by J. Lee Butts
Thinking back on it, I can’t even begin to imagine how such a massacre could slip through the cracks in my calcified ability to recollect such things. But friends, once you’ve accumulated as many war marks against your leathery hides as I have, we can have a heart-to-heart about fading memory.
Added my own series of smoke signals to the cloud hovering above us and said, “You know, I watched that semi-Indian tracker of yours through my long glass as we rode into the valley of the hoodoos, out on the Caprock. His waist-length gray hair flyin’ ’round his head like a battle flag. Sun was on the way to setting. Lit up all that red dirt like liquid fire poured over burnished gold. Big yeller dog running ahead of him stood out like a palomino pony.”
The glowing tip of Tilden’s smoke exposed crinkled eyes and a toothy grin. “Daniel Old Bear and Caesar surely loved the hunt. Soon as I set them on Bloodsworth’s and Daggett’s trail, those boys were nothing more than dead men riding horses. Thought we’d lost their sign in that near-endless pile of rocks someone named the Wichita Mountains. Took a couple of extra days, but Bear proved he could track sucker-toed tree lizards over a ten-thousand-year-old gravel bed.”
Pushed myself deeper into the mangled chair cushion, and sipped at my drink. “Still think the place he picked to camp was haunted. You remember the site, Tilden?”
“Up under a giant hoodoo?”
“That’s the one. Had some terrible dreams while we camped there.”
“Only because you paid too much attention to all those stories Old Bear told.”
Tilden was right. Can still see Westbrook sitting by the fire, running his damned near foot-long bowie knife around on a spit-wetted Arkansas stone. He could have easily passed for some prehistoric hunter, getting ready for the next day’s kill. Overhead a gigantic moon played hide-and-seek with the occasional cloud that turned it as red as an open chest wound—fine night for murderers and grave robbers, according to my grandmother.
He tested the edge on his blade with a calloused thumb, and glanced at the inky sky. Reflected flames danced in his eyes when he said, “This place haunted by many spirits. Used to come here with some Cheyenne folk back when they first captured me. Still more white than Indian then. Years later, visited again with my Kiowa family. Both groups told similar stories.”
He sliced through the night with his knife. Dancing light glinted off the steel. “Buffalo covered the land like a trade blanket. Beasts so large, it’s hard to believe. But I’ve seen their bones. Usually find those of men mingled amongst them. Humbling to know such creatures once existed.” He stopped, smiled, and with great respect in his voice added, “And there lived men brave enough to hunt and kill them. Many died trying to stay alive. Right time of year, on night of the killing moon, you can see them wandering the Llano like lost souls.”
Before I dropped off to sleep, heard him say, “We’ll catch Daggett and his friends in the morning, Tilden. They know we’re coming. If this moon is a true hint of things to come, tomorrow looks to be a bloody day.”
Don’t know if his wide-eyed ramblings caused my nightmares, or if, maybe, Tilden’s version of son-of-a-bitch stew hit my persnickety stomach the wrong way. Whatever the root, my blanket-roll reveries raged with men fighting animals I’d never seen in this life, or even thought of before. Shaggy brutish beasts brought horrifying scenes of death and destruction with them.
’Bout two hours before the sun got straight up, the following morning, we ran those heartless murders to ground, a few miles east of the confluence of the Tule and the Prairie Dog Town fork of the Red. Crimson rivers looked like gory arteries sitting on the world’s blistered hide. We pulled up after a rump-burner of a ride that turned into a seven-man horse race.
Tilden jumped off Gunpowder’s back, and jerked that massive Winchester .45–70 hunting rifle of his. Flipped up the back peep sight, dropped one of the reins, and tossed the other over his shoulder. Whispered something in the animal’s ear. It went spraddle-legged and as rigid as a piece of Italian marble. Tilden rested the barrel on his saddle, and sent one of those big chunks of lead nearly a quarter of a mile.
Horse didn’t even flinch. Damnedest rifle shot I’ve seen, before or since. Not even Moses Hand came close years later. Sure as hell caught Nevada Nate unawares. Hit him right between the shoulder blades. Massive four-hundred-and-five-grain slug knocked him clean out of one boot, and set his sorry carcass to flying between his mount’s ears. Killed that child-murdering son of Beelzebub deader than a six-card poker hand.
Tilden’s piece of showboat marksmanship uncorked a hellish bottle. Them sons of bitches turned and charged us. Poor stupid jackasses didn’t have enough brains, between the three of them, to spit downwind. I’d been fighting Comanches, from horseback, since the age of eleven. Them ole boys wanted to do my favorite kind of dance.
Jerked my Colt’s dragoon pommel guns, wrapped the reins around my saddle horn, and put the spur to Hateful. Stringy mustang jumped like she’d been hit in the rump with a flaming bullwhip, and set out for the fight eyes a-blazing. Daniel Old Bear Westbrook, and that yeller dog, trailed.
Tilden yelled, “Go get ’em, Lucius,” but kept his place. He tried to perform another miracle by hitting targets thundering our direction. If he’d managed to bring a horse down, I’d be bragging about that shot today too. Swirling dust turned an azure sky the color of copper, and the bitter smell of black powder filled my nostrils.
Three remaining killers started firing from several hundred yards away. Weren’t doing themselves a damned bit of good. Glanced to my left. Old Bear leaned into his animal’s neck, and the pair seemed to become a single sinewy being.
As we raced toward our prey, blue whistlers chewed holes in the air all around me. One notched my ear and another punched through the edge of my hat brim. Fired my first shot when the five of us had closed to about sixty yards. Ball hit Wolf Tail dead center, punched a massive hole through his bone breastplate, and snatched him backward like he’d been roped and staked to the ground.
I snapped off several more, before we passed each other. Lots of dust and confusion, but did see sunlight bouncing off sharpened steel. Rufus Bloodsworth grabbed at his neck, and hit the ground harder than a sack of railroad spikes. Tilden’s dog jumped him so quick he didn’t have time to recover. Trust me, it was a gruesome sight to behold.
Hateful twirled around in time to have Blackie Daggett put one down her side. The bullet cut my cinch strap sure as a hot knife slices through butter. Saddle, and me, flew through the air. Thought I’d grown wings. Landed in the only bed of cactus within a mile of that Pecos promenade. Turned me into a living, breathing pincushion, in less than ten seconds. Then, I suppose, the lucky son of a bitch charged back with the intent of running me down. On my third attempt, a .44 ball in his brain box put an abrupt end to that idea.
Good God Almighty, but I was a mess. Had more cactus spines sticking out of me than a Kentucky bluetick hound that had just discovered his first porcupine. Painfully, stumbled over to check on Bloodsworth. Don’t know to this day what kept the man’s head attached to his body. Old Bear had damn near decapitated the poor luckless bastard. Dog almost ripped off what was left. Hell of a bloody mess where he fell. Learned a healthy amount of respect for Old Bear’s skill with his knife that morning. Watched Caesar out of the corner of my eye from then on too.
Well, friends, Tilden and me kept the drinking, story-telling, and general roof-raising going almost all night. Best time I’d had in twenty years. Tilden stayed till the end of the week. We had a grand time every night on the porch with our whiskey, cigars, and tall tales.
Yesterday, under what had to be the bluest Texas sky since God created it, I loaded my old friend’s raggedy cardboard suitcase into my antiquated rattletrap of a truck, and drove him back to the depot in Texarkana. Hugged his wrinkled neck like a long-lost brother. More than one person on the loading platform looked mighty surprised to see a pair of ancient geezers blubbering like babies. Course, weren’t no way for t
hem ignorant whippersnappers to have known they’d just witnessed the final goodbyes of a pair of trail-hardened former man-killers. We wept, and sensed we’d never see each other again. Time and what that soul-stealing, night-running bastard Tilden likes to call “the ole boney-fingered dude” will certainly catch up with us first.
Helped my arthritic trail mate cane a hobbling path through the crowd, and up the Pullman car’s metal steps. Shook the weathered claw he offered, and waved him goodbye as the Texas Star, heading for Arkansas, set to chugging, gathered speed, and finally vanished from sight.
Last words I heard from Tilden before he climbed aboard and left my life forever were, “Ain’t many of us ole boys left, Lucius. In spite of what the ignorant and ill-informed might think, our lives had weight and importance. When called on, we were the ones what stepped up, toed a brutal line, and did the right thing. The likes of us saved an untold number of people’s lives, and, when necessary, we punished the wicked. My friend Barnes Reed called it the grim work of good men. No one will remember any of that when we’re gone. Folks are just too busy with the world these days to care even the least.” Then, with tears streaming down his leathery cheeks, he finished by saying, “Write everything down you can bring to mind. I’ll talk with my biographer in Little Rock. He might be able to get it published. You never know. Take care of yourself, amigo. We’ll meet again in glory, on the other side.”
The keeper of Tilden’s literary flame is a young newspaper writing feller name of Lightfoot. He’s done gone and made ole Hayden famous, again. Seems they’ve collaborated on a bunch of the former marshal’s bold recollections, concerning his days chasing bad men out in the Indian Nations for Judge Isaac C. Parker. Surely you remember Parker. Everyone used to call him “The Hanging Judge” ’cause of all the men he sent to executioner George Male-don’s grim gallows in the little holler down the hill from the courthouse in Fort Smith. Parker snuffed the lamp on eighty-eight of them altogether, if memory serves.
Hayden and me felt about the same when it came to the subject of hanging. He said he’d once told his friend Lightfoot, “Don’t ever let nobody tell you different, Junior. Hanging is a hell of an awful way to go out of this life. Even for those pitiful sons of bitches that were guilty as Judas and, most assuredly, destined for the everlasting tortures of Satan’s fiery pit. But someone had to catch them, and, for almost twenty years, Judge Parker walked a blood-soaked line others before him, and after, simply found impossible to come to grips with.” Yep, my friend saw it all, and truth be told, I witnessed more than my share too.
So, on the way back to my Sulphur River digs from Texarkana, I stopped at Churchpew’s Grocery that afternoon and bought me a stack of Big Chief tablets, a fistful of No. 2 pencils, and a big ole gum eraser.
Cooley said, “What you gonna do with all this stuff, Lucius? You done gone and found yourself a female pen pal?”
Stopped in his doorway as I was leaving, turned, and held those tablets up. “Gonna bring the past back to life, Cooley. Probably be some folks ain’t gonna like it, but it’s gotta be done.”
I heard told as how some writer feller once said there’s only two things of any real consequence in this life—love and death. Never believed that ole adage until Nance Nightshade and me met up. Guess I’ve hidden the story of our short, violent relationship, and the gory consequences of her family’s destruction, long enough.
Sat down at the kitchen table the other day. Whipped out my Barlow and sharpened six or seven of those pencils. Poured myself a big mug of double-strength stump juice, and started scribbling. At first, I found it hard to bring it all back to the front burners of my age-dulled memory. But, just like my talks with Tilden, eventually the entire sad tale laid itself out in front of me like my checkered tablecloth. Faces from the past swam to the surface of my memory like minnows in a bucket, and them little red blocks under my tablet reminded me of all the blood. If you’re interested, what follows is the story I wrote. You’re gonna have to cinch her up tight, though. ’Cause this ain’t no fairy tale. It’s a wrenching confession of love, hatred, betrayal, and death that no one but you will know about—a dark and evil secret I expect you to keep.
1
“WE’LL SETTLE OUR DIFFERENCES RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.”
SUPPOSE THE MURDEROUS tale I have to tell started on a steamy afternoon back in 1867. Seven years old, almost eight, at the time, but I remember as how my pa and oldest brother came thundering up to the house, and jumped off their sweaty mounts. They stormed inside with me in pursuit. I barefooted it behind them as fast as my bony legs would allow.
Stood behind my mother. Clung to the hem of her dress as Pa grabbed her by the shoulders and said, “We’re gonna have to leave this place, Mattie.” My mother’s given name was Matilda, but he’d always called her Mattie when there weren’t nothing but family about. Company caused him to use the more formal Mrs. Dodge. No matter the situation, she referred to him as Mr. Dodge. Didn’t know until my twelfth birthday his name was Hudson. Always got a laugh out of that, and, for obvious reasons, it’s even funnier today. Hudson Dodge.
She said, “What can you possibly be about, Mr. Dodge. Louisiana has been our home since the year young Lucius came into this world. We can’t just jump up and leave.”
“That carpetbaggin’ son of a bitch down at the Elk Horn Bank stole the farm, Mattie. Called it ‘foreclosure due to nonpayment.’ So, Denton and me pulled our pistols, and took every dime in the place. Need to get as far from Shreveport as we can by tomorrow morning. Figure it’ll take about that long to break the door on his big ole safe open and let him out. Goin’ to Texas, Mother. We should be out of harm’s way there.”
“My Sweet Lord, Mr. Dodge. You didn’t kill anyone, did you?”
“No, Mattie. Not yet. Throw a few essentials, and some food, in a gunnysack. We’ve got to be on the other side of the Red as fast as possible.”
Pa owned some of the best Tennessee horseflesh any of them Cajuns had ever seen. The four of us headed for the cane breaks, and before night fell we’d crossed over into the wilds of Texas. Spent a lot of days in the saddle. Didn’t stop running till we got to a primitive burg called Lampasas. Never forget the look on my mother’s face when my father opened up that bag of ill-gotten loot for the first time. He took enough to impress a feller what had some land for sale, and bought us a nice-sized ranch about ten miles west of town.
When people asked where we’d come from, all my pa ever said was, “Well, neighbor, I woke up one morning, turned to my Mattie, and said, ‘Darlin’, I cain’t stand these Louisiana swamps for another minute. Let’s move to God’s country.’”
Usually satisfied those curious enough to inquire. But you know, most folks never asked, because many of them had arrived in Texas under similar circumstances. The end of what Mother referred to as the Unpleasantness, and the almost endless hell of Reconstruction, made refugees out of just about every other family in the South.
Things went along right well for around a dozen years. Never heard from anyone over Shreveport way. But like the old philosopher always said, nothing good lasts forever.
As I recollect, it were mid-August when the real trouble hit. My God, but it was hotter than a stoked-up depot stove in January. Hadn’t rained in more than a month. Every flat surface available to the eye was decorated with a layer of fine dust, getting deeper by the minute. Mother hated the powdery grime. Spent most of her waking hours locked in a deadly struggle for supremacy over the powdered haze she accused of “assaulting” her most precious family heirlooms. Course them “heirlooms” had only been there a short time, but she acted like we’d inherited them from her family back in Virginia.
The Colorado River skirted one end of our property. Had some mighty fine grass because of it. Fat cattle and sleek horses nourished the Dodge family’s reputation all over that part of the state. Truth be told, Las Tres Colinas had grown into the best by-God rancho in the county. At the time, weren’t any reason in the whole wide worl
d for me to believe I’d soon take part in an infamous murder inquiry, or that it would be hushed up, and almost forgotten, for more than fifty years. But that piece of my story’s gonna have to wait ’cause, hell, I’d be getting a shade ahead of myself unless I started at the real beginning.
Us Dodges arrived in the Great Lone Star State near on to the end of the worst Comanche raiding and killing. We fought them horse-riding imps a time or two, though. About all anyone in his right mind would want. Lost a fair number of neighbors to the bloodthirsty devils over the years. Mostly men and women caught too far away from civilization. Their pitiful corpses usually ended up looking like naked, hairless targets for arrows.
The Dodge clan had so much hard bark clinging to our calloused rumps, we managed to keep our scalps, and stay put on the land, in spite of some pretty hot efforts from those savages to dislodge us. Had to kill off more than a few of them, but you do what you have to.
By the time my eighteenth birthday rolled around, my own skills with rifles, pistols, knives, and horses rivaled any full-grown man’s. Youthful exuberance sometimes led me to believe I was bullet-proof, tomahawk-proof, and knife-proof. And, after consuming enough of brother Denton’s homemade coffin paint, I occasionally even thought myself invisible.
We spent better than ten years getting situated the way Pa wanted. Dug a damned fine well, lined it with smooth stones from the river. Built a comfortable dog-run house with a deep porch all the way around. Put it on a hill covered in live oaks. Had us a big ole barn, corral, and outbuildings where the hired help slept. Vaqueros called them bunkhouses. Ours appeared a sight nicer than any others I ever saw. Pa kept as many of them oaks as he could. When full-bore summer hit in Texas, you needed all the shade you could muster.