The Desperado

by Clifton Adams

  The only building there was a long, cigar-box-shaped log hut along the river bank, and Pappy and I made for it. There was no sign of police or cavalry, and, when I mentioned it to Pappy, he laughed dryly.

  “They wouldn't do any good here. In the first place, it would take a regiment of cavalry and the whole damn ate police force to make an impression on a bunch of drovers. Anyway, all a man has to do is jump across the river and he's in Indian Territory where the police couldn't follow him.”

  There was a long bar inside the Station's one building, where men stood two deep waiting for their wildcat whiskey at two bits a drink. There was gambling in the jack of the place, and half-breed saloon girls moving among the customers, promoting one kind of deal or another. Pappy and I waited at the bar until the bartender got around to us.

  “Well, son, what do you think of it?”

  “I'm not sure,” I said. “I never saw anything like it before.”

  Pappy grinned slightly. “Wait until you see Abilene.” He picked up a bottle and we went to a table in the back of the place. It felt good to sit down in a chair for a change, instead of a saddle. I didn't feel sleepy. You got the idea that nobody ever slept in a place like this. There was too much excitement for that.

  I said, “Do you think we'll be safe here?”

  “As safe as we'd be anywhere,” Pappy said. “As long as we don't overdo it. I'll look around and pick out a herd to hook up with before long. Abilene beats this place. Besides, the marshal there is a friend of mine.”

  For the past four days, I hadn't had time to think. And now I was too tired to think. The fight with the cavalry seemed a long way in the past. It was hard to believe that it had happened.

  We stayed at Red River Station that night, spreading our blanket rolls on the ground, the way the drovers did, and the next day Pappy went to see about a job for us.

  That was the day I met Bat Steuber, a wiry little remuda man from an outfit down on the Brazos. A remuda man, I figured, might be able to rustle up some grain for Red and that big black of Pappy's, if he was handled right.

  The way to handle him, it turned out, was with whiskey. I bought him three drinks of wildcat with Pappy's money and he couldn't do enough for me. He took me down to where the outfit was camped and got some shelled corn out of the forage wagon. Or rather, he was about to get the corn, when a man came up behind the wagon and cut it short.

  “The boss says look after the horses,” the man said.

  He was a big man, his shoulders and chest bulging his faded blue shirt. His eyes were red-rimmed from riding long days in the drag, and his mouth was tight, looking as if he hadn't smiled for a long time.

  Bat Steuber said, “Hell, Buck, I finished my shift. It's your...”

  The man cut him off again. “I said see about the horses.”

  The voice cracked and Steuber jumped to his feet. “Sure, Buck, if you say so.”

  The man watched vacantly as Steuber went back to the rear where the remuda was ringed in; then he turned to me. I had a crazy idea that I had seen the man before, but at the same time I knew I hadn't. There was something about him that was familiar. His eyes maybe. I had seen eyes like those somewhere, clear, and blue, and deadly. He wore matched .44's converted, the same as mine, and I didn't have to be told that he knew how to use them. There are some things you know without having it proved to you.

  “What's your name, kid?” he asked flatly.

  “Cameron,” I said. “Talbert Cameron. I don't think I caught yours.”

  He looked as if he hadn't heard me. “You're the kid that rode in with Pappy Garret yesterday, ain't you?”

  He was asking a lot of questions, in a country where it wasn't polite to ask a stranger too many questions.

  But I said, “That's right.”

  I thought something happened to those eyes of his. He said flatly, “When you see Pappy, tell him I'm looking for him to kill him.”

  For a moment, I just stood there with my back against the wagon wheel. He said it so quietly and matter-of-factly that you wondered afterward if he had spoken at all.

  I tried to keep my voice as level as his. “Don't you think that'll be kind of a job? Men have tried it before, I hear.”

  His voice took an edge. “You just tell him what I said, kid. That way maybe you'll live to be a man someday.” He turned abruptly and started to walk away. Then he turned again. “Just tell him Buck Creyton is ready any time he wants to show his guts. If there is any question as to why I want to kill him, you might ask if he remembers my brother Paul.”

  He was gone before I could think of anything to say. Buck Creyton—a name as deadly as a soft-nosed bullet. A name as well known as Pappy Garret's, when the talk got around to gun-fighters.

  I thought, Have you lost your guts? Why didn't you tell him that you were the one that killed his brother, and not Pappy?

  I didn't know. I just thought of those deadly blue eyes and felt my insides turn over. He would kill me without batting an eye. Then I thought, Just like I killed his brother, and the three policemen, and the cavalryman.

  I walked over to Red and swung up to the saddle. “Come on, boy,” I said. “Let's get out of here.”

  Chapter 7

  I waited for pappy at the camp we had made, up the river from the herds. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to run or to stay with Pappy and see the thing through with Creyton. Maybe I would have the decision made for me, if Pappy ran into Creyton before he got back to camp.

  Then—out of nowhere—I heard the words: Don't worry about me. I'm not going to get into any more trouble. They sounded well worn and bitter. They were words I had said to Laurin, and a few hours later I had killed another man, a soldier.

  Now I had the government officers on my tail as well as the state police. Laurin ... I'd hardly had time to think about her until now. I could close my eyes and see her. I could almost touch her. But not quite.

  I picked up a rock and flung it viciously out of sheer helplessness and anger.

  I hadn't asked to get into trouble. It was like playing a house game with the deck stacked against you. The longer you played, the harder you tried to get even, and the more you lost. Where would it stop? Could it be stopped at all?

  I realized what I was doing, and changed my thinking. You'd go crazy thinking that way. Or lose your guts maybe, and get yourself killed. And I wasn't planning on getting killed, by Buck Creyton, or the police, or anybody else. I had to keep living and get back to John's City. I had to get back to Laurin.

  They didn't really have anything against me—except, of course, that one trooper that I had shot up at Daggert's cabin. But a jury of ranchers wouldn't hang me for shooting a bluebelly. Just lay quiet, I told myself, and wait for the right time.

  But there was still Buck Creyton to think about. My mind kept coming back to him. I wondered vaguely if Paul Creyton had any more kinfolks that would be bent on avenging him. Or the policemen, or the trooper.

  At last, when I finally went back to the beginning of the trouble, there was Ray Novak. He was the one who had started it all. I realized then that I hated Ray Novak more than anybody else, and sooner or later...

  But caution tugged again in the back of my mind. Lie quiet, it said. Don't ask for more trouble.

  Pappy came in a little before sundown, covered with trail dust and looking dog tired. I didn't know how to break it to him about Buck Creyton. I wasn't sure what he would do when he found out that Creyton was after him for something he hadn't done.

  “I got us fixed up with a job of work,” he said, wetting his bandanna from his saddle canteen and wiping it over his dirty face. “The Box-A outfit needs a pair of swing riders to see them through the Territory. Forty dollars a month if we use our own horses. That all right with you?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  He wrung his bandanna out and tied it around his neck again. “You don't sound very proud of it,” he said. But he grinned as he said it. I could see that Pappy was in good spirits. �
�It seemed like I rode halfway to the Rio Grande looking for that outfit,” he went on. “But it's what we want. The trail boss is a friend of mine and he don't allow anybody to cut his help for strays. Cavalry included.” He patted his belly. “Say, is there any of that bacon left?”

  “Sure,” I said. I got the slab and cut it up while Pappy made the fire. I decided I'd better let him eat first before saying anything.

  It was almost dark by the time we finished eating. Pappy sat under a cottonwood as I wiped the skillet, staring mildly across the wide, sandy stretch of land that was Red River. There was almost no river to it, just a little stream in the middle of that wide, dusty bed. Quicksand, not water, was what made it dangerous to cross.

  I put the skillet with the blanket roll and decided that now was as good a time as any.

  “Pappy,” I said abruptly, “we're in trouble.”

  He made one of those sounds of his that passed for laughter. “Wewere in trouble,” he said. “Not any more. We've got clear sailing now, all the way to Kansas.”

  “I don't mean with the police. With Buck Creyton.”

  I saw him stiffen for a moment. Slowly, he began to relax. “Just what do you mean by that?” he asked. Some people, when they get suddenly mad, they yell, or curse, or maybe hit the closest thing they can find. But not Pappy. His voice took on a soft, velvety quality, almost like the purring of a big cat. That's the way his voice was now.

  But I had gone too far to back down. I said, “I saw him today. He's working with one of the outfits getting ready to make the crossing. He's looking for you, Pappy. He says he's going to kill you.”

  Pappy sat very still. Then he said, “You yellow little bastard.”

  The words hit like a slap in the face. I wheeled on him, my hands about to jump for my guns, but then I remembered what Pappy had done to Ray Novak, and dropped them to my side.

  “Look, Pappy,” I said tightly, “you've got this figured all wrong.”

  He didn't even hear me. “You told him I was the one that killed Paul, didn't you?”

  “I didn't tell him a thing,” I said.

  “I'll bet! You didn't tell him thatyou did it.” Slowly he got to his feet, his hands never moving more than an inch or so from the butts of his pistols.

  I suppose I was scared at first, but, surprisingly, that went away. I began to breathe normally again. If he was determined to think that I had crossed him, there was nothing I could do about it. If he was determined to force a shoot-out, there was nothing I could do about that, either. He was standing in a half crouch, like a lean, hungry cat about to spring.

  “You yellow little bastard,” he said again.

  I said, “Don't say that any more, Pappy. I'm warning you, don't use that word again.”

  I think that surprised him. He thought I was afraid of him, and now it kind of jarred him to find out I wasn't. Pappy was good with a gun. I'd seen him draw and I knew. Maybe he was better than me—a hundred times better, maybe—but he hadn't proved it yet.

  He said, “I picked you up. I went to the trouble to save your lousy hide, and this is what I get. This tears it wide open, son. This finishes us.”

  “If you're not going to listen to reason,” I said, “then go ahead and make your move. You've got a big name as a gun-slinger. Let's see how good you really are.”

  He laughed silently. “I wouldn't want to take advantage of a kid.”

  I was mad now. He hadn't given me a chance to explain because he thought he could ride his reputation over me. I said, “Don't worry about the advantage. If you think you've got me scared, if you think I'm going to beg out of a shooting, then you're crazy as hell.”

  He still didn't move. “You think you're something, don't you, son? Because you got lucky with Paul Grey-ton, because you killed a couple of state policemen who didn't rightly know which end of a gun to hold, you think you're a gunman. You've got a lot to learn, son.”

  “Draw, then,” I almost shouted. “If you think you're so goddamned good and I'm so bad. Draw and get it over with. You're the one that got your back up.”

  For a moment I thought he was going to do it. I could see the smoky haze of anger lying far back in those pale eyes of his. I felt muscles and nerves tightening in my arms and shoulders, waiting for Pappy to make a move.

  Suddenly he began to relax. The haze went out of his eyes and he sat slowly down by the cottonwood.

  “What the hell got into us anyway?” he asked, shaking his head in amazement. “Hell, I don't want to kill you. I don't think you want to kill me. Sit down, son, until the heat wears off.”

  It took me a long time to relax, but I didn't feel very big because I had made Pappy Garret back down. I knew it wasn't because he was afraid of me.

  “Go on,” Pappy said softly, “sit down and let's think this thing over.”

  The anger that had been burning so hot only a minute ago had now burned itself out. Me and Pappy getting ready to kill each other—the thought of that left me cold and empty. Pappy had saved my life, he had given me a chance to live so someday I could go back to Laurin.

  “It's just as well we got that out of our systems,” Pappy said at last. “I'm sorry about the things I said. I didn't mean them.”

  That was probably the first time Pappy had ever apologized to anybody for anything. And he was right. It was just as well that we got it out of our systems. Sooner or later, when two men live by their guns, they are bound to come together. But there was slight chance of it happening again. You don't usually buck a man if you know he isn't afraid of you.

  Pappy got out his tobacco and corn-shuck papers, giving all his attention to building a cigarette. After he had finished, he tossed the makings to me.

  I said, “Hell, I guess I was just hot-headed, Pappy. I'm ready to forget it if you are. We're too good a team to break up by shooting each other.”

  Then Pappy smiled—that complete, face-splitting smile that he used so seldom. “Forgotten,” he said.

  After it was all over, I felt closer to Pappy than I had ever felt before. We sat for a good while, as darkness came on, smoking those corn-shuck cigarettes of his, and not saying anything. But I guess we both had Buck Creyton in our minds. I had already decided that I would hunt Creyton down the next day and tell him just the way it happened; then if he was still set on killing somebody, he could try it on me. I couldn't guess what Pappy was thinking until he said:

  “This is as good a time as any to push across the river. You get that red horse of yours, son, and we'll be moving as soon as it's a little darker.”

  I got the wrong idea at first. I thought Pappy was running because he was afraid of a shoot-out with Buck Creyton. But then I realized that he wouldn't admit it that way if he was. At least he would make up some kind of excuse for pulling out.

  But he didn't say anything, and then I began to get it. He was moving out on my account. He was ready to cross the Territory without the protection of a trail herd so that Buck Creyton wouldn't have a chance to find out that I was the one who had killed his brother. He was protecting me, not himself.

  I didn't see the sense in it. It seemed like it was just putting off a fight that was bound to come sooner or later, and why not get it over with now? But I didn't want to argue. I didn't want another flare-up with Pappy like I'd just had. So I went after Red.

  We crossed the river about a mile above the Station, keeping well east of the main trail, and pushed into Indian Territory. We rode without saying anything much. I didn't know how Pappy felt about it, but I didn't like the idea of running away from a fight that was bound to come sometime anyway. I figured he must have his reasons, so I let him have his way.

  By daybreak, Pappy said we were almost to the Washita, and it was as good a place as any to pitch camp. The next day we pushed on across the Canadian, into some low, rolling hills, and that was where I began to see Pappy's reason for running.

  First, we picked a place to camp near a dry creek bed; then Pappy insisted on scouting the surroun
ding country before telling me what he had in mind. Fort Gibson was on our right, Pappy said, over on the Arkansas line, but he didn't think it was close enough to bother us. The Fort Sill Indian Reservation was on our left, on the other side of the cattle trail, but the soldiers there were busy with the Indians and wouldn't be looking for us. The thing we had to worry about now, he went on, was government marshals making raids out of the Arkansas country. But we would have to take our chances with them.

  “I've told you before,” Pappy said, “that you've got a lot to learn.” He led the way down to the dry creek bed and pointed to a log about forty yards down from us. “Pull as fast as you can and see how many bullets you can put in it.”