Daisy Cassidy left under the tree. Far as I’m concerned, it’s all any of ’em should’ve expected—whether they deserved it or not.”

  And so, we made our way back to Fort Smith. I wrote my reports and waited. And, as usual, our actions and the outcome of the chase went unchallenged.

  Truth be told, the whole mess turned out right profitable. Posted rewards on Jesse and Leroy Coltrane amounted to almost three thousand dollars. About a month after we made it back got word from Mr. Wilton’s office that Ennis Buckheart and Egger Salt were wanted in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for murdering the hell out of a farmer during the attempted robbery of a branch of the Elk Horn Bank located right in the middle of that picturesque downtown. Folks there wanted those boys bad enough that they put up two thousand apiece, dead or alive. Seems Eureka Springs’ dead farmer had a lot of friends.

  Couldn’t do much but try to salve my conscience with such monetary good news, given the bloody outcome of the hunt. ’Course I never discussed that particular expedition with Elizabeth. Just couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Fact is, I don’t remember ever mentioning the story to anyone, till now. But, you know, after the gunfight at Morgan’s Cut, that beautiful gal of mine always allowed as how I was never exactly the same.

  Had a lot of years to think about the whole ugly incident, and have to admit, I think Elizabeth was right.

  EPILOGUE

  GOT TO GIVE credit where credit’s due. Martha Frances Harrison, appearing mesmerized, sat unmoving the whole night long. She listened to my lengthy yarn of lunatic behavior, gun smoke, and violent death like an awestruck child. Seemed as though as long as I talked, she had barely moved. Sometimes not even sure she breathed while I spun the tale out for her.

  But when I finished, and after a few seconds of silence, she gazed up at me with misty eyes and said, “That’s the most incredible story I’ve ever heard, Hayden. Exactly what you warned me to expect. Nothing like any western movie I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure. A twisted, unrelenting, realistic tale of obsession, blood, murder, and as you warned before starting, quick death.”

  Outside the highly polished windows of our sunporch haven, off to the east, a snipped fingernail of sunlight sliced across the distant horizon. Muted light, filtered by a bank of thin, dark clouds, and reflected off the Arkansas River, bathed our hideout under the potted palm in a soft, reddish hue. Came damn near to being the exact color of blood.

  Martye leaned my direction. She placed a warm hand on my leg. Squeezed, then said, “Had someone else told me that selfsame story, I would have dismissed it out of hand as being nothing more than a fanciful concoction designed to shock a tenderhearted listener. Truth is, I could never have brought myself to believe a man of your splendid conduct, and Southern cavalier refinement, ever took part in such brutal affairs. But having heard it directly from your own lips, well, I suppose the reality of those horrible events can’t be denied.”

  Tried to smile, but couldn’t. “You know, Martye, I do believe you’re the best thing that’s happened to me since Carl passed away. Right lonely around here till you showed up, darlin’. Really enjoy your company. Figured my experience with the devilish Daisy Cassidy would show you a side of me I’ve kept hidden from most people for more years than I care to remember. Pray I didn’t say anything that would damage our friendship. One I sincerely hope lasts for some time to come.”

  She smiled. Grabbed my hand and stood. Pulled me out of my seat. Linked one arm in mine and started moving us down the hallway toward the cafeteria and a waiting breakfast.

  We hadn’t gone very far when she leaned against me and whispered, “Hayden, have you ever wondered what would have happened to Daisy Cassidy if you had managed to bring her back alive?”

  Her question rang in my leathery old heart like a c
racked church bell. “Yes. More times than I care to recall. More times than I care to think about.”

  “Would you venture a guess? Just for me.”

  Chin on my chest, I muttered, “Well, I’m pretty sure that after being found guilty, Judge Parker would have sentenced her to hang. And, very likely, her lawyers would have appealed that sentence.”

  “So, in your estimation, had the Cassidy girl lived, she wouldn’t have been known to history as the first woman hanged by Judge Parker in Fort Smith?”

  “Didn’t say that. In the end, when all her appeals had justifiably failed, and the case had finally shaken out to its logical conclusion, in my estimation, Daisy Cassidy would have walked to her fate on the arm of hangman George Maledon. Climbed the steps of his Gates of Hell gallows in the little hollow not far from the courthouse. And, in all likelihood, Carlton and I would have been compelled to attend her hanging.”

  “My God.”

  “Indeed. It’s an image that I’m eternally grateful had no chance to take root and add another scar on my heart.”

  Martye clung to my arm. Snuggled closer. Felt damned good having her next to me. And given the dangerous and deadly course of my past life, simply being alive and able to walk the halls of the Rolling Hills Home for the Aged felt good. Felt damned good.