Michener, James A.

by Texas

  If Floyd Rusk was little moved by his sudden wealth, this was not the case with Molly, for when that first check from Gulf Oil proved that prosperity was real, she went to Ed Boatright at the Chevy garage, rented a car and a driver, and posted in to Neiman-Marcus in Dallas. There she went to the most expensive salon in the store and announced, in a loud voice, that she wanted the head saleslady and a very large wastebasket.

  When she was shown into a discreet area where only the best clothing was sold—fabrics from England, styling from France— she started undressing, throwing each of her old and long-worn garments into the wastebasket, and when it was filled with every item except her panties, she announced: 'I want them burned.'

  'We'll take them to the basement.'

  'I want them burned here. I never want to see those damned rags again.'

  'But, madam—'

  'Don't madam me, burn them.'

  The manager was called, but since Molly was nearly naked, he could not speak with her directly; he did, however, give strict orders that there would be no burning of anything on that floor, but Molly was so vociferous that he asked: 'Who is this crazy dame?' and Molly heard the saleswoman explain: 'She's the wife of that fellow who hit the big oil field at Larkin,' and the manager said: 'Burn them.'

  Firemen were alerted, but before they could appear, Molly was covered with an expensive lounging robe, of which she said: 'I'll take it.' And so draped, she watched as men with fire extinguishers supervised the burning of her old wardrobe. When the fire went out, and her applause died down, she proceeded to spend $5,600 on replacements and left an order for $3,800 worth of other items to be sent to Larkin as soon as they arrived from New York and London.

  She sent Ed Boatright's driver home alone, carrying in the back of his Chevy many of her purchases. For herself she bought a large new Packard from a Dallas dealer recommended by Neiman-Mar-cus and hired one of the firm's drivers to chauffeur her back to Larkin.

  In four months the population of Larkin jumped from 2,329 to more than 19,700, and this resulted in revolutionary change. Take housing, for example. The little town obviously could not accommodate such a tremendous influx in existing structures, so extraordinary solutions had to be sought, and old-time residents gaped when they saw a convoy of sixty mules on the road from Jacksboro, each four hauling on a farm flatbed a house lifted from its foundations farther east. Tents were at a premium, and any householder with a spare room could rent it at three dollars a day to each of four occupants. Many beds were used three times a day, in eight-hour shifts, and food was grabbed wherever it was provided and in whatever condition.

  Every businessman saw his turnover quadrupled within the

  month, and by the end of the year, men who sold what the oil crews needed found themselves enormously wealthy. The Tumlinson twins maintained six trucks to haul in the long lengths of lumber required for building derricks and the associated small buildings at a site. They also imported huge supplies of coal for the winter months and almost any hardware they could find in places like Fort Worth and Dallas. One twin said: 'All we are, really, is a turnover point. We rarely keep anything past the weekend.'

  And Ed Boatright sold absolutely any car he could get his hands on and employed six new mechanics to keep the cars he had sold running: 'The roads to an oil field are murder on cars, but my men are geniuses.'

  The sudden inflow of money altered many things, because it was the very type of man who had played a major role in the reactionary Ku Klux Klan who found himself in position to make the most profit from the exploding trade, and onetime leaders like the Tumlinson twins and Boatright became so preoccupied with their expanding business that they no longer had time to monitor community morals. An older man who had taken the Klan quite seriously tried to summon his cohorts back to the continuing task of policing, but some of the younger men told him: 'Let's get this oil thing settled . . . the buildings we need and everything . . . and then we'll take care of the riffraff that's wandered in.' The Klan did not intend closing shop; its impulses were too deep and strong for that, but it did propose to make a dollar while the chance existed.

  Some activities of the boom did eventually occasion real soul-searching on the part of Larkin citizens, whether they were members of the Klan or not. The woman Nora, whom the Klan had once punished, now ran a house which contained eleven young women who had flocked in from as far away as Denver, and no one could ignore what business the young ladies were conducting. The founder of the town's good fortune, Dewey Kimbro, still lived in the house with his girl Esther, but he had to be indulged because he was now well on his way to becoming a millionaire, and that excused a lot.

  As a matter of fact, the former puritans would have been happy if the seamier side of their town had been as quietly run as Nora's place, but Larkin received a black eye when a reporter for the New York Times came to town to verify the rumor that 'Larkin is the most sinful little town in America.' He probed about for nine or ten days, picking up the usual colorful stories about 'a saloon called The Bucket of Blood, and a gambling hall named The Missionary's Downfall,' but such accounts could have applied to almost any oil-boom town or any temporary railhead in the West. What made

  this man's story provocative was his detailed account of how the town fathers were profiting from the boom:

  Each Sunday morning, just after dawn, the sheriff and his enthusiastic men prowl the dives and the haunts, arresting any ladies of the night found therein and carting them off to jail in the Ford paddy wagon belonging to the police. This happens in any frontier town and is not remarkable.

  What is remarkable is that on Monday morning these ladies, some of them extremely beautiful, are lined up on a public balcony of the fine red-and-white courthouse in the public square, and while the oilmen and the young fellows of town gather enthusiastically below, a judge of some kind steps onto the balcony, lifts the left arm of one of the young women, and announces the amount of her fine.

  The men below then bid vigorously for the right to pay her fine, but the first bid must be the fine itself. Thus, if Mary Belle has been fined three dollars, the bidding must start there, but it can rise as high as the young woman's charms justify, and calls from all parts make the bidding quite exciting.

  When a winner has been determined, he pays the amount bid and then receives all rights to the young lady for the next twenty-four hours. On Tuesday through Saturday, of course, she works at her regular stand, but on Sunday she will be arrested and on Monday the auction will resume.

  When this reporter asked a Larkin official how such behavior could be justified, he explained: 'We have to pay for the extra police somehow.'

  When this story reached New York, the editors of the Times felt, with some justice, that here was a case where the legend of the paper ought to be respected—'All the News That's Fit to Print' —and they decided that such a yarn, with its many implications, would have to be excluded if the legend were to be honored. They killed the story, which so angered the young reporter that he gave it lock, stock, and barrel to a reporter from Chicago, whose paper not only refrained from censoring it, but telegraphed for pictures. A professional photographer took a series of graphic shots and provided a caption explaining that the rowdy young ladies had on this Monday morning fetched an average price of $9.80, which figured to be $6.80 above their basic fines.

  Such affairs were amusing, but another aspect of the boom was more ominous. Any town which found itself the center of an oil strike, and especially one which expanded horizons with each new well that struck oil, was bound to attract the really criminal elements of society, and as the winter of 1924 started, Larkin had a

  plethora of gamblers, holdup men, con artists, thieves, escaped murderers, and every other kind of human refuse imaginable.

  This town is becoming ungovernable,' Floyd Rusk cried one January morning when two corpses were found in an alley near the courthouse, but when he spoke he did not yet know who one of the dead men was.

  'My God,
Floyd! It's Lew Tumlinson!'

  It was. There was no record of his having been involved with any of the hoodlums, and he was not robbed. True, he was some distance from his coal and lumber business, but he was in a respectable part of town and no one recalled his having been mixed up with any of the imported girls. His death was a mystery, but was soon forgotten.

  The shootings in Larkin produced an average of one murder every two and a half weeks, by no means a record for an oil town. Usually the deaths occurred as a result of gambling or fighting over women; there was almost no murder for profit, as in the old days when Rattlesnake Peavine prowled these parts. Opined the editor of the Defender: it is understandable that men who have been too long restrained in less adventurous occupations will find release for their spirits in an oil town.'

  But then Ed Boatright was found shot dead, and people began to ask: is the lawlessness going to attack all of us? Have things gotten out of hand?' Some of the old Ku Kluxers felt that maybe they would have to reconstitute the vigilantes and bring the town back under control. Affairs drifted along in this way, with a gambler or a roughneck being shot now and then, until one day in early March when the town echoed with gunfire and the other Tumlinson twin was found dead.

  Now terror gripped the area, and men working in oil began employing armed guards. Chief among those frightened by the spate of killings was Floyd Rusk, who, because of his preeminence and his new fortune, would seem to be an attractive target, and when associates suggested that he hire himself a bodyguard, he listened. But one night as he sat alone in his kitchen—he did not yet have an office—contemplating the dismal condition into which his oil town had fallen, a terrible thought attacked him: My God! Boatright! The Tumlinsons! They were with me when we whipped Dewey Kimbro.

  He began to sweat. Desperately he tried to recall anything that Dewey had said either during the flogging or next day when they made their pact about the oil field: I'm sure he didn't speak during the flogging. Nothing. He deserved it and he knew it. But then Floyd's assurance left him, for he could remember bits of conversa-

  Hon in the kitchen that next remarkable morning: He knew I hadn't touched him. He said so. Yes, he did sav that, I remember clearly Taking hope from the fact that he had not actually whipped his future partner, he was beginning to breathe more easily, when an appalling recollection gagged him: My God, I'm sure he mentioned the names of the other three. I can hear him now: 'But you ordered the Tumlinson twins and Ed Boatright

  Jesus! He discovered all our names and he's killed three of us. As soon as he thought this, he corrected himself, eagerly, nervously: Not us. I had no part in that affair. I never touched him. He's killed the three who did.' Then he rose and paddled about the kitchen, a huge, sweating man: He's my partner. We bought leases together, surely . . .

  He fell back onto his chair and stared bleakly at the wall. Three dead and one to go. Deceiving himself no longer, he reflected on the cleverness of this wiry little man with the sandy red hair: He waited till the town was filled with drifters. He waits till there's action in the streets. Remember the little pistol he had that morning when we talked? God, the man's a determined killer.

  Taking a pen from the fruit jar in which he and Molly had always kept one, he drafted a letter to the governor, whose campaign he had supported:

  The town of Larkin, in Larkin County, is no longer governable. Please send militia.

  Floyd Rusk

  He came into town on a horse, as his grandfather had done in 1883. Like him, he announced himself to no one, sharing a bed with the oilmen and quietly patronizing the saloons and the gambling halls. He visited the cribs in which the prostitutes lived their rowdy lives and studied the bank which had already been held up once. He walked out to the cemetery and checked the rude tombstones for any names which tallied with his printed list of desperadoes to be apprehended on sight, and at the end of five careful days, during which he alerted no one as to his identity, he gained a clear impression of how the town of Larkin functioned. He was twenty-five years old, about five-seven, not much over a hundred and fifty pounds, and he had the blue eyes so common among both the lawless and the lawmen on the frontier. He was quick with a gun and more prone to use it than his grandfather had been, and like him, he was fearless. He did not consider it

  unusual to be dispatched alone to clean up a rioting boom town, for that was his business, and on the sixth day he began.

  Presenting himself unostentatiously at the cafe where the oilmen met with town leaders at six each morning, he banged a glass with a spoon to attract attention, and announced: 'I'm Oscar Macnab, Texas Ranger, sent by the governor to bring order to this town.' Before anyone could respond, he moved like a cat, gun drawn, and arrested three men well known to be dealing in stolen oil gear. Rounding them up in a corner, he turned them over to the frightened sheriff, with the warning: 'When I get to your place I want to see these men in jail.'

  Deputizing three well-regarded citizens, which he had no legal right to do, he asked: 'Are you armed?' and when one said no, an extraordinary admission in Larkin, he asked for the loan of a gun, and with his aides he left the cafe and started through the town.

  Fortunately, most of the desperate characters, the worst troublemakers, were in bed at that hour, so he had little trouble finding them, and in nightshirts or trousers hastily climbed into, the gamblers, the thieves and the pimps were moved to the courthouse, in whose basement he crowded some three dozen malefactors. This was not a jail, but it was reasonably secure, and he posted at the door two men with shotguns, giving them orders that chilled the captives: 'If anybody tries to escape, don't hesitate. Fire into the mob.'

  He then went to the sheriff's office and demanded that he summon the town's policemen, and when representatives of these two agencies stood before him and his new deputies, he asked scornfully: 'Why have you let this town run so wild?' and they said truthfully: 'Because everybody wanted it that way.'

  Oscar Macnab, despite his youth and his bravado, was no fool, and after pumping some self-respect into the local officers he went to the telegraph station and wired Ranger headquarters, asking for a famous lawman who had faced similar situations in the boom towns back east: i need help send lone wolf. Then he quietly proceeded to consolidate his position before the rabble discovered that he was alone.

  He went to the home of Floyd Rusk and sat with him in the kitchen, no gun visible, no scowl on his face: 'I understand it was you who wrote the governor. Tell me about it.'

  Rusk was more than eager to; in fact, he blurted out such a lava-flow of information and complaint that Macnab had frequently to direct it: 'But you were among the men who flogged Dewey Kimbro that night?'

  Later he asked: 'Let me be sure I understand. Dewey Kimbro

  Finally he bore in: 'Have you any possible clue, any proof that Kimbro shot your three companions 7 '

  'They were never companions of mine. Ranger Macnab. They just happened to be assigned that job by the Klan '

  'You were, I'm told, the leader of the Klan 7 ' He did not accuse Rusk of this; he merely asked the question, which Floyd rebutted vehemently. 'I was never the Kleagle. We didn't have one. really '

  'But you made the decisions?' Again it was a question, not an accusation, and again Rusk denied that he had held any position of leadership: 'I was just another member'

  'I believe you. Speaking as just another member, why did your group decide to horsewhip Dewey Kimbro 7 '

  'Well now, he was behavin' immorally. He was livin' with this woman. You've met her, Esther, and we told him he had to quit that or get out of town.'

  'You didn't tell him. You flogged him.'

  'But we had warned him. We warned everybody. We would not tolerate immoral livin'.'

  Macnab smiled as much as he ever smiled: 'You seem to tolerate a good deal of it right now. All those women, those cribs.'

  'Times have changed, Ranger Macnab.'

  Just how much they had changed, Macnab was still to learn, because he had not
yet been in Larkin on a Monday morning to see the auction of the whores, and when the legal officials who had not yet adjusted to his presence proceeded with the Monday bidding, Macnab did not interrupt. He stood in the background, appalled by what he saw, and decided to take no further steps until help arrived.

  It came in the presence of a legendary member of the Texas Rangers, Lone Wolf Gonzaullas, an extremely handsome man in his thirties noted for his meticulous dress and Deep South courtesy. His greater fame, however, derived from his ever-ready willingness to use the pearl-handled revolvers given him by citizens who had profited from the law and order he had brought to their ravaged towns, and from the fact that he would be the only Ranger captain of partly Spanish descent.

  Like Oscar, he came into Larkin on a horse, and like Otto, he did not announce himself to anyone but his fellow Ranger. When he had studied the situation, checking the jail and the cellar of the courthouse, he told Oscar: 'You've handled this right so far, but now we need something that will attract their attention.'

  'What did you have in mind?' Macnab asked, and he said: 'I've had good luck in spots like this with a snortin' pole.'

  1069

  'What's that r

  'Find me two shovels,' and when he had them, he and Oscar rode to the edge of town, where they dug a deep hole, lining it with rocks. Then the two Rangers mounted their horses and dragged in a twelve-foot telephone pole, which they placed in the hole, tamping it with more rocks.

  Then, in a series of lightning-swift moves, the two Rangers stormed into one saloon after another and into all the gambling areas, grabbing unlovely characters at random, dragging them out to the edge of town and handcuffing them to chains circling the pole 'Now snort,' Gonzaullas said, 'while the decent people of this town laugh at you.'