Panhandle

by Brett Cogburn

  “It’s a free country,” Freeman said.

  “You’re too damned big to argue with, short of shooting you. If you tell me you’re white I’ll believe you.”

  “I ain’t ashamed of the color of my skin, and I’ll be as sassy as I please.” Freeman holstered that book back in his pocket like a gun.

  “Tom, I’m coming to believe you’ve got more than a little fight in you.” Billy’s smile was oblivious to the building passion in Freeman’s voice. “What about you, Nate? Have you got anything against this colored fellow?”

  “No,” I said.

  “See there, Nate is a good Tennessee boy, and you’ve already convinced him,” Billy said.

  “Kentucky,” I muttered under my breath.

  “Humph,” Freeman grunted. He turned his back on us, and went to check his horse. Somehow I got the notion he was as stubborn as Billy was.

  Surprisingly enough, Andy followed Freeman, mocking a two-hand hold on a gigantic tool at his crotch. “I think I’ll call you Big’un.”

  “I’ve already gotta name,” Freeman said.

  They argued down to the horses and back. Billy settled the matter. “Long Tom Freeman.”

  “Long Tom!” Andy repeated.

  “Long Tom and General Custer riding to glory,” I said sarcastically.

  “Are you coming to Mobeetie with us, Long Tom?” Billy asked as he picked up his saddle.

  “If I’s smart enough to foller ya, Mistuh Billy,” Freeman said.

  Just that easy, Billy adopted one Tom Freeman, despite the fact that he had been ready to shoot him the day before. And then again, maybe Freeman adopted Billy. I don’t know which was the case. Life has a funny way of throwing people together on a whim, and our fate often hangs in the balance.

  Once we had all saddled our horses, Billy stepped aboard his and tipped the last of the whiskey down his throat. He tossed the bottle high, and Andy jerked his pistol out and let it bang. The bottle bounced off a rock and busted when it hit the ground.

  “Are you ever gonna hit one?” Billy asked.

  Andy jammed his shooter back in his holster while his left arm fought to hold the rein on his frightened horse.

  “Get on, General Custer,” Freeman whooped.

  “All right, Long Tom.” Andy swung into his saddle without touching his stirrup. That boy should have been a circus rider. He ended up sitting backwards.

  “Turn around, you drunken heathen,” Billy said in disgust.

  Andy studied his horse’s tail for a moment, and then turned to look at its head behind him, as if he had just realized what he had done. “Well, I’ll be damned. There for a moment I thought somebody had cut his head plumb off.”

  Billy spurred off in a shower of dust. Andy grabbed a handful of tail and belly-punched his horse with both feet. The frightened animal peeled off after Billy with Andy laughing and reeling in the saddle.

  We all hit a lope for Mobeetie like some mad parade, with Billy in the lead. Freeman bounced along beside me, hugging at a canvas sack which hung from his saddle horn in order to keep it from flopping. It must have held the last of his whiskey. He grinned foolishly.

  “Come on, Billy! Come on, Long Tom!” Andy had managed to right himself in the saddle.

  Freeman joined in, and his deep bass voice sounded across the prairie. “Come on, Tennessee.”

  “I’m from Kentucky,” I said, holding to a long lope behind them.

  I thought they were all drunken fools. Had I not also been drunk, I would have included myself in that category. But fools or not, they were my friends, and I would follow them through hell and high water.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mobeetie didn’t need us to look like the circus had come to town. It was Saturday night, and the town was burning wild. We just helped fan the flames.

  We came running three-abreast down the street, popping our pistols, and carrying on like the young devils we were. We pulled up in front of the first saloon, as wild-eyed as our horses. A small crowd stood under the awning in front, shadows in the lamplight there. Andy squalled and plunged his horse into their midst, attempting to make it into the saloon. The door wasn’t wide enough, and he only succeeded in scattering a few people, and knocking askew one porch post.

  Despite our wild entrance, not a soul seemed to give us due attention, because we were nothing out of the ordinary. It was early spring, and apparently, the boys were gathering for one last celebration before spring works. At least thirty cowponies were tied up and down the street, standing three-legged beneath their saddles. There was a passel of soldiers, freighters, and drunks from all corners of cattle country parading the streets and bars of Mobeetie. They all had one thing in common. They came to have a good time. Mobeetie was wild in those days. She was wild and hard to curry below the knees, and we loved her that way.

  As I slipped the cinch on Dunny, I noticed Long Tom hadn’t dismounted. He still sat clutching his sack of whiskey. Looking at him reminded me of the old story of Jack clutching the goose that laid golden eggs while he climbed down the beanstalk. Long Tom was ragged and forlorn looking, a huge slumping figure oversized for the Texas pony he rode.

  “Hide your whiskey, hitch up your britches, and come on,” I said.

  He eyed me for a long moment, his eyes in the lamplight showing white and large. He pondered me like an owl eyeing a field mouse below him. Slowly, he turned his horse away and headed down the muddy street. The weary step of his horse matched the slouch in Long Tom’s back. It was as if both were affected by some age-old weariness, or burdened by some mysterious affliction.

  “Where are you headed?” I asked.

  “You’ve got a lot to learn, Tennessee,” he called back softly over his shoulder.

  “I’m from Kentucky.”

  “I know you.” His voice was a whisper in the darkness.

  Long Tom disappeared into the night. Billy and Andy had already disappeared into the saloon. I wondered where Long Tom thought he was going, but I figured he was headed for Ring Town, the joint for colored folks north of town. Maybe he knew somebody there.

  I shuffled my way into the saloon, hesitating inside the doors to let my eyes adjust to the dim, smoky light. The bar was lined from one end to the other with boys in from the range. Everyone else was gathered in groups here and there, and I spied Andy talking to someone at the back. Billy was nowhere to be seen.

  I made my way to the bar, sidling myself between two men like a cow shoving its way to the feed trough. I gathered up a beer, and turned my back to the bar to take in the room. The beer was lukewarm at best, but it was wet and tasted good enough to suit me.

  “By damn, that’s whiskey by any man’s standard!” the man to my right cried.

  He was a drawn-up little fellow hidden beneath the slouching brim of a large hat. He wore suspenders, and farmer boots with mule ear tugs. He looked like a freighter or such.

  He turned up his glass again and finished the remains of his whiskey. When it had traveled the length of his throat and settled in his gizzard, he shivered like a wet pup.

  “That’s just awful enough to do the trick.” He winked at me.

  “Seems like a painful way to go,” I said.

  He eyed me craftily, making an exaggerated motion of having to look up at me.

  “Beats the hell out of stringing wire.”

  “Wire, huh?”

  “I’ve been stringing bobwire for Goodnight. If it’s left up to him he’ll fence off all hell and creation.” He made a wide sweep of his arm.

  “To hell with wire.” I almost spat my distaste.

  The T Anchor and the JA had already fenced small pastures, and I’d heard the Panhandle Stock Association was fixing to start a drift fence on the north bank of the Canadian River that would run for two hundred miles. I didn’t know it then, but open range was rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

  On my way to Wichita years before, a few of the older hands told about how a man could drive cattle from the Gulf Coast to
Canada without hitting a fence. Now, with each passing year, the trail moved farther and farther west—first the Chisolm, and then the Western. Kansas was already full of both real and imaginary fences. In all but the western half you couldn’t drive stock anywhere without some farmer getting shotgun mad because your cows walked over the single plowed furrow that served to fence in his crops. It wouldn’t be long until a man on horseback would spend half his time opening gates.

  “To hell with bobwire!” I said a little louder.

  “Can’t say as I like it, but it’s a living.”

  “That ain’t living.”

  There wasn’t a thing he could say to that. He kept making a show of having to look up at me, and I knew what was coming, or at least where the conversation was headed. I stood six foot three in my sock feet.

  I wish I could say I was handsome, but that isn’t true. My nose was way too big, and my black, curly hair was a mop that defied taming. I was a tall, thin, big-jointed man, never seeming to find a shirt with the sleeves long enough. When I was a boy my Mama had always told me I was all feet and hands. I might not win any beauty contests, but I’d grown into those feet and hands enough to give anybody that didn’t like my looks a good licking.

  “You ever get light-headed up there?” he asked.

  “If I pissed on you would you believe it was raining?”

  “Easy, I was just funning you. My name’s Whiskey Pete.”

  “Nate Reynolds.”

  “Glad to know you. Have one on me.” He offered me the bottle as a peace offering.

  “No thanks, you could burn a lantern with that. Why don’t you drink the good stuff?” I jabbed at the small, very small, selection of imports behind the bar.

  “Not enough to it. That city stuff is sneaky. You drink it and the next morning you’re all sick and pained. I’ll drink honest, trader whiskey.”

  “Honest how?”

  “It’s up-front. It pains you just to drink it.” He slapped the bar and brayed like a mule at his own wit. His laughter rose above the noise of the room, and his knees buckled. I dodged back as he laughed himself into a stagger.

  I grabbed him by the shoulder and straightened him. “Who’s hiring now?”

  “They’re fixing to start the general roundup south of the Canadian this week. Find O.J. Wiren. He’s range boss for the Lazy F. He’s somewhere in town, and I heard he’s needing hands.”

  “Thanks, I’ve got other places to be.”

  Billy was still missing, but I found Andy standing at the back door of the place. His attention was on something outside. I walked up and peered over his shoulder into the dark.

  “What are you looking at?” I couldn’t see a darned thing.

  “It’s a bear.”

  “You’re shitting me. Let me see.” I shoved him out of my way.

  It was pitch black behind the saloon. All I could make out was what looked like a dog cowered up in a trash pile a few feet outside the door. “Damned dog is what it is.”

  No sooner than I had said it something growled and came at me out of the dark—something as big as a bear. I like to have knocked the doorframe loose getting back inside. I traveled all the way to the middle of the room before I stopped to look back. The place roared with laughter.

  “Heeeeere, puppy, puppy!” Andy mocked.

  “Found ol’ Littlebit, did you?” someone roared.

  I didn’t like being attacked out of the dark, but I regained my courage at the sight of Andy standing calmly before the door.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “I told you it’s a bear.” Andy stepped aside and permitted me another view out the door.

  Closing cautiously, I peered out. Sure enough there was a small black bear standing at the end of a chain. He didn’t look so scary when I could see what he was.

  “Doesn’t that beat all?” Andy said.

  “Why the hell have they got a bear tied up?”

  “I guess to look at.”

  “Somebody ought to shoot him.”

  “I like looking at him. I’d like to own him.”

  “What would you do with a bear?”

  Usually, nothing Andy said could shock me. “I’d dress him up in a suit, teach him to smoke cigars and play poker.”

  The boy wasn’t all there.

  “Where’s Billy?” I asked.

  “Last I saw him, he was off with One Jump Kate.”

  One Jump was one of Mobeetie’s “ladies.” Assured that I’d seen the last of Billy for a while, I left Andy staring at the bear. Walking away I heard him mumble something about riding it.

  The night was cold as I stepped out of the saloon. I hunched my neck down inside the collar of my coat. Summer couldn’t come too quick.

  I handled the few coins in my pocket and weighed the course of the night. With Andy caught up in his bear, and Billy tending to his business, I suddenly didn’t feel like cutting loose. To hell with it, I would catch a good night’s sleep, and wake up without too much of a hangover. And for once, I would be able to afford breakfast after a night on the town.

  Unwilling to spend what little coin I had on a bug-ridden bed that I would probably have to share with some equally buggy partner, I opted to find a place to roll out my bedroll.

  I climbed back aboard Dunny and ambled up to a catch pen that served as the cheapest livery in town. It was just a big, rickety picket corral where a man could turn his horse loose. Whoever ran the pen forked out some hay twice a day and charged two bits a day for it.

  I unsaddled Dunny and penned him. There was a small blacksmith shed just off from the corral with the haystack lying between the two. I carried my rig in behind the haystack and up against the shed wall. The shed served as a windbreak, and I was glad of it. Wrapped up in nothing but my old henskin, what we called a light cover made for the southern climate, and a saddle blanket wouldn’t have made for a pleasant night.

  More comfortable and sheltered than I’d been for a good many nights, I fell asleep listening to someone banging on a piano down the street. Whoever it was had the most unusual ear for music.

  One Jump Kate got her name somewhere up in Kansas. The story was, one night, drunk as hell, some of the boys dared her to ride a certain bronc topless. The bronc was notorious for his devilment, but Kate was also equally well known for her own mischief. The boys just wanted to see her humbled as she was always bragging about her riding abilities. The topless part was just for their entertainment, and the sheer novelty of bare-breasted bronc riding.

  Kate climbed aboard, and that bronc stuck his head in the ground and uncorked. Kate sailed off and landed with the grace of a sack of feed. This was much to the disgust of many of the boys, as they had hoped it would last just a bit longer and then they’d see her get pitched off.

  But as it was, they all just hoorahed her, and somebody gave her the moniker of One Jump Kate. She took it in stride and joked that she knew several of the boys in the crowd whom the name also fit. Like the sport she was, she took their jokes about her short-lived ride. She came to accept the nickname, and like a lot of the girls, she bore it with more than a little pride.

  Town was quiet early that morning, and I strolled up the street in search of Billy. Kate didn’t operate out of one of the picket shacks like the crib girls, but had a room in Bill Thompson’s dance hall.

  Many of the cowponies stood tied where they’d been the night before, awaiting their masters’ revival sometime later in the morning. I trooped into the dance hall, where several of the boys lay where they had fallen. It darned near looked like a battlefield. One of the bodies lay slumped across the table with his weapon still at hand—half full. The swamper was rolling another body off the bar top so he could clean it.

  I went across the floor and into the back, where there were several rooms for the girls. “Billy?” I called quietly.

  “Come on in,” Billy’s voice came from behind one of the doors.

  I pushed the door open. Billy was already up and about,
looking like he was ready to go to church or something. Kate sat on the bed, her back propped up against the plank wall. What clothes she had on were open at the top, and one tit hung out. She made no attempt to put it back. She just smiled.

  “Hello, Nate,” she said mischievously.

  I refused to let her get the best of me, and met her eye to eye, or something like that.

  “Damned, you’re a nasty slut.” Billy pitched a wad of clothes her way.

  She threw him a wicked, haughty look and laughed. “You keep coming around.”

  Kate was kind of pretty; in fact, she was real pretty compared to most of the girls we had to choose from. She was freckle-faced, and wormy, but she had blue eyes with the most mischievous twinkle to them you ever saw. And like Billy, she had a way about her. She wasn’t bad, as the girls went, and we weren’t hypocrite enough to think we were any better. Many were the times when she’d loaned one of the boys enough to get through the winter.

  Billy and I left the dance hall and went down the street to O’Laughlin’s to have a bite to eat. While we ate I suggested that when we finished we look up Wiren.

  “I ran into him last night at the Lady Gay,” Billy said between bites. He was obviously pleased to have beaten me to the punch.

  “Did he need help?”

  “There ain’t any shortage of jobs for good cowboys in this country, especially with every English lord and his brother driving cattle in here.”

  Billy paused to wipe delicately at his mouth with his thumb. “You saw how many cattle have drifted down this way. The winter was a bad one. I saw brands on the way down here from plumb up in Colorado and Nebraska. Like I said, there ain’t any shortage of work for good cowboys.”

  “How good are we?”

  “I admit you handicap me some, but as pairs go, we’re about as good as it gets,” Billy raised his voice, not caring who heard him.

  “This is a good country, ain’t it?” I said.

  “Just about perfect, I reckon.”

  The place was just beginning to fill up as we finished. A pistol cracked out on the street, and a few minutes later a bloodcurdling war whoop followed it. We glanced at each other for the merest instant, and headed for the door. It sure sounded like Andy.