by J. Lee Butts
“Mighty glad to have you along, son. We’ll be pulling out tomorrow morning. There are two other marshals, and a jailer who drives the wagon, who’ll be along for the ride. I have three men named on warrants we’ll look for in par-tic-a-ler, and I usually carry a pocketful of John Does just in case we need ’em.”
“I could use a hot meal and a good night’s sleep before we start, Marshal Conner.”
He pulled a long, thin cigar from his vest pocket and lit it. “There’s a fair hotel down on Towson Avenue called the Pines. You can meet me out front of the courthouse at six, or we’ll stop there for you on the way out of town. Whichever you prefer.”
“No need to look for me, Mr. Conner. I’ll meet you here.” Started out the door before I realized he had something I needed. “I’d like to have one of those John Doe warrants. Have someone in mind for it.”
The stout little deputy looked at me for about two seconds like I might be crazy. Threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, you bet. Here, I’ll give you several of ’em in case the man you want has any friends.”
Stopped at Reed’s Elkhorn Bank on the way to the hotel and deposited all but two hundred dollars of my newly acquired wealth. Rented a room by the month at the Pines. Treated myself to a skin singeing bath, a haircut, and the biggest piece of beefsteak available at a restaurant next door named Julia’s. The popularity of the place forced me to sit near the window.
Finished my meal and excused myself from the table just in time to bump elbows with the beautiful Elizabeth Reed. She’d been at a back table, and I hadn’t seen her. Soon as she looked at me—and smiled—I did the typical male thing and got stupid again. The smell of her perfume reached out and grabbed me by the nose. Thought I’d pass out.
She said, “Why, Mr. Tilden, how handsome you look in your new coat and fresh haircut. I do believe I can detect the scent of lilac. I’ve always thought it quite nice to smell something other than tobacco, whiskey, or horses on a man.” She smiled and traced the outline of my new badge with her finger.
My brain refused to recognize my tongue. Couldn’t think of anything to say except, “Miss Reed, we meet again.” Tried to bow, but we stood so close I could only nod my head. Then surprised the absolute hell out of myself when I mumbled, “May I walk with you a bit?”
“Of course, sir. But first you must meet my father.” She turned and took the elbow of a man who stood behind her, talking with people at another table. “Father, I want you to meet Mr. Tilden. Although new to Fort Smith, he seems to have found employment. Hayden, this is my father, Jennings Reed.”
The stoutly built banker shook my hand. “Good evening, Marshal Tilden. Good to see you again so soon.”
Elizabeth looked surprised. “You two have met?”
“Your father helped me open an account this afternoon at the Elkhorn Bank. At the time I didn’t realize you were related.”
“Father plays banker. I run the store.” She fluttered her eyelashes and took my arm.
We strolled in the glow of lanterns and candles that threw light from curtained windows. Our walk didn’t last long. Elizabeth and her father lived on the second floor of their dry goods store only a few doors down from the hotel. Neither of them mentioned a Mrs. Reed. I decided not to inquire as to her whereabouts.
“Well, here we are.” We stopped in front of the big door through which I’d last viewed her. She held out her hand and said, “We could meet again tomorrow, Mr. Tilden. Julia’s at noon, if you’d like.”
Her obvious invitation for a deeper relationship pleased and surprised me, but, of course, I couldn’t accept. “I have to leave Fort Smith in the morning and be out of town for some time, Miss Reed. Perhaps we can dine when I return.”
“I look forward to dinner with you then, Mr. Tilden. I’ll read Shakespeare in anticipation of that day. We’ll discuss Romeo and Juliet.” She smiled again and did a little curtsy. “Good night, sir.” Her hand slipped from mine. She disappeared into the darkness behind the door. An hour later I could still smell her perfume on my fingertips.
When I finally closed my eyes that night, my dreams for the first time since the robbery were filled with something other than blood, death, and horror.
I walked with Elizabeth in a sun-drenched field that rippled like an ocean of purple flowers. A huge tree spread giant limbs and offered welcome shade. Three people waited there and motioned for us to hurry.
My father, mother, and Rachael sat on a checkered blanket. A picnic lunch was spread out over the blanket, and my sister sang a song I didn’t recognize.
The coming morning pulled at me. As I raced back to consciousness, I noticed my mother had her arm around Elizabeth.
Sat up in my bed that morning with an ache in my chest I’d never felt before.
Franklin Jr. squirmed in his chair. “Incredible,” he mumbled. He stabbed at the candy bowl with the stub of his cigarette and managed to leave a mashed-up, stinking wad of smoldering tobacco.
Carlton snapped out of his nap. General Black Jack Pershing jumped off his lap and flopped down in a hairy heap under the table. “If you’re gonna smoke them things, fine. But when you finish, put ’em out. All the way out. Don’t leave ’em layin’ in there a-stinking like that. Nurse Leona Wildbank don’t mind us smoking, but she can smell a stinky butt from LaHarpe Boulevard to the capitol building. And she’ll knock a knot big as a goose egg on all us smokers if she finds that.”
A finger that looked like a piece of kinked string shook itself in Junior’s direction just before Carlton dropped back into his fantasy-filled dreams.
Franklin finished crushing his smoke. “I don’t see how you old guys get through the day without having a seizure. Let’s back up here just a little, Mr. Tilden. Do you expect me to believe you fell in love with Elizabeth Reed within minutes of meeting her?”
“Well, Frank, you can believe whatever you want. I’m just telling it the way it happened. People didn’t live as long as they do today. You had to make hay when you could.”
“I understand that, Mr. Tilden. I’ve just never been able to believe in love at first sight.”
“Junior, I read the Encyclopedia Britannica at night. Helps put me to sleep. Found a table in one of them that said people in 1880 had a life expectancy of about forty years. An urgency to everything existed back then similar to what people felt during W.W.II. See, son, we knew living causes dying, and we wanted to do as much of that first part as we could. I loved Elizabeth. Loved her more than life itself. And it all happened faster than you can fire up another cigarette.”
“All right, but don’t you think it just a bit amazing that Judge Parker took you on as a deputy the way he did?”
“Why would I think that?”
“You had no law enforcement experience. You weren’t a well-known gunfighter. Everett Lovelady’s letter was all you had.”
“Didn’t need any padded résumé back then, Junior. I’d killed three vicious criminals, each well known for his skill with pistols and knives. Once the title man killer got attached to you, people looked at you in a whole different light. Owned enough of a reputation to ensure respect and any kind of job as a lawman I wanted.”
“Did you feel even the least bit of discomfort before your first patrol with Marshal Conner?”
“I gave the whole thing some serious thought my first night at the Pines. Decided I’d go at the job with three simple rules. Lived by them for the rest of my life. First, I’d take the initiative whenever necessary, no matter the circumstances. Second, think before I acted, and third, take my time while thinking. I felt the deliberate man’s chance of survival outweighed the impulsive acts of those who couldn’t control their own behavior. Well, rubbing out three killers at the Dew Drop Inn had already proved that. Seventy years later, I’m convinced I was right. Anything else?”
“Several times you’ve mentioned dreams. You believed in dreams?”
“Still do. I can remember every significant dream I’ve ever had. My mother’s fault actually. She let a dying
old woman who claimed to have the sight stay on our farm till she passed. Old lady could read palms, cast spells, and see the future. She predicted my life as a lawman. No one believed her at the time. She convinced my mother dreams were important. So, we talked about our dreams every morning at breakfast. To this day the first thing I do when I wake is go over my dreams from the night before. You should try it, Junior. Might be surprised what you’ll learn.”
3
“THE FIRST CHANCE YOU GET— KILL ’IM.”
BIXLEY CONNER WAS leaning against a spotted horse and sipping on a cup of steaming coffee when I arrived at the courthouse the next morning. He handed me a tin cup filled with the same stout liquid and introduced me to the other marshals in the party.
“That ’un there is Quinten Moon.” He waved in the direction of a short, thin man wearing two Smith and Wesson Schofield .45s and a gigantic knife. “The goodlookin’ feller is Handsome Harry Tate, and the one pouring the stump juice is Johnny Peterman. Johnny cooks for us and pulls duty as the armorer and jailer.”
I nodded in the direction of each man. They nodded back, drank their coffee, stamped their feet, and tried to get themselves awake. No one did much talking.
The man Bix called Handsome Harry was indeed a dandy. His clothing didn’t resemble any of the rough duds of the others. He wore tailored leather breeches, a clean white shirt and tie, a fitted parka, and a fur hat that looked like a whole beaver sitting on his head. He favored a shoulder rig that contained a short-barreled sheriff’s model Colt .45. A silver-plated scroll-engraved Peacemaker slept in a holster backward against his belly. The butt of the pistol pointed toward his right side. An image of a beautiful woman whose hair endlessly flowed around the handles decorated the grips of both weapons.
Peterman was the roughest of the group and, by action, seemed the oldest. He wore a hat that looked like it had been attacked by the beaver on Handsome Harry’s head, a crude leather vest, a heavy homespun shirt, and boots that had seen better days. All appeared more than able.
“Come on, boys, we may as well get goin’. They’s criminals to be caught, and all we have to do is find ’em,” said Bix. He poured out the remains of his cup and climbed onto the spotted horse.
From inside his canvas jacket, he produced a piece of folded paper. “Hayden, today’s the beginnin’ of your education as a deputy U.S. marshal. What we’re doin’ out here is mostly police work. Cleanin’ up stuff. Things rarely ever go the way we expect. So read over this stuff when you get a chance. We try to do what it says, but sometimes we just can’t. When those times come, we do our best and hope it’s somewhere close to the law.”
Bold letters on the front of the pamphlet read, “Laws Governing U.S. Marshal and His Deputies.” A document titled “Certificate of Commission” was nestled inside. I slipped them both into the pocket of my coat. Less than five minutes later, we ferried across the Arkansas to the Choctaw Nation.
Even as far away as Kentucky, people knew about the Indian Nations or, as some called them, the Territories. More than once I’d heard my father say, “God and the law don’t exist west of Fort Smith.”
As I climbed aboard Thunder on the far side of the river, I said, “I didn’t realize the most lawless place in the country was so close to civilization.”
Bix laughed till he almost cried. I made a mental note to try and not say anything else that would bring unwanted attention my direction.
“Yesterday you said we would look for three men in particular, Bix. Who are they?” I wanted to erase any hint of callowness on my part as quickly as possible.
“We’d like to catch Gooch Bonds. He married a Choctaw gal so he could move out here legally and settle. They musta not got along too well. He took an axe and chopped her up pretty good ’bout a month ago. Yancy Pietrie borrowed his best friend’s shotgun. When the friend wanted it back, Yancy shot him with it. Then there’s that lovely fellow Dangerous Dave Crowder. He recently got drunk and cut off the head of an Indian whore he got angry with.”
“My Lord. Don’t you have any run-of-the-mill petty criminals like thieves?”
“We got every kind you can imagine. But the petty crimes kinda go by the board because they’s so many hard cases out and about. By the time we start back to Fort Smith, we’ll probably have fifteen or twenty of ’em trailing behind the wagon. All you have to do is show up where people congregate and you’ll catch at least one of ’em breaking some kind of law. Some people live here legally. Most don’t. They gather at the rail ends, stage stations, and ranches. You can bet that when we see just about anyone prowlin’ these parts they’re doing something evil.”
His rambling answer hadn’t included the name I wanted to hear most. “Have you ever encountered a man named Saginaw Bob Magruder?”
“Oh, once or twice. That’s about as many times as anyone would want to run up against ole Bob. He’s the kind Sunday school teachers use to scare kids. If that John Doe you wanted is for Bob, you don’t really need it. They’s posters out on him. I guess he’s worth about a thousand dollars by hisself. He’d be a heck of a catch. But my advice is, don’t even try to catch him. The first chance you get—kill ’im. According to posters I’ve seen, he’s worth just as much dead as alive. I personally wouldn’t want to try and get him back to Judge Parker’s court. He’d most likely manage to kill you on the trail back and then get away. He’s done it before.”
Almost fell off my horse. “He’s been caught and got away?”
“Oh, yeah. Once an old friend of mine caught ’im. Name was Godfrey Cox. Englishman who’d soldiered and fought all over the world—tough as a boiled anvil. Bob got loose somehow and nailed Godfrey to a tree. Shot him in four or five extremely painful, but not life-ending, spots. Left him to bleed to death—horrible way to die. Almost everyone you meet out here can tell you a story just as awful. Ole Bob is a bad one.” He spurred his horse away and pulled up close to the wagon.
For the next few days nothing much happened. We stopped at some stage depots and ranch houses, poked through gullies, behind bushes and trees, but nothing turned up.
On the fifth day, any idea my first trip was destined to be the most boring and fruitless ever made into the Nations got put to a bullet-riddled rest.
We ambled onto a little hill that looked down on a patch of stunted trees just north of Winding Stair Mountain. The sounds of gunfire and yelling drifted up to us.
Dismounted and left the horses and wagon on the side of the rise away from the festivities. Crawled up to the ridge and laid on our stomachs to watch the show. Harry Tate handed me a long, collapsible glass that brought the disagreement close enough to get an idea of what transpired below.
At least ten people had a part in the shouting and shooting. I could see what looked like four men already down. One group of shooters had the safety of the trees, and the other was huddled behind a broken-down wagon and several dead horses.
Harry said, “We’ll have to be careful with this one. Everybody out here hates us. If we go riding down on them without thinking this through, they’ll all turn on us. You can bet those new spurs of yours on it.”
Quinten Moon suggested we wait until one side or the other gave up, then make our move. “I don’t see how we can get ’em all. I ain’t never took on this many at one time. There must be ten of ’em down there,” he grumbled.
You didn’t need a crystal ball to know all the marshals felt uncomfortable with the circumstances as they stood. Bix Conner allowed as how the fight would likely end when the ammunition started to run low.
“Be willing to bet they’re just about out now. Jesus, they’ve been shooting steady for the past thirty minutes. Most men carry plenty of ammo, but no one carries enough to keep up a shooting match like this forever,” he said.
From all appearances the men already down had been shot in the initial dispute. None moved or took part in the gunfight. Those who remained with the living poured vast quantities of lead into the air in an effort to kill anyone or anyt
hing that got in front of it. Their noisy blasting managed to do little more than put holes in trees, rocks, and the air at large.
Bix stared through the long glass for several minutes. “There’s whiskey in that wagon. Some of them sons of bitches are whiskey runners. Lord almighty, I hate whiskey runners. One thing for sure, we can get ’em all for introducin’ no matter what else shakes out.”
Johnny Peterman took the glass from Bix. “I’d bet everything we make this trip that the group in the trees tried to take the goods from those under the wagon.” He rolled onto his back and looked at me. “It happens out here a lot, Hayden. One group brings the goods hoping to make a boatload of money. Call that introducin’. Another group, nastier and more murderous, takes the stuff away from them. Trouble is, they all sell it to the Indians, and that causes a world of other problems.”
The gun battle fell out exactly the way Bix Conner predicted. The shooting began to diminish after the passage of another half hour and soon stopped altogether. He and Quinten Moon circled around behind the stand of trees.
Harry pulled a sawed-off shotgun from its bindings behind his saddle. Peterman handed me his shotgun and took my Winchester to guard our backs. Barrels on both those scatterguns had been cut back to about an inch past the forearm. Peterman grinned and told me, “They puts out a sizable spread. Missin’ with one of these blasters is close on to impossible.”
Handsome Harry and I worked our way up to the group under the wagon and waited for a signal from Bix before we moved in.
As we crept from rock to bush to tree, Harry whispered, “We’ll get as close to the shooters as we can. They won’t like the odds when they’re looking down the barrels of these scatterguns.”
A few minutes had passed when a voice from the woods called out, “I am Deputy Marshal Bixley Conner. I now have in my custody five men. You boys under the wagon throw down your weapons and raise your hands.”
“Bullshit,” yelled one of the men under the wagon. “Bix Conner hasn’t been out of Fort Smith in two months.”