Panhandle

by Brett Cogburn

While Lem puffed on his cigarette, Cap pulled out a little tally book and the stub of a pencil. He wrote the names of the alleged gang inside. Either his memory must have been poor, or he was planning on writing a book in his retirement years. Once that was done, he turned his attention to the kid.

  “Cake, what have you got to say about that deal over yonder?” He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder in the direction of the dead men.

  “They were queers,” the kid sneered.

  “That don’t explain why you had to sneak up on them and shoot them.”

  The kid laughed and looked around him. “They were too busy rutting to have to be snuck up on.”

  “Did you do the killing, or the both of you?”

  “Him?” The kid gave Lem a disgusted look. “He was too worried about being followed.”

  “And all you could think about was killing. Is that right?”

  “Hell, they were just sheepherders, and queer ones at that.”

  “Get up.” Cap looked mad enough to go bear hunting with a switch.

  Some of Cake’s bravado left him, and he failed to meet Cap’s hard gaze. Cap was silent for a moment, and that seemed to make the kid all the more uneasy. I think he was beginning to realize the serious situation he was in.

  “What are you aiming to do?” he asked.

  “You’re going to dig a hole, boy. You’re going to dig it deep and proper so we can bury those men. I aim to work some of that meanness out of you.”

  While the young bandit stuttered around trying to come up with something bold to say, somebody went and found a shovel in the wagon. Another man untied his wrists and stuck the tool in his hands.

  “What about Lem?” the kid asked.

  “He’s going to help,” Cap said.

  “But I didn’t shoot nobody,” Lem protested ever so softly.

  “No, but I guess you were a well-wisher to it.”

  Lem was untied, and both of them were marched over to a spot of ground near the bodies. Somebody had finally had the decency to throw another blanket over Cake’s victims. Cap took the heel of his boot and began to mark out the dimensions of a grave. Once he was finished, he gestured for the prisoners to get to work. There was only one shovel, but a large tin can was rounded up and given to the pair for another digging instrument.

  Lem must have known that the captain was the kind of man you didn’t dicker with, or else he understood what was to come. Anything that prolonged his eventual demise was good enough for him. He got down on the ground, bad leg and all, and went to scraping with the can.

  “I want it dug deep,” Cap ordered.

  “It will take me all day to dig two graves in this ground. It’s hard enough to wear out a dozen shovels,” the kid complained.

  Cap studied the bodies for a moment before answering. “I guess one grave, extra big, will work. I don’t think they would mind.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Most bandits are by nature and inclination just too lazy or too smart to work, at least on a full-time basis. After all, who coined the term “easy money”? In spite of their shortcomings, those two managed to dig a grave about five feet deep. They took turns at the shovel, while the odd man scraped away with the rim of the can. They squashed the rim to a point to facilitate digging. It was slow going, but they managed. I can close my eyes and still picture those two bandits slaving away to earn a hanging.

  The kid tried to sull up and quit the digging a few times, but we convinced him he had to keep it up. We passed half the day listening to the scrape of metal on the hard ground and swatting flies. Late in the afternoon, Lem threw his can up out of the hole and rested his hands on his hips. The sweat was rolling down him, and dripping off the ends of his beard.

  “Well, boys, she’s finished. I reckon I’ve just about dug myself to Hell.”

  He came up out of the grave almost reluctantly, and the kid crawled out with a lot less piss and vinegar than he started with. He asked for a sip of water, and when he was handed a canteen I noticed his hands were shaking a little bit.

  We just folded the bodies of the sheepherders up in the blanket they lay on, and set them down in the grave. Cap asked if anyone would like to say a few words over the deceased before we pitched the dirt in on them. Nobody said anything at first, but H.B. finally stepped forward. He said he knew the men, but not well. We all put our hats in our hands despite the sun, and stared down into the hole.

  H.B. cleared his throat. “Their names were Berry and McGurty, and they weren’t always sheepherders. When I knew of them they were freighting in whiskey south of Doan’s Crossing, and trading a little with the Indians north of the river. I sure don’t know what caused them to lose all their morals since then. Lord, I don’t know much else to say, but please have mercy on these Sodomites, because I don’t think they were always such.”

  When he was quiet for too long, we all thought he was finished and started to filter off.

  “And Lord—” H.B.’s voice stopped us, and he continued high and clear. “Let this be a lesson to the boys here to avoid herding sheep, because once a man starts living like that it’s just a long slide to the bottom.”

  A few of the men said amens, and then our prisoners began shoveling again. I stepped off with Billy to have a smoke and to chew the fat awhile. He seemed quiet and thoughtful, and I had to do most of the talking at first. He spent his time trying to call one of the sheep dogs away from the herd while I jabbered.

  I made some brilliant observation about stock dogs while I watched him try to bait the animal with a chunk of meat. The dog came close a few times to sniff around a bit, but he eventually slinked back to the sheep. Billy watched him go and turned to me.

  “That’s a loyal animal there.”

  I agreed and started in again about dogs, but Billy interrupted. “Say what you want about sheep men, but they’ve sure got some fine dogs.”

  “Seems like that ain’t all to be said about them.”

  His mind didn’t seem to be too much on dogs, despite the talk. “You once told me you spent time in church. Do you reckon God hates their kind?”

  “No, I don’t think he hates them. He wouldn’t like their ways, but then again a lot of us are paddling that canoe.”

  Billy didn’t answer, and I could tell he was turning it around in his mind some.

  “My mother always told me that God loves us all, and that we’re all sinners,” I added.

  Billy looked me in the eye. “You think they could go to Heaven?”

  “I don’t know just how much God would hold their being queer against them,” I answered weakly.

  Billy threw me a disgusted look. “No, that ain’t what I’m talking about at all. Do you think God would let a sheepherder in heaven?”

  He gave me that mischievous grin of his, and I admit to being thrown off a little. I thought I was following him for a moment, then I thought I wasn’t, and then I thought I was again. Billy had a way of getting you to tell him how you felt about something, without telling you anything.

  About that time Andy walked up. I could see Billy measuring him for what was about to come out of the boy’s mouth.

  “I grew up with an old boy like that back home.” Andy mistook our looks of dread for interest and kept talking. “We always figured he was a little off—you know he talked kind of sissy like, and didn’t like the way us boys played sometimes. Turns out later that he ran off with some drummer, and his daddy caught them down the road apiece in a hotel. He shot them both, and rode home and had breakfast like nothing had happened. His wife asked him what went on and he told her straight out. He said he loved his son too much to see him carrying on that way.”

  “Damn, that’s rough,” Billy remarked.

  “His daddy wasn’t like that, or none of his kin. His daddy sired eight kids, and his grandpa about that many.”

  “What makes a fellow that way?” someone wanted to know. It seemed like most of the boys had gathered around to hear Andy’s tale.

  “Hi
s mamma said the drummer took advantage of his youth, but we all knew he was a little bit girly. Other than that he was all right. Hell, we used to shoot bean-flips and throw pocketknives, and go skinny-dipping down behind the schoolhouse just to make the girls giggle and run home.”

  “You swam naked with him?” Billy was quick to pounce, and as merciless as a cat.

  “There were several of us boys swimming,” Andy attempted to defend himself.

  “There was a whole bunch of you?” Billy returned.

  Andy started to stutter, and Billy kept right after him. “Did you feel him looking at you?”

  “He acted all right.”

  Our crowd was enjoying the entertainment and Billy made a big show of shaking his head solemnly as if hearing sad news. “I don’t know, Andy. You might ought to be careful.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing at all. It’s just that something like that could rub off on you.”

  Andy glared around at the group. “Nothing got rubbed off on me!”

  “I believe you, partner. I was just worried that your friend might have thought you liked swimming with him.”

  Everyone, including Billy, made a show of walking off while stealing doubtful glances back Andy’s way. Andy was ready to pull his gun, and probably would have if he could have remembered which pocket he had put it in. Billy came back to him and offered his hand before we ended up digging another grave.

  “No hard feelings, huh? I was just joshing you.”

  “There wasn’t anything the matter with it. We were just kids swimming. None of our daddies had to shoot us in a hotel.” Andy was about mad enough for his lip to quiver, but Billy seemed to be calming him. “That ain’t something to joke about, Billy.”

  After rolling him a smoke, and continuing his line of soft talk, Billy soon had Andy calmed somewhat. The two of them started back over to where I and a few others waited.

  It didn’t take Lem and Cake near as long to fill in the grave as it did for them to dig it. Cap ordered everyone to break camp while they finished up. We drew straws for who had to drive that stinking sheep wagon. Luckily, I drew a long one, and only had to help hitch the team. Billy had shot the wheeler so we had to hitch Cake’s horse alongside the remaining animal.

  When we had loaded the wagon we asked about the sheep. Cap said we were going into Ft. Sumner to leave the wagon and belongings, and to hell with the sheep. Somebody else could ride along and round them up later. It was a good thing Cap knew cowboys, because not one of us was going to herd sheep.

  When everything was ready, Cap rode over to where the prisoners were sitting atop the new mound of fresh earth. They both looked up from spelling themselves when Cap pitched his rope down on the ground before them. Cake jumped to his feet looking wild.

  “My father wouldn’t hear of this!”

  Cap stared down at him like he was an ant. “You’re a long way from home, son, and he probably won’t hear of it at all.”

  Dale Martin stepped quickly to pick up the rope, and both Lem and the kid jumped back a little. Martin looked to Cap, and the Ranger just kept staring at Cake.

  Like a rabbit flushed from his hole, the kid couldn’t take it any longer and he blurted out, “You can’t hang me here!”

  “No, son. We’re going to ride west until we find a suitable tree, and then we’re going to hang you.” He left it at that and turned his horse away.

  “Get them both up on that horse,” he said to Martin.

  Lem climbed up on their remaining horse, and it must have belonged to Cake, the tallest of the pair, because the stirrups hung far below the older man’s feet. He acted so weak he barely made the saddle. Maybe the blood loss and the hard work had gotten to him, or he just worried about where we were taking him. The kid climbed up behind him, and Martin led off their bridleless horse at the end of a rope. The animal was just about used up, and plodded along with its nose a foot above the ground. The dust rolled up slowly beneath its feet at a gravedigger’s pace.

  Lem was hatless, and he had torn a rag out of his shirt to wrap around his wounded leg. He placed both hands to either side of his saddle horn, and rested them there on the swell. The kid clutched uncomfortably at his partner’s waist. Both of them stared ahead into an indifferent horizon.

  There was something sad and desolate and timeless about the way the pair looked, like two refugees fleeing the plague of a distant land. Nobody ever painted that picture on the front of any books—the way men look when they are at the end of their rope and all hope is lost.

  I came across a dirt farmer one time sitting in the door of his claim shack watching the dust roll across the withered remains of his last attempt at a crop. His wife rocked a crying baby, and hummed a soft, senseless tune. And yet the tune was familiar. Both man and woman had that look.

  I have seen that look on the faces of folks burying a child that they shouldn’t have outlived. It’s the look of the flooded-out, burned-down, misbegotten, left-behind widows and orphans of a world that has grown too old to notice our passing. It’s the feeling that all you have to do is sit still long enough and wind will grind you up as fine as the dust and carry you long past caring.

  As we were leaving I noticed Billy still hadn’t mounted. Nobody had been able to coax the dogs into coming along, or catch them and put them in the wagon either. The sheep had quieted and only one of the dogs remained at his loyal post with the herd. I looked around and spotted the other dog lying on the new grave with his head rested on his paws.

  Billy was trying to call him over, but the animal only stared up at him from under his brows. I heard Billy cuss as he mounted his horse. I pulled up and waited for him to come alongside. He was pretty subtle, but I saw the chunk of salt meat he dropped to the ground on his off side.

  We rode out of the draw and past the herd of sheep. The other dog was still with them, but they had begun to scatter and go to grazing. Their midst was dotted with the dead scattered around the floor of the draw. High overhead I could see the buzzards already circling.

  “Hell of a day for sheep and dogs,” Billy said, and I couldn’t have agreed more.

  We found a grove of big cottonwoods along a dry branch less than a half a day’s ride east of Ft. Sumner. We didn’t even unhitch the team, or loosen our cinches. Without a word from Cap, Martin led the prisoners into the trees. Cap asked for another horse, but nobody wanted to volunteer their mount. I guess none of us liked the thought of a man being hanged from the back of our horse. Cap didn’t volunteer his either, but remained on its back while we all stood around on foot. I guess it wouldn’t have looked right for him to preside over an execution from the ground.

  H.B., being of mature years and possibly more used to such occasions, brought his horse forward by the bridle. He looked up at the kid. “Swap horses, Cake.”

  Cake got down, but he refused to mount. “You ain’t hanging me. Give me a gun and I’ll fight the lot of you.”

  I was beginning to think he had a little sand, but then he started crying. “My father is rich. You just let me go and he’ll make it right.”

  The kid’s knees buckled, and H.B. had to catch him and hold him up for a moment. H.B. didn’t seem to know what to do.

  Finally, Cap rode forward. “Get on that horse.”

  I guess when the kid met Cap’s hard gaze he knew it was over, and he just died right then and there. He climbed right up on the horse and only sniffled a little while his hands were tied behind his back.

  Two catch ropes were thrown over two big limbs on the same side of the tree. The prisoners were led under them, and their horses stood nose to tail facing opposite each other. We gathered around while Cap and several of the boys placed the loops over the bandits’ necks. I don’t know how they managed it. I could have shot the thieves in pursuit, or in a fight, but for some reason hanging them was different. It was justified, but easier said than done.

  I stood holding one bridle and Billy the other. Cap stepped back and looked
up to the kid. “Have you got anything to say?”

  We all thought the kid would break down again, but instead, he spoke in a tight, controlled voice. “Don’t tell my father what happened to me. Bury my belongings here with me and let him think what he will. What he can imagine is bound to be better than the truth.”

  Cap waited him out and then turned to the other man. “What about you?”

  Lem looked each and every one of us in the eye like a preacher in the pulpit looking back at his congregation. “I’ve shot buffalo when there were so many you couldn’t see where they began or ended. I’ve found water where there wasn’t any, and the worst of it was plenty good. I remember when it was nigh a week’s travel to the settlements, and the Indians were thick as flies and bound to take your hair. I came to this country in ’67 and saw her while she was still fairly new. I remember when the sight of any kind of white woman was rare, and not even that could keep a man from going back out in this forsaken country.”

  We were all listening, and we heard him too.

  “I never thought it would come to this,” Cake said to no one in particular.

  Lem leaned out to spit, careful not to lose his balance on his horse. “I’ve killed, and robbed, and whored, and cheated my whole life. I reckon hanging is an even swap for just getting to live as long as I have.”

  “Are you through?” Cap asked after waiting for a polite bit.

  “Hell yes, I’m through.”

  I saw one little tear trickle from the corner of Lem’s eye, but he kept his chin up and stared straight ahead. He was a grubby thief that we all knew was just as likely to lay out to rob and murder you as he was to smile at you, but he was the real deal. Say what you want, but being bad doesn’t make you a coward.

  Cap stepped back and motioned Billy and I away. We both eased off, lest the horses try to follow. I was scared to death the horse I held wouldn’t stand still.

  “Sudden” is the only word that I can use to describe the way it happened. No sooner than I had cleared out of the way than Cap cracked one horse on the hip with his hat and then doubled back across himself and hit the other. And just like that, two men were kicking in the air. God help me, but I don’t think a man can talk about justice unless he has seen a man hanged.