by Paul Bagdon
Chapter Eight
It seems to me that every telegraph operator I’ve ever seen looked like a damn mouse, and this fella was no exception. He had vaguely brown hair, which was thinning, and a sharp face with an even sharper nose. His shoulders slumped forward like those of a mouse, too, probably from leaning over his key all day. He was probably as strong as a fried egg.
He looked up at me briefly when I walked in and then went back to his tip-tapping. I was dressed like a cowhand and he apparently had more important things to do than fiddle about with a saddlebum.
I’d figured out who I wanted to contact and sat at a little table and wrote each name and the best address I could come up with on a little yellow sheet of paper provided for customers, using the pencil on the table. My message was the same to each man:
Me and Arm in trouble. Need help right now. Will pay big. Bring ammo. Jake Walters’s horse farm. Hulberton, W. Texas. Ask in town.
I read over my work and thought it wasn’t half bad. It said what I wanted it to say without a bunch of useless greetings an’ such folderol.
I walked over to where the operator sat behind the same kind of window a bank teller uses.
“I need this to go out right away—now.”
The mouse looked up at me with oily little dark eyes. “This is my busiest time of the day,” he said, as if he were talking to a worm. “Stop back in the morning if…”
I drew my pistol, spun it in my hand, and smashed the mouse’s window with the butt. Then I grabbed his tie an’ lifted him out of his chair. “I said now and I meant now. That other horseshit can wait.”
“B…but I can’t possibly…”
“Here’s what we’ll do,” I said. “You’ll either send my messages now or I’ll shove your little key thing up your scrawny ass.” I let go of his tie and he fell back into his chair. I reached into my back pocket and put some twenties on his table. “That oughta cover it. Start sendin’.”
It took the rodent better’n two hours to get all sixteen messages sent. As he worked, fat drops of sweat rolled down his forehead, although it was cool in the little office.
“There,” he said. He started adding figures on a sheet of paper next to him. “Like I said, all them twenties will cover it. You keep the change.”
I fetched Tiny’s horse from the stable, paid up, and rode back to Hulberton. I didn’t push the gray on the way back, but he held that lope beautifully. I couldn’t help thinking it was too bad he was a gelding. If he had his eggs, covering our mare with him might give us another fine foal. That got me thinking about Tiny…
He slugged down half a schooner of beer, his grin as wide as Texas. “So the doc hands the fella a big bottle fulla thick brown liquid that smelled an’ tasted like goat dung. ‘This here’ll take care of ya,’ the doc says. ‘Slug the whole bottle on down.’
“Now the poor cowhand figured this doc knew what he was doin’, so he set to drinkin’ from the bottle, damn near pukin’ as he did. Well, finally, he got ’er all down.
“ ‘There,’ the doc says, ‘that’ll take care of your cramps.’
“ ‘Cramps!’ the cowhand yells, ‘I said crabs!’ ”
I laughed, blowing beer outta my nose. Arm sat there looking from Tiny to me, stone-faced. “Crabs? What is this crabs?”
“Bush bunnies,” Tiny laughed.
“Boosh bonnies?”
“Bugs, Arm,” I said. “Ball bugs.”
“Ahhh. Then why didn’t the cowhand say that? Why he say…”
“Let it go, Arm,” I suggested.
“Ees boolshit,” he said. “Domb Anglo joke.”
I shook my head, which made my horse a touch nervous, but he calmed down and so did I. I reined him in just a hair and I saw the tracks we’d left going the other way. It made me shudder. Anyone riding like that through the snow-covered, treacherous terrain we covered hadda be a idjit.
We made it because we had to.
I was maybe a hair nervous as I approached the farm. Arm had all the lamps in the barn on. Most of the lanterns in the house were on ’cept in Teresa an’ Blanca’s room. They were dark.
A slug hissed over my head a half second before I heard the shot fired.
“Goddammit,” I yelled out, “Arm, it’s me!”
“I thought so—is why I shoot high.”
I rode up to the barn and dismounted. Arm had a 30.30 over his shoulder an’ a half-empty bottle of tequila in his left hand. There’s no easy way to say what I had to say. “Tiny’s dead. He had a lot of lead in him.”
Arm held my gaze for a long moment. “Tiny, he never carried no gun. We jus’ talked about that. ’Member?”
My partner turned away from me for a moment and swiped his sleeve across his eyes. He turned back and said, “We will no let theese go by.”
“No. We won’t. I got lots of wires out—we’ll have all the men an’ firepower we need if even half of them show up.”
“Who you wire?”
“Dirty Eddie, Snaker Ray, Li’l Tommy, Mick, Big Elk—a bunch of men who’d do us the most good. I offered good money.”
“Eddie—he’s morte, no?”
“No—that was his brother the Pinkertons got.”
“Ees good. I always like Dirty Eddie.”
There’s a thing about living as an outlaw an’ gunslinger. None of us ever ask another what his last name may be. Arm an’ me, we didn’t have the reputations most of the others did, so we didn’t care. But a good percentage of the outlaws have range names—like Snaker Ray an’ Dirty Eddie. Boys like the Earps played on both sides of the law and didn’t give a damn who knew their names. Billy the Kid was as crazy as a shithouse rat an’ went by Bill Bonney as much as anything else. The James brothers were too well-known for range names—and too arrogant to use them, anyway.
The men I wired were hard cases Arm and I had come across and spent time with—usually in various criminal activities. They trusted us; we trusted them.
“The ladies,” Arm said, “have stew an’ biscuits for us. You are hongry?”
“You bet.”
Teresa an’ Blanca had a big pot of venison stew simmering, and the scent of it was enough to carry a man off. Plus, there were biscuits that might well have floated off, they were so light and warm—and a huge bowl of mashed potatoes and a dish of canned tomatoes an’ so forth.
I ate like a starving sow and so did Arm. It’s strange how men like us see death. Gunslingers an’ bank robbers an’ such almost inevitably die in a fight or during a robbery. Some are grabbed up by the Pinkertons an’ are hung. Others would simply screw up an’ sit with their backs to a window.
Tiny was different, and he deserved a lot more than me or Arm meeting one man in a gunfight. Tiny was a good man—a genuinely good man— which is the sort of fella not many of us knew. Me an Arm got lucky—he was our friend—our good friend.
I knew as soon as I saw Tiny’s bullet-riddled body that I’d face Dansworth. There was no question about that. Not only would I face him, but I’d kill him and watch his eyes as he died. I’d take that beautiful .45 of his and use it as my own. Each time I drew it I’d remember Tiny an’ how Dansworth died with my bullets in him.
See, that’s how lots of us lived during those times.
We decided that we’d never leave the barn unguarded. Tiny had boarded up Blanca an’ Teresa’s windows with some of the lumber he had left over from his working on the barn. We tol’ them to stay on the floor if trouble started. Tiny said the Sharps wouldn’t make it through the lumber—it was fresh and hard—so we tried it out. All of us—the ladies, Arm, and me—stood out by the barn. I loaded up the Sharps, bored a clean hole through timber across the window, and blew the slug out through the back wall. The sumbitch might still be goin’, as far as I know.
“We stay floor,” Blanca said.
The weather screws around as it generally does in West Texas spring. We’d have days that were so intensely and perfectly salubrious—a word M. Chambery taught me in fourth gra
de, the year I dropped out—that we never wanted them to end. Other days—even the ones following the great ones—must have been hangovers from February, with cruel, biting winds and even snow.
The animals were fractious because of being confined in stalls so much, but Arm an’ me didn’t dare let them out into the corral or pasture with only the pair of us to guard them.
Our stud turned ornery, climbing an’ striking an’ being miserable. He ate, but that’s all he did right. We had to board his stall higher and make the gate and front stouter with three-quarter-inch planks.
The foal was looking real good, but he was restless and bored. When he thought it’d be fun to nip his teeth ’round his ma’s nipples, she spun, knocked him off his feet, and chewed a tiny patch of hide off his flank. He squealed like a scalded cat—but apparently figured out that just sucking was the way to go.
The Appy colt had not a problem in the world. Arm had given him a pig bladder to play with. He’d done the same with our own colt, but he showed no interest at all. The Ap, though, nosed and shoved that bladder around his stall, as happy as a kid at a county fair with a pocketful of pennies.
“That colt, when he is older, might throw a better foal’n our mare’s done,” Arm said, as we stood there watching the Ap play with the bladder.
I hated to admit it, but I said, “He’s got all the personality he needs. He’s put together good, too.”
“Good? The Appy, he’s damn near perfect, no? Lookit his chest, his forelegs, lookit how he handles himself. Damn, Jake…”
I didn’t argue.
The first of our crew rode in about two weeks later. He was called “One Foot,” for obvious reasons. Union canister shot had taken of his heel at Second Bull Run and the surgeons lopped off the rest. He wasn’t what you’d call a pleasant fella. His first words were, “What’re you payin’?”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“A thousand.”
“We’ll pay you two, you do what we need you to do.”
He thought that over. “You need ears or scalps or noses or peckers?”
“Nope.”
“You got a deal. Hacking stuff off men I’ve killed never made no sense to me. If I say I killed ’em, then I killed ’em.”
Dirty Eddie showed up next and he an’ Arm embraced like a pair of brothers. Eddie was somewhat strange-looking: he had scalps acrossed his chest an’ back, strung on latigo, and he was near goddam a one-man munitions dump. He carried four .45s—two in left an’ right holsters, an’ two in cross-draw shoulder holsters. There was a 30.30 in each side of his saddle at his knees and behind him on the cantle. The heft of a pair of Bowies showed at his boot tops, an’ anyone who thought he wasn’t carryin’ at least a pair of Derringers was a damned fool.
Three Pinkertons thought they had him just outside of Dodge a couple years ago. They’re pushin’ up daisies now—they thought they’d stripped him of weapons. They were wrong.
A gent named Mad Dog—half Paiute, half Mexican, and all crazy—jogged in on a thoroughbred horse he’d stolen way the hell off in Kentucky. We put up the horses as men dribbled in. They spread their trail blankets wherever they cared to—in the living room, in the barn, and in the kitchen. After another week or so we had ten men and we figured that was plenty. Most knew one another, but there was little chitchat or catching up. These guys weren’t big on talking.
Blanca an’ Teresa shagged the kitchen sleepers out early in the morning and prepared huge breakfasts, probably more than most of the men would eat in the course of an average day.
The ladies didn’t much care for our troops. They were afraid of them, seeing them as partners with Satan. “To keel for money is a great sin,” Blanca said.
During the day the men hung around, playing poker, drinking, and riding our land. One or two would ride into town every so often, but encountered little trouble. It was apparent to Dansworth that we’d brought in help; he had riders posted all around our farm.
One observer rode into rifle range and that was a big mistake. Dirty Eddie picked him off and then rode out to see if he had anything worth taking. “His horse was a joke—wormy, underfed, missing a shoe. I unsaddled him an’ sent him on his way. The rider’s .45 was missing one of its grips and was rusted to boot.” He held up a bottle of cheap whiskey. “This was all that was worth taking,” he said. “His saddle was held together with spit an’ baling twine. If these are the sort of men we’re after, a battle ain’t gonna take long.”
I didn’t have an actual plan an’ I called all the men together at lunchtime a week or so after they’d arrived. “They hang in that one saloon,” I said, “but they’re generally all around town, too—the general store, restaurant, and so forth.”
“Well, hell,” a fella named Chester said, “that don’t seem to present no problem. Why not just ride in an’ shoot their asses off an’ git this thing finished up?”
No one—including Arm an’ me—had any problems with that plan. It’d be quick, clean, and would solve our problem in a big hurry.
“We’ll need at least a couple of men to stay an’ watch over the horses,” I said. “An’ one other thing: I want Dansworth. Leave him standing. You’ll recognize him by his fancy clothes an’ polished boots. It’s personal between him an’ me.”
“I hear-tell he’s handy with that Colt of his,” Dirty Eddie said.
“Maybe. I guess I’ll find out.”
Deciding who’d stay to watch the horses an’ farm took considerable debate, much of it loud an’ profane, bordering on gunfights.
“Look,” I yelled over the clamor, “we’ll each write our names on a little piece of paper. The one drawn stays. I’ll pay him extra. The rest of us ride.”
“Who holds the papers?”
“I’ll ask one of our ladies,” I said. “Fair enough?”
“We gotta see the names go in the hat.”
“Jesus. Yeah. You’ll see that. I got a piece of foolscap from the desk in the living room and tore it into a dozen fairly even pieces. I gave one to each man. They passed a nub of a pencil around.
“I dunno how to write,” someone pointed out.
“Then give the paper to somebody else to write your name on. Or draw a goddamn picture or make a mark.”
Then I went up to get Blanca, while our troops sucked away at our liquor supply.
“There’s no danger—all they’ll do is choose a slip of paper from a hat, Blanca. There’s nothin’ to be afraid of.”
“Is always good to fear Satan.”
“They’re not Satan—they’re jus’ men, like me an’ like Arm.”
“No es verdad.”
“It is true, Blanca—they’re a little scruffy, and they live different than most people, but they ain’t devils.”
“They are loco keelers.”
“But…but…see, Blanca…they live differently. They don’t…”
“Ees boolsheet.” I’d never heard her use any language the pope wouldn’t use. She put her hand on my arm. “I weel do it. Is good? No? But, I weel play a game with the devil.”
“I don’t…”
“Hush now,” Blanca demanded. “We go now an’ do the sleeps of paper. You an’ Armando have been good to us. I can do this—but I no owe you my holy an’ ’ternal soul, ya know? This is one time, is all. I can go to ’fession soon. But when I draw the sleep I pray in my head.”
“Fine. Okay. Thanks, Blanca.”
The men were sitting and standing around as I’d left them. “Wait a minnit,” a guy named Lefty snarled. “Who’s goin’ to be holdin’ the papers?”
This was getting tiresome. “Look,” I said, “we’ll put ’em in a hat an’ blindfold Blanca. Now—let’s cut the horseshit an’ get to it.”
I pushed the slips off the table into my hat and shook hell outta them. Arm tied his bandana around Blanca’s head, completely covering her eyes. I took Blanca’s hand an’ held it over my inverted hat. “All you gotta do is pick one,” I said.
Blanc
a put her hand into the hat as if she were sticking it in a box of scorpions. She plucked out one slip. I took the paper and showed it around. “Looks like Lou is stayin’,” I said. “The rest of us will ride out after dark.”
“I din’t ride here to set in a goddamn barn,” Lou said. “Suppose you or the Mex got drawed? Would you hang back?”
I suppose I answered louder and more hostile than I needed to. “I’m tired of this shit. Arm an’ me are runnin’ this show—the ones who pay the money an’ give the orders. If that bothers any of you, saddle up an’ get the hell off our land.”
“Feisty today, ain’t he?” Dirty Eddie said.
“I’ll show you how feisty I am tonight, when we get to Hulberton,” I said.
“You got some kinda plan, Jake?” Mad Dog asked. “Or are we jist gonna charge in an’ shoot hell outta everybody an’ everything?”
Mad Dog gave me a quick shiver, and for a moment I thought that Blanca’s satanic theory just might be right. Dog didn’t care which way it went. He’d just as soon kill women an’ kids as gunfighters an’ lawmen. It was all the same to him.
“I see anybody take down a civilian,” I said, sweeping my eyes over the crew, “I’ll shoot him off his horse right there—no questions asked, no explanations accepted. Arm will do the same thing. Clear?” Some of the men nodded. No one said anything. It seemed like I might have said nothing more important than, “The punkin crop looks good this year.”
“I ain’t Quantrill,” I said, “an’ Hulberton ain’t Lawrence, out in Kansas. We go right for the saloon—me an’ Arm will lead—an’ engage the sonsabitches inside an’ outside the place.”
Mad Dog smirked at the word “engage.”
“One other thing,” I said. “Anybody hit bad enough to be shot off his horse—well—it’s up to him what happens to him. Most likely, he’ll get his ass shot off. Point is, we’re not bringing any wounded back here to croak. Minor wounds where a man can still ride an’ shoot, they ride back with us. We don’t want hostages or prisoners. We’re not carryin’ any of Dansworth’s men anywhere but to hell.”