by J. Lee Butts
I lost interest in the pair of yammering morons in less than a barely felt heartbeat. My briefly diverted attention swung back to Atwood just in time to hear him gasp, “Didn’t know t-t-them kids was in that wagon till after we’d b-blasted it to bits. Made me s-s-sick when I lit a lantern, looked inside, and seen them pitiful little bodies. Knew right then we ’uz on the short list for a ticket straight to a fiery Hell soon’s somebody else come along and found all them dead folks. Just our k-k-kind a luck it’d be three man killers like you b-b-boys.”
The blistering argument between the Broke Mill’s bug-eyed bartender and Del Rio’s visibly reluctant town marshal kept getting louder. The blubbery lawman tried his best to move back out onto the boardwalk but the drink peddler wasn’t having any of it. Right quick-like, angry swearing was coming from their direction and painted the air near the door a deep purple.
“Where would Cutner take the girl?” I asked.
Tanner Atwood squirmed in the growing pool of blood beneath his already saturated back. “J-Jus’ head on out t-toward Uvalde. Ole Mad Dog keeps a rough c-cabin near the base of Turkey Mountain. Cain’t miss the place. Stands out like a sore thumb. ’S sittin’ right next to the only road goin’ up to the t-top of that overgrown haystack.”
Boz pulled a ready-made ciga-reet from his shirt pocket, fired the smoke, then thumped the smoking match onto the floor. He picked the coffin nail from between his lips, and, with an air of suddenly discovered concern, placed it between Atwood’s. The gasping man took a single drag on the smoldering tube of rolled tobacco, then motioned for Boz to take it back.
My partner recovered the ciga-reet, then said, “You figure there’s anyone else sittin’ up there on Turkey Mountain with him, Tanner?”
The rapidly fading outlaw puffed out an abbreviated lung of smoke, coughed, then said, “Have n-no way of knowin’ that, T-Tatum. No one else there w-when we first picked him up after our escape from the pen. D-Do know this though. You don’t get up there damned quick, Cutner’s the kind of feller what’ll use that little gal up like a man d-drivin’ nails in a fence post to hang b-barbed wire on.”
Then, as God is my witness, like a drowning swimmer, Atwood suddenly sucked in one long, ragged breath. Man’s entire body jerked as if a massive, unseen hand grabbed him by the buckle on his pistol belt and pulled up. He bowed up on blood-soaked shoulders and went as rigid as a length of steel railing. His eyelids fluttered in the manner of a broken window shade. Then, he made a series of odd grunting noises. He collapsed as Death stepped up, wrapped bony fingers around blood-filled lungs and heart, and squeezed all the man’s remaining life out.
After near a minute, when the to-be-expected noises of dying finally stopped coming from the corpse, Glo said, “Think this ’un’s done gone on to judgment, Mistuh Boz.”
Boz nodded and said, “Yeah. Think he’s done went and shook hands with eternity, Glo. Satan oughta have his worthless hide in hand by now. Should be roastin’ and toastin’ over Hell’s cook fires right quick-like.”
Pretty soon after that, we left the bodies where they fell and hoofed it for the street and our animals. The local marshal trailed up behind us soon’s we hit the dusty, windblown street.
“Name’s Isaac Goolsby, fellers. Marshal Isaac Goolsby,” he called out as he waddled along. “Reckon you fellers could slow down a second and talk some.”
We all nodded but kept on foggin’ it.
Goolsby huffed and puffed like a hundred-year-old locomotive as he tried in vain to keep up. “Cain’t just go and walk away from this kinda thang so easy, boys. Need some help from you so’s I can explain these killin’s should anyone come a-pokin’ around these parts askin’ questions.”
Three of us stopped beside our animals long enough to make sure everything was still in order for the run we were about to make to Turkey Mountain. Goolsby sidled up to a spot about ten feet away like he was afraid to get too close. Shotgun laid across one arm, he set to yelling out his endless stream of questions.
“What y’all ’spect me to do? Cain’t jus’ let you boys go and ride off ’thout explain’ this mess. Ain’t I got two bodies over yonder in the Broke Mill? Hell, that’s two more’n we had all the rest of this year. What the hell am I s’posed to do with ’em ole boys?”
I pulled a square of paper and a stubby piece of pencil from my vest pocket, wrote Cap’n Culpepper’s name on it, then mine, then Boz’s. Strode over and handed it to the excitable gent.
“Got any problems, just send a letter to our captain care of general delivery in Fort Worth,” I said. “Got expenses, let him know. He’ll take care of ’em. We’d like to talk this whole mess over with you some more, Marshal Goolsby, but we’ve got the life of a young woman hanging in the balance. Don’t have time, at the moment, to discuss it with you.”
Boz threw a leg over his animal’s back, wheeled the beast around and gazed down at Del Rio’s obviously flusterated lawman. “ ’S enough you know that those two jokers in the Broke Mill were part of a murderous group of escaped killers that brutally murdered a Texas state senator and most of his family out on Devils River. Girl we’re lookin’ for is the only member of that same clan as is still living. We don’t hurry, might not be able to save her.”
Got myself mounted, twirled my animal around beside Boz, and said, “Just do like I told you, Marshal. Cap’n Culpepper’ll take care of any problems or questions you might have.”
I turned in the saddle to make sure Glo was primed and ready. He pulled at the brim of his sweat-stained, floppy, gray hat and nodded. “Let’s turn ’em loose and let ’em buck, Mistuh Dodge.” He slapped his mount’s muscular rump with the animal’s reins, then kicked past Boz and me like a bolt of hair-covered lightning.
As we thundered out of town, Boz glanced over a shoulder at me and yelled, “You think we can get to Cutner ’fore he can kill the girl, Lucius?”
“Don’t know, Boz,” I yelled back. “But if we don’t, swear on my sainted mother’s memory, I’ll storm the darkest recesses of Hades and bite Satan’s horns off to find Eagle Cutner and Ax Webb. And I’ll kill ’em both graveyard dead.”
Glo assumed all the aspects of a man on a God-sent mission. Took me’n Boz nigh on an hour to catch up with him. By then he’d almost made it to the Sycamore River.
21
“. . . A BAD ONE NAMED EAGLE ‘MAD DOG’ CUTNER.”
GLO SLOWED A mite. He was walking his mount when I pulled up beside him on the Uvalde stage road. He twisted in the saddle and said, “Have an old friend what has a small horse-raisin’ operation few miles ’tother side of the Sycamore, Mistuh Dodge. Anyone ’round these parts knows how to find Eagle Cutner’s place up on Turkey Mountain, it’s Honus Lavender.”
Boz eased up next to me and patted his winded animal’s neck. “I remember Honus. He’s fought the Co-manche, Messican bandits, and badmen of every sort imaginable down here on the border for more’n fifty years. Hell, the man used to be famous. But, tell the truth, Glo, I thought he was dead. Been rumors of his demise for near a decade, maybe more. Hell, man must be goin’ on a hunnert years old if he’s still alive.”
Appearing pleased to be away from the carnage we’d left strewn all over the Broke Mill Saloon, Glo let a toothy grin play across his ebon face. He gazed east and said, “Man’s sho’ ’nuff still alive, Mistuh Boz. And he ain’t no hunnert years old. ’Course he could be on up there knockin’ real hard on seventy, I suppose. Ain’t seen him in a few years myself, but I’d bet he ain’t changed much.”
We turned off the rutted, dust-choked roadway about five miles past the Sycamore and headed in a northeasterly direction from there. Guess we hadn’t gone much more than another mile or three when we came on a sweet-running creek that dribbled into the river a few miles off to the west. We let our animals stand in the shallow stream and drink for a minute or so.
On the far side of the ankle-deep waterway, beneath a thick canopy of seventy-foot-tall cottonwood trees, we spotted a rough board-and-batten
cabin. The rustic dwelling’s only obvious nod toward anything like refinement was a deep, covered porch that ran the entire length of the front façade. A number of comfortable-looking rockers laden with thick pillows sprouted like overgrown plants from one end of the shady, inviting veranda to the other.
Black feller the size of a Concord coach stepped onto the porch as we waded our mounts across the creek and headed up into his leaf-sheltered front yard. Steel-colored hair poked from beneath a hand-ventilated, palm-leaf hat. Muscles as thick as the hawser for a ship’s anchor bulged beneath a faded bib-front shirt. He carried a cut-down, double-barreled coach gun in the crook of one arm and eyeballed the three of us with considerable suspicion. Nothing in his appearance, or demeanor, indicated a man of advanced years.
“ ’S close enough,” he called out when were still a good thirty or forty feet away. “You men can just stop right where you are. Get to statin’ your business from there.”
Boz crooked a finger at Glo and urged him forward with a jerk of the head. Glo heeled his mount and moved two or three steps out ahead of us.
The man on the porch brought the shotgun around, leveled it up, and cocked both barrels.
Glo reined the horse to a stop and raised his hands. Calm as a frog under a cabbage leaf, he said, “Careful with that big popper, Honus. Wouldn’t want you to accidently kill any of us.”
“Get on with it. Who the hell are you?” Lavender growled.
“Don’t you be recognizin’ me, Hounus? It’s Glo. Your friend, Glorious Johnson.”
Took several seconds, but a tight grin began its gradual spread across Honus Lavender’s broad, friendly face. “Glorious Johnson. Just do tell. That’s for sure ’nuff you, old man?”
Glo let his hands drop, flipped the reins over his horse’s neck, and rocked forward and back in the saddle. “Sho ’nuff. Who else you think be coming up on you bold as men like us. Hell, our mamas didn’t raise no idiots. Ain’t a soul within a hundred miles of here don’t know as how you’d be takin’ your life in your own hands if you do anything to threaten a man as dangerous as Honus Lavender.”
Lavender let the hammers down on the big-barreled weapon and propped it against the frame of his rugged front door. “Just be damn. Never thought to see you again, old man.” Then he made a come-on-up motion. Waved us to the hitch rail at one end of his house and said, “Tie all them beasts of yours over yonder by the water trough. Let ’em drink. Then step on down. Come up here in the shade. ’S a sight cooler on the porch.”
A chuckle came from deep inside Glo’s chest. As he climbed off his horse, he said, “Who you callin’ old man, you old coot. Be lookin’ like you was around when the Dead Sea was just a little sick.”
Fisted hands the size of Carolina hams on his hips, Honus Lavender watched us clamber off our animals and grinned. Scratched his cheek and said, “Well, tell you what, Mistuh Glorious Johnson, looks to me like you be jus’ about ready for a warm corner and a checkerboard yo’self. Bet you ain’t had nothin’ tougher to chew on than oatmeal gruel in a good ten years. Prolly cain’t do nothin’ with a beefsteak but gum it.”
Then, a toothy grin plastered on his face, Lavender hopped off his welcoming porch and the two men embraced like long-lost brothers. I couldn’t help but notice that, for a man his size and age, Honus Lavender still moved with all the ease and panther-like grace of a man fully half his age.
After several seconds of shoulder slapping and manly grunting, Glo backed away and said, “Might remember Ranger Boz Tatum and Ranger Lucius Dodge.”
My hand disappeared into Lavender’s like a small child’s would into that of a giant. Then he gave the hand back, grabbed Boz, and almost shook my friend’s arm off.
“Ah, me’n Mistuh Boz we done fought them Comanche devils more’n once. This here man done saved my life down on the Rio Sabinas some years back, Glo. Comanches was about to turn me into a gelding.”
Boz smiled. “Good to see you again, Honus. Was afeared you didn’t recognize me there for a spell.”
Lavender kept pumping Boz’s extended hand, then slapped my friend on the shoulder. He threw his massive head back and laughed. “Didn’t. Was just before tryin’ to figure out how I ’uz gonna manage to kill all three a you boys. But, when Mistuh Johnson spoke up, recognized him soon’s he opened his mouth. Then the mystery of who you other fellers were fell right into place.”
We stepped onto Lavender’s homey-looking front porch. I removed my sweat-dripping hat and fanned my face with it. “Well, I for one am sure glad you didn’t open up on us with that big popper of yours. Would’ve sure ’nuff resulted in a bloody mess.”
He slipped past me and headed inside the house. Over one shoulder he said, “You men take a seat. Any seat you like. Get some cold, clear spring water from my pump inside here. Help us all cool off a bit.”
Few minutes later, perspiring glassware in hand, we’d all gathered our lumpy-cushioned rockers up around a small table a few feet from Lavender’s front door.
Honus took a sip from his dripping beaker, leaned back, then said, “Kinda rare event for folks to be a-comin’ out here in the smack-dab middle of Nowhere, Tejas. Bettin’ you fellers didn’t make a special trip to Hell’s front doorstep just for a friendly visit and stroll down memory lane.”
Glo sat his half-empty tumbler on the little table. “We chasin’ a bad one named Eagle ‘Mad Dog’ Cutner. Need to find the man quick as we can.”
Honus Lavender’s brows scrunched together over coal-black eyes. “Well, ain’t that a wonderment? Saw that evil rattler late yestiddy. Rode right up over there where you boys let your horses drink.”
Some trepidation in my voice, when I said, “Alone?”
“Naw. Had someone with ’im. Looked to be a young girl. Real young as I recall. Sure ’nuff surprised me some, too. He’s been comin’ and goin’ for a spell now. Never had any female companionship before. Leastways none as I knew about.”
Boz sat up and moved closer to the table. “ ’S exactly why we’re here, Honus. We’ve come for the girl.”
“And to kill Eagle Cutner as well, if he gets in the way,” I said. Then I added, “And maybe even if he don’t.”
Glo’s voice dropped to the conspiratorial level. He touched his friend on the arm and said, “One of his cohorts in crime done tole us as how he’s got some kinda cabin up yonder on Turkey Mountain. You know ’bout that? Tell us anything that might be helpful.”
Lavender eyed each of us in turn. “Sure. Always pays to know who your neighbors are. Cutner’s the only man living anywheres close to me. ’Course I stay away from him. Man’s known to be dangerous. Kill a body easy as most folks would swat a pesky fly and not even bat a guilty eye a doin’ it. Truth is we’ve never even so much as spoke during his whole time up there.”
“Can you take us to his cabin?” Boz said.
With a slow nod of the head, Lavender said, “Suppose I could do that. Sure. He ain’t that hard to find, if’n you know where to look. Showed up ’round these parts sometime back. Figure he mighta been on the run at the time, but he ain’t bothered me any. And I sure as hell weren’t about to bother him.”
“Given what you know about the area, how hard you reckon it’d be for us to take ’im?” Glo said.
Lavender shook his head. A look of mild puzzlement and concern flashed across his deeply creased face. “Well, gents,” he said, “sho’ ain’t gonna be as easy as shootin’ fish in a rain barrel.”
Boz leaned closer into the converstion. “How so?” he said.
Lavender squirmed deeper into the cushions of his seat, then said, “That house he’s livin’ in up yonder ways got built outta native stone lotta years ago by an old pioneer feller name of Felthus Duvall. Man had to fight off them murderin’ Comanches ever year during the Killin’ Moon whole time he lived up there. House is wedged into the side of a solid piece of rock right at the foot of the mountain.”
“Sturdy soundin’,” I said.
“Suppose you could sa
y that, Mistuh Dodge. Only parts of the place you can see, from any vantage point you can pick, are the front and either end. No windows, just gun slits here and there. Roof’s covered in two feet of dirt. Couldn’t set that place on fire with a Napoleon cannon.”
“Jay-sus H. Himself on a crutch,” Boz mumbled.
The corners of Lavender’s eyes crinkled and a slight smile played across his lips. “Been up there and explored that house more’n once over the years ’fore Cutner showed up. Thought to move in the place myself, but I liked this location a lot better. So, I built my place to take advantage of the water, trees, shade and all. During one of my early raids up that way, discovered as how the house does have one glaring weakness.”
I bored in on Lavender and said, “And what might that weakness be, Mr. Lavender?”
Looking pleased with himself, he said, “Unless Cutner’s a right smart handier’n I figure, the old place ain’t seen a carpenter’s hammer in years.”
Guess we all looked a mite puzzled.
Glo said, “So? What’s that got to do with anything?”
Lavender slapped one knee and chuckled. “Front door’s all of six inches thick, ole friend. Heavier’n a frozen longhorn. But she’s hangin’ on leather hinges been there since the day that place got built. I’m a thinkin’ if a feller put a shoulder to that slab of wood just right, it’d come down easy as a hot knife through butter.”
The three of us nodded and grunted our agreement, then leaned away from Honus Lavender’s assessment of the cabin’s construction for a few seconds of mulling our future prospects. Guess we’d been thinking the thing over for almost a minute, when Boz said, “Question is, should the need arise, can we get close enough to ole man Duvall’s bank vault of a door to knock it loose?”
Behind a nod of the head, Lavender said, “Yep. That be the big conundrum, don’t it, Mistuh Tatum? Suppose it all depends on how quick and determinded Cutner’ll be to keep us away from the place. If’n the man’s fast enough, can keep up the right amount of covering fire, and move from gun port to gun port right fast-like, he’ll be harder’n a double-buried Alabama tick to root out.”