The Butcher of Baxter Pass

by William W. Johnstone

  It was an excuse Major Henry Wirz had tried during his military tribunal in Washington. A plea to escape the hangman’s noose for all he had done, or not done, at Andersonville. The officers in charge had not bought it, and Wirz had hanged.

  Wirz had been on the losing side, though. Lincoln Dalton’s army had won.

  “They don’t talk about that when the Grand Army of the Republic reunites,” Dalton said. “Or when generals and politicians remind us of the blood that has been shed to preserve our Union, to make us strong. Oh, they point to Andersonville, the slaughter of our colored troops at Battery Wagner and Fort Pillow. No one talks about Elmira ... Rock Island ... Camp Chase. We starved Southern soldiers to death, just as they did at Andersonville and other hellholes. But we did it because our people, our brave Northern people, did not care.”

  “You tried to get food, Father. Mother baked all day—”

  “Which could have kept, what, Caroline, five, ten men from dying?”

  “You wrote letters—you pleaded. Mother told me ...”

  “I did nothing.” His head shook weakly. “Oh, sure. I wrote to the governor, to the mayor, to the good citizens of Cincinnati, Dayton, even into Kentucky. I begged for corn. Bacon. Anything. Nothing came.” Suddenly, he laughed. “Except for those old ladies who sent me ... me, not my men, not my prisoners—a box of lemon cookies. I brought them to the sergeant in charge of the prisoners, a burly man with a graying red beard, Brandt was his name, from Galveston. Gave him the cookies.”

  He paused. Jess waited. Thunder rolled again, closer now.

  The old man sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled. Yet there were five or six more minutes before he resumed his tale.

  “Sergeant Brandt was found dead the next morning. Murdered for lemon cookies by his own, God-loving men.” The Butcher’s head shook. “The sugar in the cookies gave his killers dysentery—that’s how weak their bodies were—and I expect most of them died. That’s what a fool I was. Trying to help the prisoners I was guarding, killing them instead.”

  “Father ...” Caroline bowed her head, and now wept, unashamed. Even Major Clarke fished out a handkerchief and blew his nose. Only Lee Bodeen looked unmoved.

  The thunder sounded closer, and Jess glanced toward the window, but the curtains were pulled down, the window shut to keep the night’s chill out of the room.

  Suddenly, Lincoln Dalton’s hands clapped loudly, almost sending Clarke spilling from his chair, and lifting Caroline Dalton’s head up in rigid shock.

  “There you have it, Sheriff !” the Butcher sang out. “Confessions of an idiot. My deathbed statement, or should I say my death-rocking-chair confession. That good enough for you? Tell me, Sheriff. What do you think?”

  Jess waited a moment before answering.

  “People died in prison camps all across the country,” Jess said. “North and South. No one blames you for that. Well, maybe some do. But not most of them. You didn’t become the Butcher of Baxter Pass for what happened during the war, sir. It was May the thirtieth, after Lee, after just about every Confederate general had surrendered. And after your prisoners had taken the oath to the Union. They were paroled when they died, sir. The war was over.”

  With a weak smile, Lincoln Dalton shook his head. “The war is never over, Sheriff. It wasn’t over when Lee called it quits. It wasn’t over when the Fancy Belpre exploded and sank. It isn’t over now, more than twenty years after the last battle.”

  “So,” Jess said, “what happened that night? What happened to those two hundred Texans?”

  Again, the old coot laughed and slapped his knee. “That’s the question, isn’t it, Sheriff? HA! Yeah, that’s the one I’ve been asked for twenty-something years. The one I’ve never answered. Until now. Tomorrow. In my farewell performance, I will admit all, tell all. If my mind does not falter, as it often damn does.” He looked at his daughter. “Isn’t that right, Daughter?” Back to Jess. “Don’t you feel lucky that I’ve chosen your fair city, Sheriff? Admit it. Don’t you feel lucky?”

  He waited, and Jess knew he wanted an answer.

  “I wish,” Jess said, “you’d picked Dallas.”

  This time, the old Butcher’s eyes beamed with amusement, even though Jess had been dead serious with the statement.

  “Bully for you, you Texas brush-popping badge-toter. Well, tomorrow, you’ll learn the truth.” He held up his hand, and snapped his finger. “Major Clarke!” Only now, he sounded just like the general, his voice firm, robust, and his eyes full of fire and vinegar. “Give Sheriff Casey a pass for tomorrow night’s show. No, wait. Not tomorrow. By thunder, it’s well past midnight. Tonight. Tonight’s show.”

  Dalton looked at Clarke. “What time is my farewell performance, Major?”

  “Five-thirty, sir. Right about sundown.”

  “Good show, Clarke. Yes, as the sun sets on Fort Worth, as the sun sets on my storied legend, I give my final performance.” He turned quickly to face Jess Casey. “Free of charge, Sheriff. You’ll be there, I know.”

  Jedediah Clarke busied himself searching through papers until he found whatever he needed, and he began writing on it.

  Jess stared at the Butcher. “I have to be there, Major Dalton,” he said. “It’s my job. Remember? To protect the peace?”

  “Good luck with that, boy,” Dalton said with a crazed smile as Major Clarke handed Jess Casey a pass and he glanced at it:

  ADMIT ONE

  J. Casey, Tarrant County Sheriff

  Front Row Seat, Back Stage Access.

  An Historic Evening

  For All Ages:

  The Final Lecture of the Butcher of Baxter Pass,

  BRIGADIER GENERAL LINCOLN EVERETT DALTON

  5:30 P. M., Tuesday,

  The 21st of January.

  Fort Worth Opera House,

  500 Throckmorton, Fort Worth, Texas.

  Compliments of the General.

  [Signed]

  Jedediah Clarke, Major, Manager

  God Preserve Our Glorious United States !

  It felt great to be outside again, breathing fresh, but cold, air. Jess sniffed the air, wondering if that might be rain—even snow—but couldn’t get the stink of the Butcher of Baxter Pass’s room out of his nostrils.

  He pulled up the collar on his burned Mackinaw, which reminded him that he would need a new coat to get through this winter. He would also need a new shirt and a new bandana, but those he could fetch out of his war bag.

  After finding his horse, he tightened the cinch and swung into the saddle. Sounds of laughter, of bad fiddle players, and out-of-tune pianos told him that Hell’s Half Acre was at its wildest worst, but he felt too tired to show his badge among the gamblers and prostitutes. Besides, this wasn’t cattle-shipping season, so maybe it would be a quiet—by the Acre’s standards—night.

  He rode down Main, past a few of the more respectable saloons, and the morning newspaper offices that were busy printing today’s papers, toward the courthouse, and half considered just riding right across the bridge of the Trinity River, past the Union Stockyards, all the way through the Indian Nations and into Kansas ... Nebraska ... maybe the Dakotas or Montana. Try cowboying again.

  Instead, he left his horse at the livery on Belknap and walked back to the jail and his office.

  The lights were off, but at least Hoot Newton hadn’t locked him out. He opened the door, closed it, patted his pockets before remembering he had used all his matches earlier, and tried to make his way toward a lantern.

  That’s when he tripped over the body and landed flat on his face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Tuesday, 2:40 a.m.

  Jess rolled up and over, the Colt revolver practically leaping into his hand, covering the dark office.

  “Hey!” a voice, muffled by the heavy door, called from the jail cells. “Is that you, Sheriff? Let me out of here! I don’t like the dark!”

  Jess backed up to the body and felt a massive bicep. That’s all he needed and with a savage
curse, he spun around, holding his free hand over the man’s face. He felt the breath and let out a sigh of relief. Figuring whoever had coldcocked Hoot Newton would be long gone by now, Jess holstered the. 44-40 and fumbled in the darkness until he found the lantern and a box of lucifers. Once the room was lit, he grimaced at the sight of Hoot Newton, lying faceup, with copious amounts of blood already congealing on the side of his head, his nose crooked and also darkened with old blood, and bruises already forming on his cheeks and throat. His knuckles were cut and chafed.

  “Let me out of here!” the voice cried from the jail cell.

  Jess Casey had a pretty good idea that he’d find one prisoner in the jail and that man would not be Burt McNamara.

  “In a minute!” he yelled, and moved to the wreck pan, found a towel, and soaked it in the water.

  The office was freezing cold. The fire in the potbellied stove had gone out, so Hoot had been lying there for quite a while. Jess heard a buggy outside, and he moved fast, stepping through the door onto the boardwalk and stopping the startled driver. He recognized Bob Winfield, a deacon with the Baptist church and owner of the ice cream parlor—probably coming from an evening of gambling in the Acre, which he thought to be a secret as he was well-respected, when in fact everyone in Tarrant County knew his fondness for the paste cards and whiskey, but no one said anything about it. Bob Winfield was a decent man, and his ice cream tasted fabulous.

  “Bob,” Casey called out. “I need you to ride over to Doc Wilson’s. Tell her to come quick. Hoot Newton’s been beaten up. Lying there. Half-dead.”

  “Hoot Newton?” The ice cream man looked perplexed. “Somebody beat up Hoot Newton?”

  “Hurry, Bob. Tell her to come quick.”

  He returned to his office before Bob Winfield’s whip cracked, and the horse took off down Belknap.

  Inside, Jess knelt, and began wiping the blood off the big cowboy’s face. With a slight groan, Newton flinched and turned his head away from the wet towel. Jess wasn’t sure how clean the towel was, but it was all he had—and he had to do something. He kept at it, as gently as he could, ignoring Pete Doolin’s protests from his jail cell.

  Finally, Hoot’s eyes fluttered, opened, and after a start, landed on Jess Casey.

  “Sorry ... Jess.” He sighed heavily.

  “Don’t fret over it,” Jess said, relieved that the big man had regained consciousness. “It was my fault.”

  “Jumped me ...”

  “The McNamara brothers?” Jess asked, though he knew the answer.

  “Big one. Fellow you whipped.” His eyes squinted. “How come you whupped him, and he whupped me?”

  “I used a singletree on him,” Jess reminded Hoot.

  The cowhand smiled. “Yeah.” His right hand gingerly moved toward the wicked cut and knot over his ear. “Think one of his brothers used something like that on me.”

  Rifle butt, Jess guessed.

  “Jess?” Hoot asked.

  “Yeah, Hoot?”

  “How ’bout some whiskey?”

  Jess rose, found the new bottle of rye, and opened the door to the jail cells, where he lit a lantern on the wall. Pete Doolin cursed and screamed and did not even thank Jess for ending the darkness that had turned his face ashen. The iron-barred door to Burt McNamara’s empty cell remained open.

  “Shut up, Doolin,” Jess told the old-timer. “My deputy’s lying on the floor, alive but hurt bad, and I’m in no mood. You savvy?”

  The curses stopped, but Doolin pleaded, “But I wanted to help your big jailer, Sheriff. I told ’em cur dogs that if they’d let me out, I’d whup ever’ one of ’em. I did. Swear on the Good Book. That’s what I tol’ ’em. And I ain’t et no supper.”

  Jess glared and shut the door behind him.

  “He’s lyin’, Jess,” Hoot said after Jess returned to dab the towel on his battered head.

  “About supper?” Jess grinned. “I knew that. He got some sausage and stuff that I brought in earlier.”

  “But he didn’t get none of that cherry pie.” Hoot grinned. “No, he begged them McNamara boys to let him out. One of ’em, can’t recall which one, he said somethin’ ’bout this bein’ strictly family. That’s ’bout all I recollect, though. Somebody then put my lights out.”

  Hoot sighed. “Guess those boys didn’t ride home after I let’m have their guns back.”

  Jess went to his desk, and pulled open the bottom drawer. The McNamaras had taken Pete Doolin’s old horse pistol with them. He wondered if they would go straight to the Trinity River Hotel and try to gun down the Butcher of Baxter Pass—and anyone, including Caroline Dalton, who got in their way. He knew he should head over there, right now, but he was not going to leave his friend here on the floor until Amanda Wilson showed up. Besides, Lee Bodeen was in the hotel, he got paid to protect Lincoln Dalton, and he had already proved to Jess how mighty handy the Texas Ranger could be with his six-shooters.

  * * *

  Doctor Amanda Wilson took the towel from Jess’s hands and tossed it immediately into the wastebasket. She opened her satchel and began caring for Hoot Newton, while Jess got the fire going again in the stove and decided to make fresh coffee.

  “Concussion,” she said as she worked. “How long ago did this happen?”

  Jess waited for Hoot. “Ten I reckon. Ain’t exactly sure.”

  Doc Wilson had already set Hoot’s busted nose, and propped up both nostrils with cotton balls, so the big man sounded nasally when he spoke.

  “He was unconscious when you found him?”

  “That’s right,” Jess told her.

  Her shoes, a rich cognac color with three-inch heels, had been laced up only halfway, and she had thrown on a cream-colored day dress, thin cotton, with mother-of-pearl buttons, though she had missed a couple of buttons. That was a dress for summer, but she had tossed on a gray and black-checked woolen cape, fastened at the top with a pewter clasp. When she had arrived, she had unfastened the cape and dropped it on the gun case. Her hair was a mess of tangles and bangs that went every which way but loose.

  She looked like a total wreck. She looked like a million.

  “I think this will require a few stitches,” she said. Her eyes were rimmed red from a lack of sleep. “But I don’t think the skull has been fractured.”

  He stood by the door, watching Amanda Wilson work on Hoot Newton, but listening to Fort Worth. At any moment, he expected to hear gunfire from the Trinity River Hotel.

  * * *

  He looked pretty bad, with some plaster over his nose, cotton balls sticking out of his nostrils, and white strips of bandage wrapped around that big noggin of his. But Hoot Newton did manage a smile when Jess handed him a tin cup that held more rye whiskey than coffee.

  He was sitting in the chair at Jess’s desk, and Amanda Wilson handed him a bottle.

  “This is for pain,” she said, “and you will have a wicked headache for a few days. Two tablets as needed. No more than four times a day.” When Hoot reached for the bottle she pulled it back. “And not to be chased down with whiskey.”

  She tossed the bottle to Jess, who caught it and placed it on the gun case.

  “Don’t let him sleep very long,” she told him. “People with injuries like that have been known to fall into a coma. I don’t think that’ll happen. He’s strong as an ox. But ...” She accepted the coffee cup Jess slid toward her but shook her head when he held up the whiskey bottle.

  After a sip, she studied Jess for a moment.

  “You look exhausted,” she told him.

  He blew on his steaming cup, which he had not doctored with rye, either. “I am exhausted.”

  “You should get some sleep.”

  “After Dalton leaves Fort Worth.”

  He paid Doc Wilson three dollars and seventy cents. When she had gone, he dropped her cup in the wreck pan and pulled off his burned Mackinaw. It went into the trash basket on top of the dirty towel Amanda Wilson had thrown away in disgust. What was left of his bandana and shirt
also went into the basket, and Jess found a relatively clean shirt in the cabinet underneath the gun case. The bandana he wouldn’t miss, but the bib-front shirt had been new and had set him back a whole dollar and forty-five cents. A shirt like that, and at that price, Jess had expected to have lasted him till spring and then the following winter.

  The old shirt he found was red and tan plaid with a rounded collar, no pockets, and he slipped it over his head and buttoned three buttons, leaving the one at the collar open. The bandana was blue and white stripes, which clashed with plaid, he had been told, but he didn’t care about that. His vest would be at the room he rented, a tan duck coat trimmed with corduroy collar and cuffs hung on the rack, so he could use it for the time being. He pinned the badge on his shirtfront and finished his coffee.

  “How’s your head, Hoot?”

  The big cuss lifted his tin cup. “Better now, Doc.”

  That made Jess grin. He wasn’t worried about Hoot Newton slipping into a coma. He’d be fine, and the McNamara boys would pay for what they had done here this night.

  The smile died instantly. Gunfire roared in the night.

  Hoot Newton tried to stand, but must have dropped back into the seat after a spell of dizziness. He had turned pale, dropped his elbows onto the desktop, and lowered his aching head into his big hands.

  “Stay here,” Jess told him. But it seemed obvious that Hoot Newton was not going anywhere right now.

  Moving quickly, Jess didn’t have time to pull on the coat, but he grabbed a Colt shotgun and checked the breech, and then stepped onto the boardwalk. More gunfire barked in the night. This wasn’t some drunken cowhand shooting at the clock at the courthouse. Jess almost felt relieved. Those shots weren’t coming from the direction of the Trinity River Hotel, either.

  Jess ran down the boardwalk toward Hell’s Half Acre.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Tuesday, 4:25 a.m.