by Chuck Tyrell
“How’s the day treating you, youngster?”
“So far so good, but I reckon it’s going to get better.”
“How’d you figure that?”
“I figure you’re going to tell me about the gunfight in Holbrook where you shot Andy Cooper.”
“Read the newspaper. It’s still around someplace.”
“I’d rather hear it from you.”
“You remember what I told Andy Cooper?”
“Stay out of town?”
“What else?”
“You didn’t figure taking Navajo horses was a crime.”
C.P. smiled with his eyes. “I told him not to stir up trouble as long as I was sheriff and that the warrant would stay buried if he did that.”
“I remember that.”
“So him and me, we ended up on Holbrook on the same day, with him bragging about killing people. I had no proof on the killings, but I had that warrant, even if it was at Zach Decker’s place in Taylor.”
“So the gunfight wasn’t about the Navajo horses at all, then?”
C.P. shook his head. “It ain’t right to kill a man just because he’s got skin of a different color or a last name that don’t sit right with your own friends. It ain’t right. And I figured if I could get Andy into jail, things in Pleasant Valley might simmer down a bit.”
“But Andy didn’t see it your way?”
C.P. scrubbed a hand across his face. “Andy Cooper never thought any way but his own. I had to shoot him. And, no matter how much I wish I hadn’t, I shot that youngster Sam Houston Blevins. Only twelve years old, he was, but the revolver he pointed at me was .45 caliber, and a boy’s finger pulls a trigger just as easy as a man’s.”
“What about Roberts?”
“He was running with a gun in his hand. That meant he had something to hide. Coulda killed him, but I didn’t.”
I wrote on my foolscap for a minute, thinking about where to point the conversation. C.P. signaled for another cup of coffee.
“Dammit,” C.P. said. “Dammit. Didn’t want to kill that boy. Purely didn’t. But he left me no choice. None at all. After I shot that boy, them newspapermen, them people like you, youngster, they started calling me a killer. ”
“Why would they do that? Were you?”
C.P. didn’t answer right away. He turned his coffee cup around a couple of times, and seemed to watch out the front window as traffic passed. Nowadays, as many horseless carriages went by as carriages or wagons pulled by horses. “Maybe I was. Maybe I was. But that’s what was needed at the time.”
I took a deep breath and another mouthful of coffee because I was about to ask C.P. a question that might at the least get me thrown out of the Bucket of Blood.
“What’s eatin’ at you, youngster?”
“Well. Let me see if I can phrase this in a way that will give no offense.”
“You want to know how many men I’ve kilt, don’t you?”
A car going by backfired, but neither of us flinched.
“Back then, I’da been out the door with a six-gun in my hand,” C.P. said. “Horseless carriages. They’ll be the death of more men than a lawman’s gun ever was.”
“How many, C.P.?”
“Dead? They gotta be dead to be counted as kilt, don’t they?”
“If you wish.”
“A dozen or so. But that ain’t counting Indians or Mexicans.”
“Why wouldn’t you count them?”
“They ain’t Americans. Indians live under a different set of laws. Like I said about George Lockhart. Him a sworn-in lawman and we couldn’t get no action from either the agent or the army. So if some Indian makes off with stock from a bona fide owner in Apache County, I’d shoot him outta the saddle, no questions asked. And he’d not be counted as a ‘man’ in my book.”
“Any other exceptions?”
“Mexicans. I don’t mean the vaqueros what ride for the Pilar Rancho nor people who’ve always called this area home. They’re Americans to me. Like Tommy Perez. Once a sheriff, always crooked as a dog’s hind leg, but I hauled him in. Coulda shot ‘im, but I never.”
“So. A dozen men dead by your hand, then?”
“Are you listening, youngster? That’s what I said, not counting Navajos, who’re up north in their own country. And not other country desperado Mexican cow thieves.”
“Doesn’t sound like enough to earn you the label of killer.”
“Well, some of them I wounded died later, like Mose Roberts. But that weren’t my fault. T’was the sawbones’s fault.”
“How many wounded, if I can ask?”
“Fifty-three.”
I must have looked surprised, because C.P. chuckled, and that was very uncharacteristic of him. “How many died?” I asked.
“Who knows? I never kept count.”
“So you got all the bad men in the county, dead or alive? Is that right?”
C.P. Owens barked a laugh. His eyes swept the customers in the Bucket of Blood. Not many, as it was yet before noon, and Carrie Nation had put the fear of God into men who started drinking in the morning. Drinking at any saloon, for that matter.
“You know, youngster, some of the men called outlaws or bad men or hard men had more gray matter in their skulls than ten men put together.”
“Like who?”
“Some run away. Like, I had warrants out for the Graham brothers, George and Bill. Maybe you remember me saying something about them a couple of days ago. Now those two Grahams was no kin to Tom Graham who got mixed up in the Pleasant Valley War.”
“They’d rustled some cattle, as I remember.”
“That’s right, and I knew where they was squatting, in a dugout that somebody else’d built and abandoned. Happens, you know, people’ll set sight on a piece of land and build a cabin or maybe a dugout as part of the improvements. Anyhow, I knew the place, which lay a little south of Cottonwood Wash and this side of Cherry Creek.”
“They know you?”
“I reckon. Not many rannies around what hadn’t heard of C.P. Owens’s shooting, or what I did to thieving Navajos what tried to steal my purebred horses. Yeah. They knew me. And I knew them, to see ‘em.”
“Were they your first arrests?”
“Not hardly. When I got over to their homestead, they was nobody there. Vacant. Not even a ghost.”
“Ran?”
“George, he left a note pinned to the door with a darning needle. It said they was leaving Apache County, and had no intentions of ever coming back. Well, that was OK by me. Not necessary to plug a outlaw if he’s willing to leave the county and never return. That was something Andy Cooper could never understand. That Pleasant Valley got his blood heated up to where he figured they weren’t nobody with enough gumption to go up against him. He was wrong, and so was anyone else who thought like that.”
“Sounds like the smart thing to do.”
“Smart ain’t often a word a person uses when talking about lawbreakers. Lots are just ordinary folks like you and me, but who took a wrong turn somewhere along the line, like I pert near did. Some’re stupid as a pine board, but figure they’re smarter than any man who wears a badge. They’re lucky one time, robbing a stage or some such, and figure every job they’ll ever pull will go the same way.”
“The James boys seem to have done quite well.”
C.P. gave me one of his eyes-only smiles. “You’d think so, but who was it what got shot in the back of the head by someone who was supposed to be his friend?”
“Jesse James.”
“And that Northfield Minnesota raid by the Jameses and Youngers. Ask me, that was a long way to ride for nothing more than a belly full of lead. Not smart. Not smart at all.”
“But there were some smart ones, outlaws, I mean. Isn’t that true?”
“Me? I only met two in all my years of wearing a badge. Only two.” C.P.’s eyes took on a faraway look like he was going back over the years to meet those outlaws again.
“I’d like to hear about
those two smart outlaws, if I could,” I said. “Who were they?”
“Kid Swingle and Red McNeil. That’s who they were.”
1
Back in those days, lots of youngsters got tagged with “kid.” Just off the top of my head I can remember Billy the Kid, Apache Kid, Kid Johns, Kid Blue, Sweetwater Kid, and more recently, Sundance Kid. I wonder if him and Butch really did buy the farm down there in Bolivia.
Swingle’s name was Grant, but I don’t know if he were named after the general. He showed up in Apache County not long before I got elected sheriff. Said he was cowboying at Ab Johnson’s spread over in the Luna Valley area of New Mexico. When I seen him at the Bucket of Blood in Holbrook, he looked like any other rannie, and he seemed a little green, you know, like he wasn’t quite able to make sense of things like a growed man would, though he was twenty-three at the time. He was quick to laugh and didn’t seem to mind being the butt of all the other cowpokes’ jokes.
I saw him a couple of times there in Holbrook and we knew each other enough to nod in passing. Then, not more’n two months after I was sworn in sheriff, Kid Swingle went and robbed the stage that ran from Navajo Springs to St. Johns and on to Fort Apache and San Carlos. The stage hadn’t gone more than eight miles or so when the kid stopped it in the bottom of a gully. There weren’t no shotgun rider, and no passengers. Just Carl Waite, the mail, and a strong box with Army pay in it.
Kid Swingle tied Carl up, broke the strong box open, emptied it, and rode away with pert near ten thousand bucks in double eagles. He never killed no one, but he couldn’t keep his hands off other men’s things.
Anyway, I got Judge Westover to issue a warrant on the Kid . . . on Grant S. “Kid” Swingle, and I put a general “wanted” wire on the telegraph so’s lawmen’d know that anyone, any big spender, might be the Kid.
Now, Kid Swingle weren’t no little kid, at least in years, him being born in ’63. But he wasn’t a big man, that is, not all that tall nor big around. In fact, lots of men could look down at him and maybe beat him at arm wrestling. Not sure but what he didn’t start people calling him “kid” because that made him out as nothing to be afraid of. And that big smile on his freckled face. That smile got him more than the business end of any six-gun.
The kid was born in Missouri, at least he said he was. And it may be that with all them double eagles in his saddlebags, that he headed home to live out his days on the family farm, if that’s what the family had.
I say that because first thing I know, little Joey Hendricks comes running in with a yellow paper for me. Yellow paper means telegram most of the time, and this one come addressed to C.P. Owens, Sheriff of Apache County, Territory of Arizona. The sender was Harlan Ellison, sheriff of Henry County in Missouri. GRANT SWINGLE RE YOUR WARRANT SEEN IN CLINTON STOP ADVISE STOP
I sent a wire back. HOLD PENDING MY ARRIVAL STOP OWENS
I put out the word for Kid Swingle’s apprehension, and Harlan Ellison caught sight of him. It’s a hell of a long ways from Holbrook, Arizona, to Clinton, Missouri. And I was sitting in the sheriff’s office in St. Johns, fifty miles from the nearest train station.
As I’d bring Kid Swingle back to St. Johns in shackles, I saw no need to carry more than my regular .44 Remington.
I rode to my cabin at Cottonwood Seep, bathed and changed clothes, polished my badge, cleaned and loaded the Remington, filled the loops of my gunbelt with cartridges, and rode a gentle bay Morgan that was related to the Morg horse I first brought to Arizona.
I left the bay at Brown’s Livery in Holbrook and walked to the station. “I’ll be needing a ticket to Clinton, Missouri, and back, William,” I said.
William Rogers licked a finger and leafed through his little book of fares. “Lemme see. You can take the A&P from here to Amarillo.” He flipped through a few more pages. “Ah, yes. Change trains there and head for Guthrie in the Nations. From there you can ride the West Missouri Railroad to where you’re going. Shouldn’t be no trouble at all.”
“How much you figure it’s gonna cost?” I like to keep good records of any money I pay out for the county, and fetching Kid Swingle back from Clinton, Missouri, is surely county business.
“I can give you a round-trip ticket for twenny-five bucks, cash. If I can ask, why in the world’re you goin’ to Clinton, C.P.?”
“Prisoner. Sheriff in Henry County says he’s got an eye on Kid Swingle.”
“Then you’ll be bringing another passenger on the way back?”
“I reckon you could say that.”
“The fare’ll be forty bucks for the both of you then.”
I paid him with greenbacks and four-bit coins. William gave me a receipt and made out the tickets.
“Train’ll pull out at four twenny-four this afternoon,” William said.
“Four twenty-four? To the minute?”
“Folks find four twenny-four easy to remember. Don’t really matter what time it really leaves. Oh, we keep to a schedule pretty good, but a minute or two don’t make that much difference.”
“I’ll be here.” And I was, carrying my six-gun and a pair of manacles for Swingle. A&P called their passenger train “The Flyer,” but it rarely went faster than thirty miles an hour. Still, we covered more ground in a couple of hours than you’d want to ride a horse over in a day.
I’ll have to admit, I slept most of the way to Amarillo. Hadn’t been out from under the pressure of that sheriff’s badge for months. And them county supervisors push. Seems they expect a badge to turn a man into some kind of law machine. In fact, the conductor’s hand on my shoulder is what woke me.
“Amarillo coming up, sheriff. You’ll want to get over to the eastern-most track. That’ll be three platforms over from where we let you off. We’re coming in at twelve to noon and your train’s scheduled to move out at one. That’s gives you an hour—other train’s already at the platform, so you can climb aboard any time you like before one.”
I thanked the conductor and collected my carpetbag from the rack over the seats. There were a dozen or so travelers in the car, but no faces I could put a name to, and sleeping had precluded making lots of friends on the way to Guthrie. I’m not too much of a talker anyway. Now Jim Houck, he could make friends with a Rocky Mountain spotted skunk and come out smelling like a rose. Me, I just shut up and keep to myself. That’s the safest way, I figure.
Amarillo to Guthrie’s a jaunt. I didn’t feel too good about getting back into the Indian Nations, but I wasn’t going into no town, so I just tipped my hat over my eyes and slept . . . or at least looked like I was sleeping.
The train got to Guthrie just before noon, and they were holding the Western Missouri train for me to get on.
Clinton being a railroad town, I was a bit surprised the train from Guthrie wasn’t longer—four cars and a caboose. “Been waiting for you, sheriff,” the conductor said. “Climb aboard and we’ll get this here train on its way.”
“I’m here,” I said, and swung aboard. I’d no more than put a foot on the steps up into the car than the conductor was waving his white flag, telling the engineer to pull out.
How Harlan Ellison knew which train I was on, I’ll never know, but he was waiting at the platform when I stepped from the second car from the last.
“Sheriff Owens?”
“I am.”
“We’ve got an eye on that boy Swingle, sheriff.”
“Making any trouble?”
“Nah. He seems to be a nice boy. Hasn’t robbed anyone hereabouts.”
“He’ll walk off with your britches, you don’t watch close.”
“They say he don’t look like a bad kid. Don’t sound like one either, from what I hear.”
“Like I said, his fingers are a mite stickier than most.” We walked along the street that ran perpendicular to the railway station. The sheriff never made a move to hail one of the cabs clopping along the way, so I took it that wherever we were going, it weren’t too far away. Still, we walked a good thirty minutes, turning two corn
ers as we went.
“Be it ever so humble,” Ellison said, sweeping his hand out to indicate a cut stone building, two stories high, with a sign on the front that said HENRY COUNTY in foot-high letters.
“Yeah.” I gave him a little grin. “Humble to y’all’s high falutin’ to cowpokes like me.”
Ellison led me into the building. “Sheriff Owens from Arizona,” he said to the man at the desk.
“He come looking for that kid, sheriff?”
“I reckon. Be good to have him out of Missouri.”
“C.P. Owens,” I said, angling my chest so the man could see my sheriff’s badge, “sheriff of Apache County, Arizona.”
“Yessir.” The man at the desk stood. I thought for a minute he was going to salute.
“Cavalry or infantry?” I said.
The man grinned. “Cavalry. Seventh. Company K under Benteen, sir. Mustered out in ’83. Been policing ever since. O’Hara’s the name.”
“Pleased.” I stuck out a hand and O’Hara shook it.
Ellison got us settled in his office, then he hollered for someone name of Griddle.
“You call, Sheriff?”
Griddle stood in the doorway, five-six high and near that wide. Stocky is not a word broad enough for him.
“Any idea where that Kid Swingle is right now?”
“Humansville, I hear.”
“What? Humansville?”
“That’s what I hear.”
Ellison turned his attention to me. “C.P., I would have thought he’d stick around, but it seems the boy has gone to Humansville.”
“Where’s that?” No use for me to complain. I’d come for Kid Swingle, and it was up to me to catch him.
Thing is, he weren’t in Humansville, neither hide nor hair. So I went on to Springfield. The Kid weren’t there either, so I ended up back in Clinton. Sheriff Ellison had more news for me. “Your man’s in Morgan, Texas.”