Friends

by Charles Hackenberry

  When Clete come back, he drew his Remington, cocked it, and held it high. "I hope you burn in hell," he said, his voice just above a whisper.

  "He was my boy, my only boy you killed!" DuShane hollered, twisting his head around as best he could so as to see Clete. He had kept himself together up 'til then, but now his face was twisted up with fear and I saw the piss darken his pants and some of it drip from his boot heel onto the dead pine needles.

  "Then why the hell did you tell people that Whitey was your brother?!" Clete demanded.

  I remember it struck me as odd right then that Clete was going through all this just to find out whether Whitey was this man's son or his brother. I couldn't see how it could be so important to him so as to give DuShane the pain of putting him in the saddle-though after I thought on it, I realized we'd of had to set him up anyway, for he surely could not walk. But at the same time it also struck me odd that Clete was so mad as he was-and he was, for the veins was standing out on his neck. Then again, maybe it was just that DuShane wouldn't answer him for so long. Nosir, Clete Shannon was not a man to be took lightly.

  DuShane turned his face front again, more in my direction, and got hisself more under control. "He was my brother. Don't hang me, Sheriff. Don't do it!" And then he lowered his head and started to cry, big sobs that shook him all over.

  I thought for a minute he was saying whatever he figgered Clete wanted to hear, anything at all just to save his life. What he said made not a bit of sense until I chewed it up in my mind a minute, but what I come up with, that just couldn't be. "How could-?" I started to ask him before it hit me the way it was. "Well I'll be damned," I said.

  "Yeah, and so will he," Clete said, flat as Kansas.

  "It was all Ma's fault!" Jezrael DuShane hollered, the tears running down his face. "Climbing into the loft with me, her clothes all off. I wasn't more'n a boy, an' she made me do it with her. Pa woulda kilt me if he found out Whitey was my boy and not his'n!"

  I glanced at Clete and he was nodding his head, a smirky smile darkening his face and making him look mean as Satan. I knowed then what he'd wondered about last night, that he'd figgered this all out, mostly. He knowed for sure now. "Goodbye, mother fucker," he said, and then slapped his horse hard with the flat of his hand and fired his pistol at the same time.

  It happened so fast I just stood there froze to the spot. DuShane must of had his good foot in the stirrup on the other side, for when that big strong gray took out, his foot stuck there and I saw that man angled out and stretched out between horse and rope so that he appeared to get longer than he already was, right in front of my eyes. And then his neck snapped with a crack like a splintered oak limb.

  Still I stood there glued to the ground. His boot come off and the horse run off and DuShane swung back and forth like the pendulum of a big grandfather clock. The toe of the other boot, his bad leg, twisted right out behind him, scraping little furrows into the deep pine needles on every swing. And while he swung he also spun, facing me and then away and then back toward me again, a startled look on his twisted-up face, his eyes popping out like a fish's and his tongue lolling to below his pointy chin, dripping spit and bloody froth. Already his face was the color of ashes.

  It was like I woke up right in the middle of a nightmare, and I run back toward where Clete'd tied his rope. But as I passed him, he reached out and give me a short, square punch to the chin and I went down like twenty pounds of steer liver.

  "I figured you'd try that," Clete said, bolstering his Remington and then rubbing his knuckles while I was still on the ground looking up at him. "Let him alone. He's dead, if you didn't know it already. And don't cut him down. When I hang a man, he stays hung." He started downstream after his horse. After a while I heard him down below, giving his loud whistle as he went, trying to call Whatever in.

  I stood up and looked at that tall, bony man twirling at the end of Clete's rope. He didn't swing no more, but he still spun slow, dragging his toes. Looking at that man's awful face and broke up body, something turned in me. Something changed right then, even though I didn't exactly know what it was. It felt like the morning you wake up and it dawns on you that summer's over, that from then on it's all shorter days and getting colder.

  Chapter Thirty

  I took out my clasp knife and cut Clete's rope close to where it was tied to the tree. DuShane hit the ground with a thump. I walked back up to my horse to get the folding shovel and saw my hat and clothes there beside the remains of our fire. I had forgot I was still in my union suit and put them on. Then I took the shovel and went back down to where DuShane lay in a heap.

  I had the grave about half dug by the time Clete rode in. "I thought I told you–" but he didn't finish it. I didn't look up at him, either, just kept digging. After a minute he rode on up to the fire.

  It was hard digging there, I recall. Weren't many stones, but the roots of them pines crisscrossed all over the place and I wisht I had an axe. When the hole was deep enough to suit me, I took the noose off his neck and pushed him in with my foot. He was a man and deserved burying, but I didn't straighten him out comfortable in his grave and I didn't do no praying over him either after I covered him up.

  Clete had everything packed by the time I got up to the fire and all I needed to do was put up the shovel. I handed him his rope.

  "Well, you feel better now?" Clete asked.

  "No, I don't," I told him, mounting the bay.

  Clete got up on his horse and we headed down the valley, him in front. We just rode quiet, the sun coming through the clouds every so often, angled over to the west. Going along, I saw a bird I had never saw before, up high in a big pine. Orangy yeller, he was, with some black on his wings and head. White on the wings, too. An oriole, I figgered, but not a kind that I'd ever saw. He chattered at us and then piped a pair of notes, so as to say goodbye, after we passed, and I thought of Mandy then.

  Where the trail got wider, after the valley spread out some, Clete dropped back beside me. "Look, I'm sorry I punched you. There was no call for me to do that. You were right. Burying him was the right thing to do."

  I didn't say nothing.

  "If it will make you any happier," Clete said, smiling at me, "we can step down and you can punch me."

  I shook my head. "No, it don't bother me that much being punched. I've been punched plenty before, harder than that."

  "What the hell's eating you, then?" His face looked like he was tasting something not to his liking.

  "Was it fun fooling me like that?" I ask him.

  "Whadda you mean?"

  "What do I mean? You know damn well what I mean! You knowed you were going to hang him the whole time, whether he answered you or not!"

  "Of course I did," Clete said. "I told you I was going to hang him. Didn't you hear me say that?"

  "Yes, I heard you. But the way you acted, I thought it was all just to make him talk. I didn't even know what you ask him. I figgered it was something important, something … I don't know what. Let's hear you say you didn't try to make me think you was just throwing a scare into him. Go on, let me hear you say it!"

  "Ahh, this is bullshit. You're acting like a goddamned old woman." He spurred his horse ahead and we traveled another mile, saying nothing to each other, before he dropped back beside me again.

  "You're right, Willie. I needed your help, at least I didn't want to fight you over doing it, not in front of him, and I knew you wouldn't go along with it." He looked at me square and offered his hand.

  "No, thanks," I told him. "I don't shake hands with no murderers."

  He dropped his hand and looked at me like I'd slapped him hard in the face. "Murderer? I think you're a little confused, aren't you? It was DuShane who killed Banty and those people back by the White and Nell Larson. Remember Nell, Willie? Remember that night she died, all burnt up?"

  "Of course I do, and I'll remember this day just as long."

  "Well, that's the law business, son. Executing horse thieves and killers i
s a part of it."

  I pulled the bay up sharp and after a couple steps, Clete done the same with his horse and looked back at me.

  "No," I told him, "Executing is what a judge and jury and a hangman does after a man's had his say, tells his side of it. What you done, stringing a man up for spite and vengeance and God-knows-what-all, that's lynchin'. And lynchin' is murder. Just the same as if you laid in wait for him in the dark and shot him off his horse when he rode by. Just the same as DuShane. No different."

  Clete just sat and looked at me and after awhile he shook his head and then rode on. I waited and after a minute I followed him. It had clouded up pretty solid by then and before long the rain started. Nothin' heavy, just a steady drizzle that drenched everthing. I stopped and searched for my slicker, but then I remembered it was still back in Two Scalp. So I just got wet. I kept waiting for Clete to drop back beside me again, to say that he seen what I said was so, that about lynching and murder, but he didn't do it.

  When we come down out of that valley to where the road forked, it was starting to get dark.

  Clete got out his map and studied it. "This way should take us to Hay Camp," he said, tilting his head to the right. "I see no sense going back to Deadwood. I can wire Bullock to tell him what happened when we get to Two Scalp. Should save us half a day going this way, maybe more."

  "I'm not going back to Two Scalp," I told him. "So I guess this here is where we part company."

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Clete sat his horse and looked at me real curious, smiling almost. "You mean that? You sure you want to split up now? That's what you want?"

  "Yes it is. I ain't so hot on Deadwood, but I can think of nowheres else to go, and I ain't going back to Two Scalp with you, that's for sure."

  Clete looked angry for a minute right after I said that, but then he drew a deep breath and let it out slow. "You're making a mistake, Willie. Chances are good I can find the $30,000 Wilson stole. We could have a nice spread down in Texas on that … two nice spreads … fifty-fifty. You better think on it."

  He waited for me to say something, but I just shook my head no.

  The rain commenced to drip off Clete's hat brim and it was getting colder by the minute. Night was coming on. "You're not so young anymore, Pardner. Before too long you'll be getting too old to just drift around like you've been doing."

  "I know."

  He pulled the collar of his slicker up and inspected the sky. "It's not that mixed-blood girl, is it? Mandy?"

  "Oh, I hope to see her again, though she don't want me. I know that. No, that's no part of it, I don't guess."

  "Well, that's smart of you, anyway. She's little better than a whore, you know. Jumped right in my bedroll with me the night after I caught up with you two. I didn't even ask her. In bed with you one night, me the next."

  I couldn't see his face real good, dark as it was getting. I thought for a minute he might be lying to me, just to get me to go along. But after I thought on it a minute, remembering how she was with that Thebideaux fellow, I figgered he was probly telling the truth, much as it pained me to think so.

  "Well, it's getting dark," Clete said. "No sense sitting here jawing all night. Sure you won't change your mind?"

  "No, I'll be going my own way from here." I rode my horse up close and offered him my hand.

  He took it and give a hard shake. "You're a strange one, Willie, and probably the best friend I ever had."

  "Thank you kindly," I said. It was a dumb thing to say, I see now, but it just come out of my mouth.

  Clete backed the gray up a few steps and started off. "If you change your mind, I'll be in Two Scalp for a month or so and then down along the Rio Grande. Hear that's some of the best cattle country there is."

  "I'll remember if I do, though I don't think I will." I sat the bay and watched him walk his horse part way up a little hill on the trail. He stopped and turned back, just looking at me. I burned him into my memory right then, just like Mandy done with me a few days before, him sitting there on that big gray stallion and smiling at me in the rain.

  "Goodbye, my friend," I called to him.

  "Goodbye, you old fart," he yelled back. He nudged Whatever, topped the hill and was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  I sat there a minute getting rained on and trying to figure out what I was going to do. The only thing I could think of was to head on up the road towards Deadwood, like I told Clete I was going to. After awhile that's what I done. To tell it short, I rode all night in the rain, wetter'n a frog in a bog, sleeping and being awake and miserable by turns. Just as I was coming down the hill into Deadwood, the clouds to the east raised up some. The sun clumb over the ridge and lit the whole sky and the town up like a fairy-tale city, the buildings all orange and rosy, the windows in them glittery like flames. I almost didn't mind I was wet and cold seeing that sight.

  But as pretty as it was, it was all kind of sour to me at the same time-like I was only about half there. I figured it was only on account of being tired as hell and up all night again and being whacked on the head so often of late.

  After seeing to my horse I got a room at the Grand, that beefy-faced owner up and about his business already. He ask me if I wanted my old room back. After I remembered as how Banty'd been killed in it I told him no, to give me another. I just flopped down on the bed and slept in my damp clothes 'til past noon.

  I woke up feeling lower than a skunk's belly, but hungry too, so I went back and had another steak at that place I had eat before. After that I looked for where the fellow knew all them Texas songs. Damned if I could remember which place it was, so I had to have a drink in a lot of different saloons before I found it, which I eventually did. Of course, by then I had a pretty good load on and things still didn't look no brighter than when I had woke up. I fooled with the idea of gathering up my things and heading over toward the Grand River country, but I couldn't work up the gumption for it.

  I was sitting there minding my own business, trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself, just sipping a rye and listening to them Texas songs again, when who should tap me on the shoulder but Sheriff Seth Bullock.

  "Didn't expect to see you again so soon, Willie," he said. "Where's Shannon."

  "More than I can tell you," I told him. "Might be on his way back to Two Scalp if a bunch of Sioux ain't scalped him by now. Or maybe he's took off in the other direction, toward Texas or someplace else."

  Bullock sat down and looked at me close. "You two give up on DuShane?"

  "He'll no," I said. "We're all through with that business. And Jezrael DuShane won't be coming back to Deadwood to stir things up no more, you can count on that."

  "What happened?" Bullock wanted to know.

  For a minute I thought of telling him the whole story, of how Clete had almost drowned DuShane-maybe would have if I hadn't of stopped him-of how Clete had finally hung him after pulling that dirty trick on me, making me think he was only trying to scare him. Before I even opened up my mouth to say it, I changed my mind. "DuShane got shot trying to get away from us," I said. I don't know why I said that, but that's what I told him. It wasn't a lie, exactly. DuShane did get shot running through that clearing.

  Bullock tipped his hat up and looked kind of surprised. "He's dead then, DuShane?"

  "Well, he damn well better be," I said. "I buried him yesterday-or was it the day before?"

  He got a chuckle out of that, but then he cocked his head kind of odd at me. "What are you doing here, then?"

  "Good a place as any to get a drink," I said, looking around at the room. "And the feller here knows even more Texas songs than I do."

  "How come you're not with Shannon is what I meant," Bullock said.

  I sat and chewed it over for a minute. I thought again of telling him the whole thing, only it just didn't set right. "Diff'rence of opinion, as the man says," I told him, but then didn't say no more.

  "Difference of opinion," Bullock repeated after a while, noddi
ng his head. The piano player started on "Texas Sunsets" again.

  "Diff'rence of opinion," I said a second time, nodding right along with him, and then just let her go at that.

  After a time Bullock stood up. "Well, I don't get it." He waited for me to talk, but I had nothing more to say. "If you want that deputy job I spoke of, stop around later. Just be sober when you do. I've got no jobs for drunks." The way he said it put me in mind of Clete.

  "Thanks all the same," I told him. "But if I ain't deputying for Clete, then I don't suspect I'll be deputying for nobody–and what a man drinks is his own affair."

  "Indeed it is, Goodwin. Indeed it is," he said, slapping me on the back. "But what a deputy of mine drinks is also my affair. You can understand that."

  "Sure, I understand," I told him. I have to admit my mind was off someplace else-up along the Bad where Mandy and Clete and me had trailed DuShane, I think.

  I don't know exactly when he left, but by the time I thought to turn around and look, Bullock was gone.

  I gathered up my change, polished off the last few drops of my liquor, and turned my glass over. Going up the street to my hotel, even then I guess I knowed what I was going to do.

  That red-faced man at the Grand was still behind the desk, and I told him I was leaving-which I did as soon as I collected the few things I had left in my room. I stopped in a grocery and bought a big hunk of bacon and some tinned goods they had there, including some peaches, though the price was high as hell. The man put everything in a feed sack for me. A bright yeller slicker in the window of a dry goods store caught my eye, and I went in and bought that, too. I decided I'd had enough of riding wet for a while. The boy at the livery got my horse pretty quick and I rode out of Deadwood at a walking trot.

  Up and down through the gulches and gullies I went and come out onto the plain by the time it was starting to get dark. I rode all that night, I guess, passing through Hay Camp sometime early the next morning. Rode all the next day, too, and toward evening made a cold camp way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, going back just the way we had come, just like Clete's tracks showed me he was doing, too.