His hand outside the bandage was now badly swollen. It had turned purple, and the discoloration was creeping slowly down toward the two fingers that remained without feeling. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move them. They were numb, as if they had died on their own.
It wasn’t so bad in the cooler morning or evening, but the wound bothered him terribly during the hot afternoon while the sun blazed down on the prairie. Waves of nausea swept over Ben, and he had to dismount a couple of times to vomit.
Finally, the afternoon after the gunfight, his vision blurred and reddened. Ben felt himself swaying in the saddle and he dismounted. He hung on to the saddle horn as dizziness swept over him in pulsating waves. He felt his grip weaken and his knees buckled.
The next thing he knew he was lying down. He rolled over on his hands and knees to vomit again.
There was an awful thirst in his throat and he staggered back to the saddle to get his canteen. Tipping it up, he drained the metal container in greedy, loud gulps.
Again he hung on to that saddle horn until he felt better. It was a hell of an effort but he got himself into the saddle. The horse, sensing its rider’s weakness, went slowly, but Ben again slipped from the saddle. Finally, as he groped back to his feet, he admitted to himself what he had been pushing back farther and farther from conscious thought:
The dog bite had turned into a serious wound.
Chapter Twelve
After Ben Cullen left his pal Elmer Woods on the doctor’s porch in Fort Smith, Arkansas, he had only a short distance to go before he was in an area that could have rightly been described as Outlaw Heaven.
This land, the Indian Territory, was located just across the Arkansas River from Fort Smith. It was a wild region peopled by the five civilized tribes—the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Seminoles, and Chickasaws—a few decent whites, and bands of outlaws using the unhappy place as a haven from the law. These brigands left their hideouts only to pillage and kill in the settled areas. They also did a lot of the same in the Territory, where only a handful of Indian police was detailed to keep the peace.
The situation was made doubly bad by the fact that these native lawmen had no jurisdiction over the white outlaws, only their own brethren. The whites could only be arrested and brought to justice by marshals out of Judge Isaac Parker’s Federal court in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The vastness of the job, and the few men to administer justice there, created a violent environment that suited the lawbreakers fine.
Ben Cullen’s introduction to the Indian Territory began with a brief, violent encounter that marked the first time he killed a man. Despite the numerous bank and train robberies he had participated in as a member of the Gilray gang, Ben had yet to shoot down another human being. True, he fired plenty of bullets, but he took no pleasure in the thought of gunning down another man. Besides, he wasn’t much of a shot, and he did the wild, quick shooting mostly just to make other folks slow down or duck their heads while he and his pards made their galloping bids for escape.
Ben had ridden hard after leaving Fort Smith and didn’t really feel safe until he’d arrived in Muskogee. He could tell from the look of the place as he rode in that no warrant-serving marshal would be waiting for him, and there was even less chance that one might happen to show up. Legal authority made only occasional appearances in Muskogee. The town was a wide-open, wild place where each man made his own law and backed it up with carbine and pistol.
Since leaving prison and joining Gilray’s bunch Ben had developed a fondness for bourbon whiskey. He wasn’t a drunk by any stretch of the imagination, but he had learned to enjoy getting mellow and intoxicated with some good sipping bourbon that he took slowly and without much talking. He did this privately, wrapped up in his own thoughts. After the hell of a botched train robbery and leaving off a badly-shot-up pal, the one thing that Ben Cullen needed by the time he hit Muskogee was a few good stiff drinks.
He rode down the main street and spotted a saloon that looked a bit better than the rest. He wasn’t fastidious about where he imbibed, Ben just figured the fancier the saloon the better the chance for less-watered-down bourbon.
After tying off his horse at the rail, Ben went inside and bellied up to the bar. The establishment wasn’t luxurious by any standards—except Muskogee’s. It was a frame building so hastily erected that there were open places where the planking had warped. The floor was hard packed dirt covered with sawdust to soak up the spit and the blood. The bar itself was only two-by-sixes laid across a line of barrels, and the man who worked behind it wasn’t a talkative type. When Ben approached, the barkeep just raised an inquiring eyebrow.
“Bourbon,” Ben said. “A bottle.”
The man set the whiskey down and plunked a reasonably clean glass beside it. “Four bits.”
Ben paid and poured himself a drink. He took it, as he did all the first ones, fast. He threw it back in his throat and let it burn itself down, clearing out the trail dust. He served himself another. This time he took just a sip, held it in his mouth to enjoy the flavor, and swallowed.
The whiskey loosened him up some and made the world seem not such a bad place. He continued his slow drinking. Now and then he would glance around. This was more out of habit than of real curiosity about the other bar patrons. Ben was in no mood for company. An old habit from Leavenworth kept him from looking directly into any one man’s eyes. In prison this could be an invitation to various kinds of trouble. But each time his gaze roved, he noted one black-jowled man who was looking directly at him. This penitentiary etiquette worked both ways too. The man was clearly giving his undivided attention to Ben, and it started to rile him. Finally, he responded.
“Is there something you want?” Ben asked.
The man’s eyes continued to bore into his own. “You drink hard for a little feller.”
Ben knew he had a troublemaker on his hands. This was a fellow whose bad temper got worse with a bellyful of liquor, and like most barroom brawlers, he looked for trouble from men he figured would be easy to whip. As a small man Ben was used to larger bullies trying to pick on him. It would have been best to leave, but there was another convict habit he couldn’t break—a man’s reputation either made him or broke him. Backing down could be as bad as suicide. He had to respond. “You worried about the likker supply here?” Ben asked.
“Not much,” the man allowed. “Ifn I run short I’ll take yours.”
The barkeep’s taciturn demeanor changed. “If you two jaspers want trouble, take it outside.”
Ben defended himself. “I’m minding my own business and you can see that.”
“Get on outside,” the barkeep said. “I don’t need your trouble here.”
Ben’s face reddened with fury. “The hell if I will.” He pointed to his adversary. “If he’d mind his own business there wouldn’t be no trouble. Anyhow, are you afraid o’ that feller? Is that why you’re telling me to leave instead o’ him?”
The large man laughed. “I’ll take care of getting you outside, Shorty.” He stepped away from the bar.
Ben knew he could never have whipped the man. “I don’t like working up a sweat. You come near me and you die.” The challenge was loud and clear. He pulled his pistol and stood ready.
There was a crash of chairs and scuffle of feet across the floor as everyone in the room—including the barkeep—made plenty of room.
“Shit,” the bully said. “Can’t you take some funning? You don’t have to throw down on a feller.” He looked to the others in the saloon for support. “It’s a hell of a thing to pull a shooting iron over a damned joke.”
But the small crowd wasn’t impressed with him. There were even a few disapproving remarks. Most of these had to do with someone starting trouble, then not having the sand to finish it.
“I’m telling you loud and clear,” Ben said. “Leave me be or I’ll plug you.”
“Relax, Shorty,” the other sneered. He tried to make himself look better by facing Ben for an extra few moments.
Finally he turned and walked toward the rear of the saloon.
Ben set his pistol where it would be handy on the bar, and went back to his bottle.
The shot inside the closed-in space of the barroom was so loud that it made Ben’s ears ring. The two that quickly followed didn’t seem quite so loud to his numbed eardrums. But the chunks of wood flying out of the bar were plenty unnerving without the thundering noise.
Ben didn’t remember grabbing his pistol, but he did so with a speed born out of the startled fear. He returned fire, squeezing the trigger three times while aiming hastily and in panic. Two more shots came from the bully before Ben fired again, but the effect of that final shot was impressive.
The man’s front teeth shattered and his jaw blew off to one side. He staggered backward and Ben fired his final bullet. It punched dead center and knocked the bully flat on his back. Ben quickly reloaded in the moment of silence that followed.
“Fair fight,” somebody finally said.
“Yeah,” another echoed. “Fair fight.”
“I’ll take the bottle with me,” Ben said.
“Yes, sir,” the barkeep responded.
Ben kept low the next couple of days in case the man had any friends, but it became obvious the bully was either a loner or just plain ornery enough to be unpopular. After Ben returned to the saloon for another bottle, he found everyone a bit friendlier and he fell in with a group of men who invited him along on a cattle-rustling run south into Texas.
This opened new vistas for Ben Cullen, and he spent the next three years roaming with various groups of pardners. They hit ranches not only in Texas and the Indian Territory, but even went as far as old Mexico.
And there he killed his second man.
This was a vaquero off a ranch that Ben and the bunch he was running with at that time had raided. It was a chance shot while being pursued, but there was no denying it had been his bullet that spilled the Mexican from the saddle. The situation was one of bellowing men, discharging pistols and rifles, and the combined thunder of both horse and cattle hooves on the gravelly ground. Mexican cowboys were fearless even when they weren’t angry. Once enraged they were tigres bravos. A hell of a running gun battle developed out of the incident.
Ben fired backward, sometimes without even looking, emptying one pistol and bringing out the other before he managed to hit the fierce pursuer who dogged his tracks.
When the stolen cattle were taken to Paco’s for disposal, his pards had boasted of his shooting skill, and Ben got an undeserved reputation for being fast and accurate. The fact was that Ben just didn’t have the eye and hand coordination necessary to be a dead-shot. But he had cool enough nerves to stand in the line of fire and patiently trade bullets with an adversary until one of them fell. What Ben Cullen really had was plenty of luck.
He continued to move around that part of the country until he was not only running into marshals from Judge Parker’s court, but also getting into conflicts with those out of the brand-new U.S. marshal’s office in Guthrie after the Cherokee Strip was established. Some of the lawmen assigned from that jurisdiction were old adversaries like Chris Madsen and Heck Thomas. And he ran into a new one by the name of United States Deputy Marshal Jack Macon.
When Ben Cullen and Jack Macon met, the marshal was tied to a chair on T. C. Hutchins’s ranch south of the town of Perry. Hutchins had a few miserable cattle and paid a half dozen hard-bitten cowboys to keep an eye on them, but his real money was made in conjunction with Paco Chavez when he mingled stolen cattle in with his own, to make minor drives up to the railroad at Perry to ship them to market. If any of the townspeople had bothered to take notice or count the amount of cattle going through the Hutchins’ spread, they would have figured something was fishy.
But in Oklahoma Territory a man minded his own business unless there was a threat to his life or property.
Jack Macon was a stubborn, dedicated lawman. He had known there was somebody disposing of stolen herds for rustlers, but he could never quite figure out who it was. Finally, piecing together a combination of evidence, rumor, and official reports, he narrowed the culprit down to somewhere in the Perry area. He got permission from Chief Marshal E. D. Nix to make a lone investigation into the matter. When Macon got to Perry, he began a patient task of scouting, checking out each ranch in the region until, to his bad luck, he came to Hutchins’s place.
T. C. Hutchins, being a naturally nervous man, kept a strict system of sentries and patrols. His boys roamed the property regularly, doing so carefully to catch any snoopers or lawmen that may have gotten wise to the setup. That was how Jack Macon got caught.
The deputy marshal was lying on the crest of a ravine peering at the ranch house when three of Hutchins’s men discovered him. Normally they would have shot him on the spot, but when they noted who he was they decided to settle a couple of old scores at their leisure with one or two Comanche tricks they knew about.
Ben Cullen and three of Paco’s men arrived that same evening with a small herd to ship north. Ben was the ramrod of the outfit, and he went in the house to pass on Paco’s instructions for the proper disposal of the cattle.
T. C. Hutchins introduced the two men. He wasn’t particularly affable about it. “Ben Cullen,” he said. “I’d like you to meet Jack Macon. He’s the dumbest sonofabitch in Oklahoma Territory.”
Ben looked down at the bound man. “Howdy.” Then he glanced at T. C. “Any particular reason you got him tied to that chair?”
“Yep,” T. C. said. “The boys is gonna roast him.” He laughed. “That there’s a United States deputy marshal out of Nix’s office in Guthrie.”
“Yeah? What’s his name again?”
“My name,” Macon interrupted, “is Jack Macon and you better remember it, ‘cause I’ll remember yours, Ben Cullen. And I promise I’ll see all you sonofabitches in the territorial penitentiary!”
Ben admired his courage, but couldn’t recommend the man’s good sense. “Any particular reason I should let a feller roped down like you order me in to prison?”
“Don’t worry none,” Macon said. “I’ll be taking you in.”
“I admire grit in a man,” Ben said. “I truly do.” He laughed and sat down at a nearby table to do his business with Hutchins. When they were finished, Ben stopped to say goodbye to the lawman before leaving. “Any particular time you want me to show up at the territorial prison?”
Macon snarled. “I’ll get you there myself when the time is right, you sawed-off little bastard!”
Ben only smiled. “So long.” He decided to egg the man on a bit. “Just in case I forget, what’s your name again?”
“Macon, damn your eyes! Jack Macon, U.S. deputy marshal.”
“Well, don’t forget me neither. I’m Cullen, damn your eyes! Ben Cullen, U.S. cattle rustler.”
Hutchins almost fell over laughing, but something in Macon’s gaze cause an involuntary twinge of uneasiness in Ben. He displayed an uneasy grin, then took his leave.
Ben went back to cattle rustling for a few months, plus a train robbery in the Cherokee Strip, before he returned to the Hutchins’ spread. He’d forgotten about the feisty marshal in the meantime, but being back in the ranch house reminded him of the lawman.
“Say,” he asked T. C. Hutchins over a cup of hot coffee. “What’d you fellers do to that starpacker you had tied to the chair?”
“You see the chair is gone,” Hutchins said.
Ben looked around. “I reckon.”
“Well, the ornery sonofabitch busted it up and got outta here. No guns and no boots, but he stole a damn mule outta my corral and lit out for Guthrie,” Hutchins said.
Ben laughed out loud.
“It ain’t funny!” Hutchins snapped. “He killed Lanky Duval with the leg o’ that godamned chair. Flat beat him to death with it!” The rancher-rustier calmed down, but pointed a finger into Ben’s face and spoke low. “That Macon knows you, Ben Cullen.”
“Shit!” Ben scoffed. “He won’t rememb
er me. He didn’t see me ’cept for a few minutes.”
“That’s be long enough for Macon,” Hutchins said. “But you was here for a coupla hours, Ben. Not a few minutes.”
Ben only laughed again. “Cut out the shit, Hutch. Let’s do some whiskey drinking. It’s a long way back to Paco’s tomorrow.”
But Marshal Jack Macon did remember Ben, and it was only a matter of a few months before their trails crossed again.
This time it was an ambush just south of the Texas line. Ben and some of his erstwhile cronies had hit none other than the U.S. Army at Fort Sill. A new shipment of recently purchased government horses, still to have the “U.S.” brand put on their flanks, was corralled at an outlying area of the post. The outlaws swept down on them, killing one soldier and wounding three others, then broke the small herd loose and headed them south toward a Mexican market.
Jack Macon, active as usual, had intelligence on the horse buyers south of the border. He and some five other deputies had been patrolling along the Red River. They had been using a small cavalry encampment as a headquarters, and the news of the daring theft reached there via military telegraph.
Macon had a good idea of the thieves’ destination, and he headed toward a spot where there would be a good chance to ambush them.
This was a narrow cut in the bluffs on the Texas side. Here, concealed in the heights, they would have any passersby caught between them a deep, rapid-running portion of the river.
Macon like to kill people, and he waited impatiently for more than thirty hours before the objects of his attention finally arrived. Although the marshal’s force was small, the outlaws were hemmed in tight. The first salvo of carbine and rifle fire immediately knocked three of the seven outlaws out of their saddles.
The horses stampeded and took off leaving the four survivors—including Ben Cullen—exposed. They wheeled helplessly around on their own mounts as more lead was poured into their midst. Two more went down, leaving Ben and a wild-eyed kid from New Mexico riding back and forth.
Desperado Run (An Indian Territory Western Book 2) Page 14