by J. Lee Butts
As though wielding a broadsword, Wilton sliced the air with an emphatic wave of his smoldering cigar and hissed, “In this particular instance, His Honor does not want Slate brought back for trial.” The bluntness of his reply felt like a duelist’s challenging glove slapped across my face.
“Please do not misinterpret my insistence, sir, but I want to be crystal-clear on this issue. I’m being sent out to kill John Henry Slate?”
No pause, delay, emotion, or hitch in his voice when he replied, “Yes.”
“No doubt?”
“None.”
Fingered an inch of ash from my smoke onto the palm of one hand, then carefully deposited it into a glass bowl on the edge of Wilton’s desk. Leaned forward and locked eyes with the man. “I’ve never questioned any of the judge’s assignments in the past. Dragged Saginaw Bob Magruder back and watched him hang. Brought Smilin’ Jack Paine to book for all his foul and unnatural acts. Ran Martin Luther Big Eagle to ground and sent him to Jesus. Killed the Crooke brothers and a score of others who deserved what they got and then some.”
“True, Marshal Tilden, all quite true. Please believe me when I tell you that Judge Parker and I are well aware of, and thankful for, your devotion to the execution of all our past assignments.”
“Well, that’s good to know, Mr. Wilton. But it is also true that in service of the acts just mentioned, that I’ve witnessed the deaths of two of my closest friends—Handsome Harry Tate and Billy Bird. More important to the question at hand, though, it is my considered opinion that John Henry Slate’s an entirely different kinda cat from any of the other villains I’ve chased down or killed. I’ve not yet reconciled my friendship with his acts of deadly violence.”
My thoughts were running wild. Hesitated for a second before I finally stammered, “Reckon I could, well, you know, somehow . . . manage to bring him back . . . wouldn’t that be enough?”
Wilton wagged his hairless head from side to side. “To be blunt, Marshal Tilden, no. Despite all your misgivings on the subject, we expect the man to pay the ultimate price in the exact same manner he used to take the life of Deputy Marshal Petrie and, I might add, the other two people whose lives the man so casually and brutally ended in the same manner. No other man in our cadre of deputy marshals enjoys the kind of reputation with a gun as do you, Marshal Tilden. We require your best effort in this matter, and when you find John Henry Slate, make no mistake, we want you to kill him. Are my words unambiguous enough?”
He left me with not a single iota of wiggle room in the matter. Knew beyond a doubt that any further protestations would be met with ever toughening responses. The decision had been made and, for all intents and purposes, might as well have been carved in a block of Italian marble. John Henry Slate’s continuance among those of this earth was a question that had already been taken out of my hands. His life was over, and I would be the instrument of his passage to God for judgment. For a second, I knew what Judas must have felt like, but the die was cast, and by my hand John Henry would cease breathing the sweet air of life.
Then, for the briefest of moments, a ray of hope shot through my confused mind. “Isn’t there someone else you can send? My recovery and convalescence, from being recently shot while in performance of my duties, continues. Must confess, I am not certain that I can fully function at my best in my present condition.”
Wilton’s gaze narrowed. “As you are well aware, there is no one else for this particular kind of job. Your special station in Judge Parker’s cadre of deputy marshals is unlike any other. The task is yours and yours alone. Standing aside, in the hope that someone else will take on an unsavory job in your stead, is not an option.” He stood, and motioned toward the door. “For your convenience, a package complete with letters of introduction and assignment, transportation vouchers, warrants, and such awaits you on my secretary’s desk.” His conversation-ending words had the power of Heaven’s golden gates being slammed in my face with resounding finality.
Took some effort, but I grabbed up my hat and struggled to shaky legs. “May take me a day or two, but I’ll be after him as soon as possible.” Turned on my heel, and headed for the outer office.
Snatched the portal open, then paused long enough to barely hear Wilton when he said, “Please believe me, Hayden, this decision did not come down to you lightly. We completely understand your situation at present. You should be fully aware that we do sympathize, but cannot waver in this matter. Judge Parker and I both have full faith that you will carry out your assignment to its final conclusion with the same devotion to duty as you have done with all those in the past.”
Perhaps an edge of sarcasm tainted my reply when, over my shoulder, I spat, “I’ll do my best, sir.”
As I limped through his secretary’s office, Wilton called out through the open doorway, “Take anyone you like along for the trip. No questions will be forthcoming about expenses and such.”
Snatched up the envelope stuffed with documents and papers offered by his harried assistant, then headed for the street. Needed a lung full of fresh air somethin’ dreadful.
Making my way down the stone steps of the courthouse’s covered portico when Carl hopped up from his seat in the cabriolet. He took the granite steps two at a time to meet me. Look of innocent, puppy-dog inquisitiveness on his face when he said, “Well, what’d he say?”
Could tell he harbored hopes that someone, anyone else but us, would take care of the gnarly hair ball of a problem. He scuttled along beside me like a clumsy turtle trying to keep up by moving sidewise.
I said, “Appears we’re going after John Henry, Carl, soon as we can get our shit together.”
His demeanor changed, but so little as to be barely noticeable. Doubt anyone else could have even detected the minute alteration in my friend’s bearing. But we’d been together for so long a time that I could easily tell he felt the same way I did. Perhaps even more deeply, for Carl’s passions rested nearer the top of his heart.
Neither of us spoke a word on the way back to my house that fateful day. After I’d clambered down from the carriage, and Carl had climbed aboard his own animal for the trip back to town, I held his mount’s bridle and said, “Find Nate Swords. Tell him to meet us at the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad depot tomorrow mornin’. I’ll pay the freight for the three of us for tickets on the day coach. We’ll put our animals in a boxcar the way you, Billy, and I did when we went out after the Crooke boys.”
“Where we goin’?” he asked.
“Waco.”
“Waco? Why Waco?”
“’Cause that’s where John Henry’s headed. Could be he’ll stop off in Fort Worth. If he does, we might be able to get to Waco before he can make it back home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Family ranch a few miles outside town.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Sure as it’s possible to be right now. Way I’ve got it figured, once we get to rollin’ on the rails, just might be able to beat him there. And if our luck holds, there’s an outside chance that maybe we can talk him into comin’ on back with us.”
Carl squirmed in his saddle. Stared at passing clouds for a second, then leaned over on the narrow, silver-capped saddle horn. “But you said he wouldn’t come back. Said he’d fight, probably die, ’fore he’d let us bring him back alive for a hangin’. And I got the distinct impression on the courthouse steps not long ago that, just like the Crooke boys, them folks behind the big desks don’t want us a-bringin’ him back.”
Gazed up into my friend’s troubled eyes and knew when it came out of my mouth that I was just wishing. Said, “Well, you’re right about all of that, my friend. But for now, we’ll just play this task by ear. Leastways, until we’ve had a chance to confront John Henry. Gotta admit, Carl, while my heart tells me this dance probably ain’t gonna turn out the way we’d like, I’m gonna hope over hope that he’ll see the light. Maybe come on back with us and face the music for what he did.”
Carl whirled
his mount around in a tight circle. Heard him say, “Shit,” as he kicked back for town.
Elizabeth came home from the bank and found me dragging my gear around in preparation for the trip. No doubt at all what was going on. Had an arsenal of weapons laid out. She hit the ceiling when I told her I’d be leaving at the earliest possible instant, and that the object of my trip was to bring John Henry to justice.
Gal whirled on me like a cornered wildcat, snatched at my sleeve, and as hot, salty tears gathered in blinking eyes, said, “Oh, Hayden. You just can’t. He’s your friend. For the sweet love of God, if it weren’t for John Henry, I would have attended your funeral by now. You’ve got to pass this obligation on to someone else.”
Ran an oiled cloth down the barrel of my Winchester hunting rifle. “There isn’t anyone else, darlin’. Trust me, I’ve already tried that particular dodge. Didn’t come anywhere close to workin’. Got told in no uncertain terms as how it’s me and no one else for this dance.”
Trembling hands darted to her temples. She tugged at her hair and leaned against our dining table. “Lord God, this is madness. Judge Parker can’t possibly expect you to hunt down the man who saved your life, saw to your wounds, brought you home, visited almost every day while you recuperated. Entertained you. My God, I think I’m losing my mind.”
Laid the weapon aside, reached out, and took her hand. “All that and you’re well aware of what else he’s done. No way you’ve spent the day in town and not heard why this trip is necessary.”
“Of course I heard the story. You can’t walk through the bank, buy necessities at the store, or even stroll along Rogers Avenue for more than half a block without hearing people talking about it. A triple murder involving one of Fort Smith’s shade-tree-covered neighborhoods doesn’t go unnoticed.”
“Well, then, you must understand why I’m the one who has to go after him.”
“No. No, I don’t.”
With no place left to run, I dropped back into the dining room chair, reached out, took her hand again, and drew her to my side. “Who better, darlin’? Wouldn’t you rather I went than someone with no connection to the man? Someone not inclined to even try and talk him in? Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if someone from the families of the dead didn’t post a reward for him. There’s troops of violent men who’d jump at a chance to collect money on his lifeless body. A chance to kill him and assume the mantle of the heroic figure who avenged the murders of three innocent people.”
She brought her free hand up to my face, then ran caressing fingers through my hair. Bent over at the waist and raised my face toward her lips. She placed a lovingly tender kiss on my forehead. “I’ll never understand any of this insanity, Hayden, but I’ll pray for both of you.”
For years after that touching scene, I felt like the lowest skunk living. There I sat, lyin’ like a yeller dog. Doing everything I could to justify the unjustifiable to the woman I loved more than life itself. And at the same time knowing full well that, once John Henry and I finally met again, one of us would not survive the encounter.
Took a bit longer than I’d expected for Carl and me to get out on the track. Thought we’d just pack up and leave. But Nate proved a bit harder than usual to rustle up. Seems he’d taken a trip down to White Oak Mountain to visit with distant relatives. Carl finally ran him to ground the morning of the second day after my discussion with Mr. Wilton. They fogged it back to Fort Smith quick as they could. Still and all, we’d been delayed almost an extra day. By then, I’d developed a less than anxious attitude about leaving on the trip in the first place.
Morning we finally headed out, I kissed Elizabeth goodbye on the steps of our house. In the past, she had always accompanied me to the station in those instances where I left town aboard a train. That day, she refused to see me off.
Remember how she leaned her trembling body against mine, placed her head in the hollow of my shoulder, and sobbed. And when my departure could be delayed no longer, she clung to my arm and whispered, “Oh, please be careful, my dearest. I’ve had terrible nightmares ever since you told me about the trip. Harbor awful feelings about this entire dance.”
Tried to think of something to say that would reassure her. Not a single thing came to mind. Could do nothing but kiss her cheek, climb onto Gunpowder’s back, and kick away from the raw emotion of the moment.
Now, nearly sixty years later, still can’t imagine how I would have justified the dark secret of vengeance, punishment, and death I carried on my shoulders to that wonderful woman. A secret that I could not ever allow her to know. Such personal failures of character torment me to this very moment. And, when a cold moon is just right in the sky, God sometimes comes to my side to remind me of all my painful shortcomings. Many’s the night I’ve hit bony knees, bowed my head in supplication, only to find that the words necessary for forgiveness just won’t come. Such is the curse I carry wrapped around the heart of a tortured soul. Not sure what Hell’s really like, but over the years I think I’ve already served some time there.
16
“JUDGE PARKER MIGHT HANG SIX AT A POP . . .”
BACK IN THEM days, our raids were usually peppered with more than a healthy dollop of good-natured, nervous, grab-assedness and joshing around. Kind of thing men tend to do to take their minds off the enormity of the human problems and desperate situations that may soon confront them. Not on that trip. Not by a long damned shot.
Three of us caught a short run of the Kansas and Arkansas Valley Railroad over to Muskogee. Then each of us took an empty, well-worn seat on the M.K. & T. line’s day coach for ourselves and our individual mountains of gear. M.K. & T. went south like a snapped chalk line right to Fort Worth, and from there on to Waco. We hardly spoke during the entire first leg of the trip.
Could detect in myself, and my friends, the distinctly understandable emotions of men who appeared on their way to attend the funeral of a dearly departed member of a close-knit family. Person who seemed most affected by the news of John Henry’s fall was Carlton. Man’s gloomy demeanor more than attested to his disillusionment with the situation.
Shudder came up through the floor as the M.K. & T.’s Baldwin ten-wheeler belched to life amidst a hissing cloud of steam. The massive iron wheels slipped, slid, then grabbed onto the twin ribbons of steel beneath our feet. Passenger, freight, and stock cars jerked and snapped into forward motion. The locomotive chugged as though in labor, slowly rumbled away from Muskogee’s soot-stained, red-brick depot, then slowly snaked out of town.
Friends, relatives, and casual onlookers all along the rail line’s advancing course waved and gandered in wonder as we flew by. Their faces glowed with awe as though witnessing the passage of some kind of enormous, prehistoric, smoke-belching beast bent on destroying anything unlucky enough to cross its fiery path. Took a spell, but we finally built up considerable speed and plummeted south through the Indian country like an anvil dropped in a well.
Spent most of my time gazing absentmindedly out the window, my fevered brain a bewildered knot of seething turmoil and upheaval. Locomotive rattled, clattered, and thundered over vast stretches of rolling, green, tree-covered hills and endless prairies dotted with dusty former buffalo wallows. We skirted the edges of the rocky-peaked Brushy, San Bois, Jack Fork, and Kiamichi Mountains. Roared across the Red River, shrouded beneath a curtain of burned post oak that drifted away from us like the melded spirits of lost souls.
Above the horizon to the west, as far as the eye could see, a roiling, anvil-shaped bank of slate-colored clouds churned and seethed our direction. Their diaphanous, knifelike, misty kin fled before them like escaping animals running ahead of a murderous predator. The jagged shelf of bad weather followed us all the way from Arkansas to Fort Worth. So, bushed from riding the rails, we decided to lay over at the El Paso Hotel for a night.
’Bout the time we disembarked at the Texas & Pacific depot, down on the south end of Houston Street, the heavens opened and dumped enough water on us, as Nate observed, “to
match Noah’s flood.” Combination of the trip and the cool, wet weather stove me up to the point where I could barely walk.
Rained like a son of a bitch all that night. El Paso Hotel’s sturdy building vibrated like a picked banjo string as winds from New Mexico howled through Tejas on their way to Louisiana. Bright blue pitchfork lightning fell from the tips of God’s fingers. Earth-shattering claps of thunder followed on the heels of each near-blinding bolt that dropped from inky heavens. The thick, saturated Texas air crackled with electricity.
Now and again, the entire earth seemed to heave and shake as though the good Lord himself had leaned down from His golden throne and smacked the ground with one enormous open palm. Carlton observed as how the lengthy abuse of the earth was enough to scare hell out of any poor soul who might find himself stuck out on the Llano Estacado with nothing but a horse and a hat for shelter.
Nate stood at the window of our room and muttered, “Damned ominous, don’t you think, fellers? Almost like the Deity’s a-tryin’ to tell us somethin’.”
Carlton, who’d claimed one of only two beds in our room, pushed his hat up off his face with one finger, then said, “Swear ’fore Jesus, Swords, you’re worse’n an ole spinster woman. Always lookin’ for signs and portents. Remind me of my poor, long-dead, snaggle-toothed granny. Worryin’ over this. Worryin’ over that. Worryin’ over what might or might not happen.”
Nate puffed up like an angry bullfrog. “While I might legitimately be concerned with the weather, Marshal Cecil, sure as hell ain’t nothin’ akin to your poor ole granny.”
Carl grinned, then said, “Why don’t you lay your tired, railroad-abused ass down on the pallet them hotel fellers made for you and get to sleep. We’ve got a long day ahead of us when we reach Waco tomorrow.” He pushed the hat back down over his face and, in a matter of minutes, sounded like the biggest blade at a local sawmill chewing through solid oak logs.