Panhandle

by Brett Cogburn

  “You always look at the bright side, Nate.” Billy shook his head at me.

  “I’m still kicking, and I intend to be tomorrow.”

  I made sure to keep my eye on our back trail as we circled south. An old frontiersman once told me that the best way to stay in some semblance of good health in Indian country was to always keep your eyes upon the skyline, and never sleep beside your fire. Maybe I was just a natural-born worrier, but I had no confidence in my luck or fate to favor me with fortune.

  “I’m too busy having fun to worry.” Nothing could faze Andy. “We’ll have a time in Mobeetie come tomorrow, won’t we, boys?”

  “Hell yes, let’s ride! There’s whiskey, gambling, and a good-hearted whore waiting on me!” Billy hollered, and raced off.

  Both of them were soon riding beside each other, laughing about the time they were going to have, and the trouble they might get into. Before long I was feeling it too, and my worries were slowly left behind along with what little good sense I had. Sometimes all a man needs to forget his cares is a little recreation, and a dose of harmless misdemeanor. Yes sir, high times were coming to old Mobeetie. It was good sport, and damned the consequences when you rode with Billy Champion.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  There are moments when the world seems to sleep, and time passes with absolute perfection. Those times are fragile, and are to be observed in stillness.

  The day after our horse trade, we camped in a draw south of the Canadian River. It was a quiet place, with a small cottonwood and hackberry grove shading a little spring that slowly seeped down to the river. We tossed our saddles on a sandy flat at the bottom, and picketed our horses close to hand. Each one of us lay down, and although it was only late afternoon, we slept like dead men until the next morning.

  I awoke first, rolling out of my bed just as the sun was rising. I walked up out of the draw, and looked upon the plains falling away to the south.

  In that light, at that moment, the world was a different place, and I was small upon the face of it. The shortgrass glowed golden yellow in that light. The slightest of breezes rolled the grass away from me, flowing away in rows, like ripples in the water, growing ever outward until they were out of sight. That wind swept away before me, quick and elusive, but with a sweetness that lingered.

  You can’t capture moments like that in memory, much less describe them with accuracy to anyone else. You only recall bits and pieces—little boxes of precious perfection that come back to you with the purest clarity, even many years later. They were things like the feel of a horse, the sound of cattle bawling out of the dust, or the smell of a certain woman floating in your head. God, how they could linger.

  And then the moment was gone, or rather, I was gone from the moment. The world moved on and left me, and I was large upon its face again.

  I walked back to camp to find Billy and Andy lying on their blankets, smoking and telling tall tales. They both looked at me curiously, for I must have seemed too quiet. My mind was bad to take hold of things, like a dog worrying a bone.

  “Where ya been?” Andy asked.

  “Looking.”

  “At what?”

  “I don’t know for certain.”

  “What?”

  I watched him scratch his tangled blond mane, his brow wrinkled in irritated puzzlement. I hunkered over our little fire, my hands spread over its flame. It wasn’t cold, but several days of being a little chilled had worn on me, and the fire felt good.

  “I was just looking at the horizon. It’s a beautiful morning.” I was anxious to end the conversation.

  “Nate, you beat all! I think you’re a little addled.”

  “Let up, Andy. He’s just educated, that’s all. Educated folks have got a different way about them,” Billy stated in a matter-of-fact way.

  “Well, I went all the way to the fourth grade! Even if that was off and on a little, you could say I graduated,” Andy said. “And I don’t talk funny like he does, even after all my schooling.”

  “Nate there is a Kentucky gent. He went to fancy schools, and danced at them fancy parties. He slept in a feather bed in a big, white house, the whole bit. Didn’t you, Nate?”

  “It wasn’t quite like that.”

  Billy knew a little about me, or what I’d let him know. My folks were considered big people back there. They weren’t rich, just affluent in their own little world. They had a lot of land in cultivation, a big house, and some fine horses, but not enough for a second son.

  My parents did see to it that I had a fair education for the time. After my stint in a little country schoolhouse, I spent two years at a college in Virginia. Returning home, I was given a small stake, my inheritance, and a merry send-off to get me started on my course in life. My oldest brother got the farm, as was his right. My sisters could marry their way to fortune, and knowing them, they would.

  Me, I lit out for the West to see the sights, and I hadn’t stayed in one place too long since. I made my way to Texas, and hooked up with a trail herd of horses headed to San Antonio. I went with a Blocker herd of steers north to the railroad at Wichita. From there I made my way into Nebraska following another herd, and soon drifted into Colorado, where I spent two years on a ranch there. Most of my work was taking delivery of Texas herds, and driving them one bunch at a time for sale to the miners in the mountains west of there.

  I had eventually made my way back south, and wintered in the Cherokee Strip, riding the grubline from camp to camp to keep from starving. I’d met Billy there, and went with him that spring on the long drive from deep in South Texas to deliver Jay’s trail herd.

  Basically, I spent years in the saddle learning a trade. And in that time, I learned how those conquistadors must have felt when they came riding across that country astride those fine Barb horses, with lances in their hands, and their eyes hungry for gold. The elevated feeling of the caballero, the gentlemen on horseback, made even the smallest man look down on those who were lowly enough to walk on their own two legs. I was no gentleman, but I’d be damned if I’d ever do anything again that couldn’t be done from the back of a horse.

  I remember my grandpappy never drank but one kind of liquor. I asked him once why he didn’t ever try anything else. He told me he couldn’t imagine liking anything better than what he already drank, and I guess I was like that too. I had found what suited me and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

  The country was big and open to the sky, and made a man feel either awful large, or awful small, depending upon the grit in his craw. It brought out the pride in a man, blew him up, and seemed to raise to the surface the core of his character, both the good and the bad. I think it was the freedom that did that. We had endless space to ride in, game for the taking, and too little law to keep us all from going half wild. A man could be as good, or bad, as he felt big enough to be, but the country had a knack for taking a man’s measure, and trying him on for size.

  “My stomach’s rubbing my backbone raw,” Andy whined.

  He reached out from his bed, and grabbed at the grub sack. I felt the same way, but didn’t say so. He could do the cooking himself.

  “You worried about those Cheyenne?” Billy asked.

  “After a week in Mobeetie, I might not worry about them anymore,” I said.

  “If I didn’t know you better I’d say you were scared of those reservation warriors,” Andy jabbed at me.

  “You’ve got the Injun fighter’s name.”

  I watched him trying to find a witty reply. I cut him off before he could say a thing, and motioned toward the fire. “Why don’t you go get us some chips? These damned cottonwood limbs are green and will hardly burn at all.”

  Grumbling something under his breath, he dumped our groceries on the ground, and took off from camp carrying the sack. He was back before too long with an impressive pile of cowpatties.

  “How far did you have to go to find a dry one?” Billy asked.

  “Wind’s already dried most of them out.” Andy
pointed to his gathering as evidence.

  “Keep the fire small so it doesn’t smoke too much,” I said.

  Studiously ignoring me, Andy fed the fire like he was stoking the boiler on a highball train. “I need a hot fire to cook on, and anyhow, Nate, I figure it is a question of bravery. Does it take a braver man to face scalping, or a slow death from starvation?”

  “Hell, I’m hungry myself. I saw a chunk of side-meat in that sack,” Billy said.

  We were cleaning up the last of the bacon, and sipping coffee boiled in a fruit can, when Andy jumped to his feet. “Lookee there what comes!”

  We all looked back down the draw, and watched that big black man come up to us. He was riding the sorrel we’d traded Harvey, and that shotgun was still in his arm.

  He pulled up in front of us. “Got a bite to spare?”

  Lo and behold, Billy invited him to step down. Billy and I, and that black fellow, sat down around the fire, and left Andy standing there with a dumbstruck look on his face.

  I figured Andy would make trouble. He wasn’t necessarily a hothead, but I think he was bound to show Billy how tough he was. Despite that, he continued to stand there for a bit, looking awkward and unsure. I think he was a little awed standing up close to our visitor. Andy could climb on a man-killing horse, run breakneck over a prairie dog town, or race beside a stampede in the black of night, and never bat an eye. But I don’t think he’d ever seen the likes of that black man.

  “All we have left is coffee.” Billy motioned to our improvised coffeepot.

  “That’ll do,” the black man said.

  He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a battered tin cup. After pouring himself a cupful, he hunkered back on his heels, apparently unaware that Andy still stood above and behind him.

  “That was a good trick you boys pulled.”

  “We thought so.” Andy’s courage was returning. Even a giant didn’t faze him for long.

  The black man seemed not to even know Andy was there. “My name is Tom Freeman.”

  “What about Harvey?” I asked.

  “Those Indians were on us quick. Harvey lit out for the plum thicket along the creek. Me, I rolled under the cart, and they just went on by. They’d spotted Harvey and were hot and heavy after him. While they were hooting and hollering and searching the thicket, I jumped on the sorrel and lit out before they took the time to notice there were two of us.” Freeman’s big hands cut the air sharply, as he described the action.

  “You probably led those Injuns right to us.” Andy squatted beside Billy, with his bony wrists dangling between his knees

  “I didn’t owe that old crook anything, so I left him,” Freeman paused and then added, “If those Indians didn’t get him, the Lord will some day. You boys don’t know what an old he-coon you pulled that stunt on.”

  “We just sold him some horses,” Billy said.

  “You didn’t make out so bad yourself.” Andy jabbed a finger at the sorrel Freeman rode up on—the sorrel with Harvey’s saddle on it.

  “That man owed me more than that horse yonder.”

  Billy removed his hat, and began to idly turn the brim in his hands. “What’d he owe you?”

  “Fifteen gallons of whiskey.”

  “Where the hell did you get that much whiskey?” The mention of liquor seemed to embolden Andy a little more.

  “I made it.”

  “Is that what you did where you come from?” Billy asked.

  “I made the best whiskey in the Nations, and that’s saying a lot.”

  “Reckon that’s sure some recommendation in your line of work. Is that where you hale from?”

  “Yeah, down in Choctaw country. Had me a good operation there. Had some land and a Choctaw woman.”

  “Parker’s boys run you out?”

  “I just got tired of their stealing. ‘Confiscations,’ they called it. They never arrested me, just got so they’d steal my whole batch.”

  “Seems like you might have made good whiskey if they thought so highly of it.”

  “I made some.”

  “What about your woman?”

  “She was worse than those deputies. I might have shot me a few of those old boys, but that woman was something else. Me and her squared off one day, me with this shotgun, and her with a cast-iron skillet. It was touch and go there for a moment. I decided it was too chancy of a thing to try her, and left the country.”

  Billy, as usual, seemed to be enjoying the moment. I figured Tom Freeman would keep his attention for a while. Billy often claimed that entertainment was where you found it. That entertainment was generally in the form of the eccentric characters Billy seemed to draw to him.

  Billy studied Freeman with obvious pleasure, like a kid with a puppy. “Now, if you had a bottle of your whiskey we could take the measure of it.”

  “Yeah?” Freeman seemed to be enjoying Billy just as much.

  “Well, you claim to be an expert in the field of whiskey-making, and we claim to be equally skilled in whiskey-tasting.” Billy motioned around the fire.

  “Seems like almost everybody claims to be a sampler.” Freeman’s manner was as equally grave as Billy’s.

  Billy jabbed his thumb my way. “Yes, but most folks don’t have a Tennessee boy in their midst. This long-legged jasper here is a bonified Tennessee gentleman, and he claims that there ain’t any whiskey except Tennessee whiskey.”

  You would have thought Billy was selling a horse.

  Freeman eyed me for a long moment, as if inspecting me to see if he thought I matched my pedigree. “I’ve known a few of you boys in my time. Don’t know nothing but coon hounds, sipping whiskey, and fighting.”

  He rose and headed for his horse, returning shortly with a bottle of whiskey. He pitched it to me. “Let the expert begin.”

  “I ain’t from Tennessee, I’m from Kentucky.”

  Freeman didn’t seem to hear me, and Billy wasn’t about to let me disqualify myself. “Let’s drink.”

  I pulled the cork on the bottle, and held it up before my eyes. The whiskey was as clear as spring water, and I gave it a shake to observe the bead. I glanced at Freeman, and he seemed pleased.

  Billy noticed and said, “I imported him in just for these occasions.”

  Turning up the bottle, I let a slug roll down my throat. That was the smoothest whiskey I ever drank. And man, what a jolt it packed.

  “That’s good,” I said. “Smooth as a baby’s butt, and kicks like a Missouri mule.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” Andy’s arm snaked out and grabbed the bottle from me.

  Like the connoisseur he was, he turned her up like a calf sucking a bottle and didn’t come up for air until he choked himself. Andy’s sole measure of what constituted good whiskey was that it made him drunk enough to squall like a panther, and sick enough the next day to swear off the stuff forever.

  Andy passed the bottle to Billy, and he took a pull at it. He was silent for a moment while the red flush of whiskey spread across his face. “You’re an artist, Tom.”

  As if to reinforce his compliment, he turned the bottle straight up and took another pull. He shook off his shivers and pitched the bottle back to Freeman.

  Wrapping one of his huge paws around that bottle, Freeman held it before him like a preacher holding up the Bible before his congregation. “Here’s to the friendships made and lost, the women married and left, and the money won and thrown away by men drinking good corn liquor.”

  Two hours later, everyone had taken the full measure of Freeman corn liquor. Even Andy was warming up to the talented newcomer.

  “Are you kin to General Custer, that Indian fighter?” Freeman asked.

  Andy attempted to straighten himself from the drunken slump he had assumed several drinks ago. “Yep.”

  “He made quite a name for himself.”

  “I reckon he’d have whipped almost every bunch of Indians from here to Canada by now if he’d of lived.” Andy’s chin was bouncing off his chest as
he nodded.

  “Wasn’t it Indians that killed him?” The irony apparently wasn’t lost on Freeman.

  Andy sat with a dumb look on his face. After a moment of deep thought, he announced, “I gotta piss.”

  This triggered an impromptu migration from the fire. Andy strolled down to the little stream that ran down the draw. “I’ll flood them Cheyenne villages downstream.” He started to do just that.

  “Only a heathen would piss in a creek,” Billy said and then joined him.

  In a moment the four of us stood watching yellow streams of urine trickling off down the current.

  “That’s a hundred and ninety-proof Kentucky sipping whiskey.” I pointed at my own stream. “It’s corn-yeller, aged in my gut, and made in a clear spring.”

  Andy rocked back dangerously on his heels, shaking his pecker. “Take a good look, boys. I weighed thirteen pounds when I was born, until they circumcised me.”

  “Looks like a grub worm with the guts slung out of it,” I said.

  “Put that little old nubbin away.” Freeman swung his pecker back and forth over the water, splattering piss at our feet.

  “Would you look at that?” Andy pointed at Freeman’s cock, which stuck out the side of the bib of his overalls. The damned thing was so long he didn’t even have to bother with unbuttoning his fly. He just pulled it out the side.

  “You’d better put that thing up, boy, before Andy falls in love with you,” Billy said as he turned back to the fire with all of us in tow.

  “I ain’t your boy.” Freeman stopped short of the fire and his bloodshot eyes stared at Billy belligerently. He pulled out a tattered, thin little book from his hip pocket and held it in his palm before us.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Carpetbagger gave it to me when I was a boy. It’s a book about the U.S. Constitution and such.” Freeman studied the book in his hand.

  “Did you learn to make whiskey from that book?” Billy asked.

  “We were all created equal,” Freeman said. “The country fought a war over it.”

  Billy flopped down on his back beside the fire and propped one boot heel on the toe of the other. “Now Tom, you seem like a nice enough fellow, but some mean old Texan is going to crack your head if you ain’t careful where you pitch that sassy talk.”