Panhandle

by Brett Cogburn

  My pride was getting in the way of common sense, and I hated for Barby to believe I couldn’t provide for us like I should. I quickly regretted having been unskilled enough to let her discover my worries. We had quite a fight about the matter, and I ended up sleeping in the tepee that night.

  It took two days for me to settle the matter with her, or at least I thought I did. She had wanted to visit her father in Clarendon for a good while, and I had a load going that way. I would take her with me and leave her to visit there while I worked to make the loan payment. It was going to take a Herculean effort to make enough money by the payment deadline, but I assured her I would get it done. I felt not one bit of the confidence in myself that I showed to her.

  Fawn assured us that she would be all right alone until Long returned, and we packed Barby and Owen for the trip. The two women hugged like departing sisters, and I came to realize just how close they had grown. I knew Barby was worrying about Fawn having to be by herself as we were traveling south.

  My troubles left me for the trip to Clarendon, and I enjoyed the camping along the trail with my wife and boy. My son was growing like a weed, and already tottering about on his hind legs and getting into everything he wasn’t supposed to. He had his mother’s green eyes, and he reminded me of her when he smiled. That child was the light of my life, even if I sometimes looked at him and thought he was going to look just like Billy.

  I left Barby and Owen with Mr. Allen, grateful that I had good excuse not to tarry too long. Father and daughter seemed to have patched up any rift our marriage had caused, but he and I still didn’t see eye to eye on anything. He promised to send my family by stage to meet me in Mobeetie one month from the day I left them. I headed for that same town to pick up a load of telegraph poles I was to drop off at intervals along a stretch of the government trail north of the stage stop on the Canadian.

  My plan was to drop off the last of the poles, and hurry down to a place east along the Canadian within the Cheyenne Reservation where I knew of a stand of unusually big cedar. I would cut a wagon load of posts, and deliver them back to sell to the soldiers at Ft. Elliott in time to meet Barby there as she arrived by stage. With pay from my two freight trips, and money from the sale of the cedar posts the government was buying, I should have enough to pay my loan. As I traveled I tried not to remind myself of the good chance that what I was doing probably wouldn’t work.

  I made short work of dropping off my telegraph poles, and cut a beeline for the stand of cedar I had located. Neither the Cheyenne nor government troops on patrol caught me cutting reservation trees. It took me two weeks with an axe to do what a man who knew how to use one could have done in one. But by the end of that time I was headed back to Mobeetie with a wagon load of posts to sell and hands covered in bloody blisters. If nothing else, the trip had taught me that a cowboy’s hands don’t fit an axe handle.

  Triumphantly, I made town the night before Barby arrived, and was waiting for her when she stepped down off the stage with Owen on her arm. I hugged both of them and quickly told them of my success. Optimism had taken a hold of me and I splurged on a meal for us at O’Laughlin’s that set me back most of the jingling money I had. I didn’t think a thing of it, as I had money coming to me as soon as I made my way up to the fort.

  Owen was tired from his trip on the stage, and I rented a room for them with what I could scrape from my pocket. While she lay Owen down for a nap, I hitched my team and went up to the fort to sell my posts.

  It nearly took the entire U.S. Army to get me out of there.

  “We aren’t buying pickets or posts anymore.” The smug lieutenant walked out under the shaded porch of the quartermaster’s building and eyed my loaded wagon.

  “You told me a month ago you were.”

  “That was a month ago.” He was a fresh-faced kid, but his dimpled smile gave me the impression he was laughing at me.

  “I was counting on you buying posts.”

  The young officer brushed at a spot of imaginary dust on the shoulder of his uniform blouse while he looked me over from head to toe. I reckon I did look a little seedy. Sweating in a cedar brake in August heat with an axe in my hand had left my clothes not much more than rags, and the brim of my hat had long since lost its snap to the point I had pinned it up out of my eyes with a small stick punched through the felt.

  “You’ve obviously miscalculated. You had no contract with us that I’m aware of, and I would suggest you try to find another buyer.” He was plainly unbothered by my predicament.

  “You can shove these posts up your ass.” I took a step closer to him, the mad coming up in me.

  “Mister,” he said it like the word wouldn’t fit his mouth, “I am sorry for your tough luck. You do look like you could use some help.” He held up his hands in gesture that was supposed to make him appear helpless, but the sneer was plain in his voice.

  He was standing a little above me, but my arms are long and I reached out and cracked him on the chin. My left followed my right and I caught him again in the temple as he was falling. I hit him hard both times, and my fists struck with the sound of pounded meat. He folded up in a limp pile on the plank porch with his eyes rolled back in his head, and bloody drool running out of the corner of his mouth. I kicked him once in the belly for good measure, and stood over him waiting for him to move again.

  The first sergeant came running around the corner of the building. That was back in the day when you had to be able to whip every soldier on the line to make that rank, and from the size of him I knew what I was in for. He was as tall as me, but twice as wide with meat-hook hands and shoulders like a miner. The long points of his waxed, handlebar mustache twitched while he studied his fallen officer.

  “Your lieutenant made a little miscalculation and looks like he could use some help.” I rolled the unconscious man off the porch with my foot.

  The sergeant ducked his bald head like a bull and charged at me with both fists flying. I did manage to land the first lick, but only busted my knuckles on the top of his hard head. His fists struck me in a barrage of blunt pain and splitting skin. I was knocked down three times before I got my back against the wall of the building. One of my eyes was already swelling shut, and I pawed the blood out of the other and watched him come at me. He was moving more slowly, a malicious grin on his face, toying with me before he finished me off. Two other soldiers formed up at his sides, and from the violent pleasure plain on their faces I knew I hadn’t even started taking a beating yet. The sergeant loaded up his right hand, and swung a wide one from way back behind him. I should have been able to dodge that one, but it seemed I wasn’t up to snuff.

  As it was, I have taken far worse poundings. The good thing about there being three of them trying to kick my ribs in was the fact that they got in each other’s way. Soon, they were winded and beating on me had lost its sport. The sergeant had them drag me over to my wagon, and they left me there until I could climb up a wheel and pull myself into the seat.

  It took me a few minutes to gather my wits, and to regain some sort of dignity—if there is any such thing to be had for bloody losers. Somebody pitched me my hat, and I set it gingerly on my head. I looked back at the porch, where the two privates were propping the lieutenant up on his feet. He was still drooling and slurring nonsense, and a pump knot the size of a hickory nut was already forming above his right eye. He looked my way blankly as they walked him backwards into the doorway.

  “Ain’t you had enough?” The first sergeant walked halfway back to my wagon and stopped with his fists resting on his hips.

  “I reckon we’re about even.” I chucked to my mules and drove away with a mock salute thrown at the lieutenant.

  Thoroughly routed by the Army, I made my way down the road. I stopped at the creek separating the fort from town and bathed the blood from my face and hands. My head was pounding, and I felt like a team of mules had trampled me. Nothing seemed to be broken, but my fingers told me my face wasn’t going to be the same f
or a long while. That was the least of my concerns right then, and I sat by the water’s edge trying to find what, if any, options I had to weigh.

  I didn’t want to face Barby with the news just yet, and I was too stubborn to just give up and quit. I loitered around town for a while trying to figure out what to do, my swollen, battered features drawing curious stares from everyone I passed. Late in the afternoon, I managed to trade the load of posts to the firm of Wright and Rath for the mule I owed them for. They wanted me to deliver them to the fort after I’d signed off on the paperwork. I just smiled like it was the best news I’d ever heard, and then went outside and proceeded to pitch every last one of those posts out on the ground in their wagon yard.

  The company man cussing at me as I drove off lifted my spirits a little bit, so I was over my mad some when I found Barby talking to Billy on the porch of O’Laughlin’s. I never got over the uneasy feeling that came over me every time Billy was around Barby and Owen, but I was actually glad to see him that day. Maybe I could enlist his help to go lay siege to the fort.

  “You look like you woke up in an alley,” Billy observed good-naturedly.

  I laughed, but it came to me that I did indeed look like hell. Billy was dressed to the nines in the best of cowboy elegance and style, and I began to feel uncomfortable, realizing just how dirty and beaten I was.

  “What happened?” Barby rushed to me and probed tenderly at my face.

  “Just a little business disagreement.” I brushed off her medical attentions, and put one arm around her waist.

  “I hope the other fellow looks worse.” Billy winced as he made a careful study of my face.

  “For the life of me, I can’t understand you men.” Despite the frown, she sounded more sympathetic than disapproving.

  “A bath, a barber, and a trip to the mercantile will have him good as new,” Billy said.

  Clothes cost money, and I guess Barby read the look on my face, because she immediately knew that something was wrong. “They didn’t buy your posts?”

  All I could do was nod, because nothing I could say would make the way things were sound any better. I had two little bank drafts for freight deliveries in my pocket, but they didn’t amount to anywhere near what we needed. Barby took hold of my hand at her side, and I hated myself for the comfort that it gave me. I hated whatever weakness in me had brought me to this point where I needed consoling. Billy looked the two of us over while we passed silent sorrow between us. Our worries would have been apparent to a blind man.

  “I can loan you the money, and you can pay me back when you’ve got it,” he said.

  Part of me almost wilted with relief or hugged his neck, but the other part stiffened when I realized that Barby had told him of our tight finances.

  “Thanks, but I don’t need charity,” I said sternly, and sounded to my own ears like an ass.

  “It ain’t charity. That’s what friends are for,” Billy said angrily.

  “Thanks, but . . .”

  “But nothing. You’ve loaned me money before.”

  “That didn’t ever amount to a dollar or two, or a drink at night’s end. If you really want to lend a hand you can ride with me back up to the post and help me whip those soldier boys.”

  My arm was starting to hurt where Barby’s fingers were digging into my flesh. I looked at her, and I knew that I had to ignore my stubborn pride, because I couldn’t face the worry in her eyes one more time.

  “Take the money,” Billy said.

  “All right, but I’ll pay you back by Christmas for sure.” The relief in Barby’s face when I said it was plain as day.

  “You’ll be a cattle baron by then.”

  “Thanks, I owe you.” I shook his hand.

  I soon had a hot bath, a spotty shave, and a haircut. I sported a brand-new outfit from my boots to the new beaver hat sitting on my head, and was carrying enough money in my pocket to cover the bank payment plus a little extra, all at Billy’s expense. I wasn’t fool enough not to know how lucky I was to have a friend like him.

  Barby wanted to retire to our room early for the trip home the next day, and she didn’t put up any fuss when Billy drug me off for a drink or two before I called it an evening. We had just barely ordered a drink when Billy waved to a gent in the back of the room with muttonchop whiskers and a big pipe dangling from the corner of his mouth. He was playing poker with a full table, and a couple of girls flirted about his head.

  I assumed he must be no other than Archie, and Billy led me over and introduced me. Billy was telling him my name when a low growl stopped me in my tracks and I looked down to see I’d almost stepped on the enormous pair of dogs lying at the Englishman’s feet. They were rawboned, grizzled animals with long legs and thick, matted coats of shaggy hair. They looked at me with wild, yellow, ancient eyes, and I knew they were killers just the same as I had seen men who struck me as such.

  “I see you admire my wolfhounds,” Archie said in his most proper English accent. I thought he intentionally sounded a bit stuffy.

  “I’m glad I ain’t a coyote.”

  Archie merely grunted and puffed his pipe while he studied his cards. He placed a bet big enough to run everyone out of the hand, and raked his winnings to him.

  “Are you a pugilist, Mr. Reynolds? I do so like to exercise with a bit of boxing from time to time.”

  “Not so you’d notice.”

  “Are you a sporting man?”

  I had already decided I didn’t like him, but I shook my head no. He was the kind who asks questions just to hear himself talk.

  “Too bad, I find the Texas game a tad boring at times, and I would like to find someone other than Billy who could test my skill.”

  Apparently Billy was the only one of his employees with enough cash, or enough balls, to not let the pompous SOB buy every pot. Big-stacking working cowboys who made thirty a month didn’t make Archie a Doc Holliday or something. I wondered if he had played with any of the pros in town. I decided from his attitude that he had not, or he had and was sore about it.

  “Come on, Nate, there are two open seats,” Billy suggested.

  “I’ll just have a drink and watch.”

  The whiskey burned the cuts in my mouth and on my swollen lips, but hit bottom with a pleasing warmth that I found myself in the mood for. I watched the game long enough to see that despite my observations, the English duke could play a little. Nobody at the table was in either his or Billy’s league.

  As the night progressed the cowboys slowly left the game to be replaced by a few of Mobeetie’s gamblers looking for all the action they could find. I found myself at the bar with a couple of the boys I knew, and passed the time visiting with them and slowly, steadily getting drunker than I had planned.

  Several times Billy looked up and asked me to play, but I refused. I wasn’t about to play poker on borrowed money, especially with the crowd then sitting at the table. Nobody there was content with small stakes or played for fun. I’d seen my poker skills humbled on more than one occasion long before and knew I didn’t measure up.

  Billy was on a hot streak, and he was stacking money before him like bricks. I continued to drink, and the more I watched him win, the more I got to thinking about money. The more I thought about money, the more I thought about having to take money from him in front of my wife. By the time Billy was five hundred ahead I was drunk enough to feel sorry for myself, and mean enough to blame him for his good fortune.

  They say there aren’t any answers to be found in a bottle, but an idea so easy it made awful sense came clearly to my slurred brain. Vengeance and redemption lay within my reach, and I felt no shame or remorse for what I decided to do. Without a word to Billy I left the saloon, and headed to the livery. I saddled up my good horse Dunny, and rode out of town headed north at a high lope for the Horseshoe Ranch. I had a bottle in my hand and another in my saddlebags to see to it that I didn’t falter or fail in what I set out to do.

  I woke Bee Hopkins in the middle of t
he night, and drug him from his bed. He told me I was drunk, and a damned fool to run such a good horse to a lather in the dark. I laughed in his face, and knew he wouldn’t refuse the deal I offered.

  By late morning I was back in Mobeetie on another lathered horse, except it wasn’t Dunny I rode. I staggered up the stairs to my room, and slammed open the door, blind drunk and crazy. Barby leaped from the bed as I stormed into the room, and turned involuntarily half away from me with Owen shielded protectively in her arms.

  “It’s me, Barby.” I waved the wad of bills in my hand before her eyes like a madman.

  “Where did you get that?” Her eyes darted to her valise where I’d put Billy’s money the evening before.

  Before she could search the bag I was across the room and jerked it from her hands and sailed it against the wall.

  “We don’t need his money,” I cried. “I’ve got a thousand dollars in my hand right here.”

  “You’re drunk.” The disgust in her voice was plain, but I was in no shape to feel guilt, only mad satisfaction.

  “Maybe, but I’ve got money.”

  “Where did you get it?” She already knew with a terrible premonition that I had done something bad.

  I sprawled into the chair by the door, and offered her the money once more. Couldn’t she see that I had done it for her?

  “What have you done, Nathan?”

  As drunk as I was, I couldn’t bring myself to say it, for to put voice to it was to admit the wrong and to realize how far I’d fallen from the man I thought I was.

  “Tell me what you’ve done.” Her voice was like God’s wrath torturing me to admit my sin.

  “I sold Dunny,” I said. “I sold him, and I’m glad I did it.”

  I held out the money and begged her with the sight of it to ignore how I had spited my friend and tried to buy her love. I woke up that evening alone with the money still clutched in my wretched, jealous hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT