McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales

by Michael Chabon

  “How much did he get?”

  “No more’n fifty dollars,” Carlos said. He took his time thinking about what happened right after, starting with Frank Miller looking at his ice-cream cone. Carlos saw it as personal, something between him and Frank Miller, so he skipped over it, telling Bud Maddox:

  “I put the money on the counter for him, mostly singles. I look up—”

  “Junior Harjo walks in,” Bud Maddox said, “a robbery in progress.”

  “Yes sir, but Junior doesn’t know it. Frank Miller’s at the counter with his back to him. Jim Ray Monks is over at the soda fountain getting into the ice cream. Neither of them had their guns out, so I doubt Junior saw it as a robbery. But Mr. Deering sees Junior and calls out he’s got his mother’s medicine. Then says for all of us to hear, ‘She tells me they got you raiding stills, looking for moonshine.’ He said something about setting a jar aside for him and that’s all I heard. Now the guns are coming out, Frank Miller’s Colt from inside his suit . . . I guess all he had to see was Junior’s badge and his sidearm, that was enough, Frank Miller shot him. He’d know with that Colt one round would do the job, but he stepped up and shot Junior again, lying on the floor.”

  There was a silence.

  “I’m trying to recall,” Bud Maddox said, “how many Frank Miller’s killed. I believe six, half of ’em police officers.”

  “Seven,” Carlos said, “you count the bank hostage had to stand on his running board. Fell off and broke her neck?”

  “I just read the report on that one,” Bud Maddox said. “Was a Dodge Touring, same as Black Jack Pershing’s staff car over in France.”

  “They drove away from the drugstore in a LaSalle,” Carlos said, and gave Bud Maddox the license number.

  Here was the part Carlos saw as personal and had skipped over, beginning with Frank Miller looking at his ice-cream cone. Then asking, “What is that, peach?” Carlos said it was and Frank Miller reached out his hand, saying, “Lemme have a bite there,” and took the cone to hold it away from him as it was starting to drip. He bent over to lick it a couple of times before putting his mouth around a big bite he took from the top dip. He said, “Mmmmm, that’s good,” with a trace of peach ice cream along the edge of his mustache. Frank Miller stared at Carlos then like he was studying his features and began licking the cone again. He said, “Carlos, huh?” cocking his head to one side. “You got the dark hair, but you don’t look like any Carlos to me. What’s your other name?”

  “Carlos Huntington Webster, that’s all of ’em.”

  “It’s a lot of name for a boy,” Frank Miller said. “So you’re part greaser on your mama’s side, huh? What’s she, Mex?”

  Carlos hesitated before saying, “Cuban. I was named for her dad.”

  “Cuban’s the same as Mex,” Frank Miller said. “You got greaser blood in you, boy, even if it don’t show much. You come off lucky there.” He licked the cone again, holding it with the tips of his fingers, the little finger sticking out in a dainty kind of way.

  Carlos, fifteen years old but as tall as this man with the ice cream on his mustache, wanted to call him a dirty name and hit him in the mouth as hard as he could, then go over the counter and bulldog him to the floor the way he’d put a bull calf down to brand and cut off its balls. Fifteen years old but he wasn’t stupid. He held on while his heart beat against his chest. He felt the need to stand up to this man, saying finally, “My dad was on the battleship Maine when she was blown up in Havana Harbor, February 15, 1898. He survived and fought the dons with Huntington’s Marines in that war in Cuba and met my mother, Graciaplena. When the war was over he went back and brought her to Oklahoma when it was still Indian territory. She died having me, so I never knew her. I never met my dad’s mother, either. She’s part Northern Cheyenne, lives on a reservation out at Lame Deer, Montana,” saying it in a voice that was slow and calm compared to what he felt inside. Saying, “What I want to ask you— if having Indian blood too, makes me something else besides a greaser.” Saying it in Frank Miller’s face, causing this man with ice cream on his mustache to squint at him.

  “For one thing,” Frank Miller said, “the Indian blood makes you and your daddy breeds, him more’n you.” He kept staring at Carlos as he raised the cone, his little finger sticking out, Carlos thinking to lick it again, but what he did was toss the cone over his shoulder, not looking or caring where it would land.

  It hit the floor in front of Junior Harjo just then walking in, badge on his tan shirt, revolver on his hip, and Carlos saw the situation turning around. He felt the excitement of these moments but with some relief, too. It picked him up and gave him the nerve to say to Frank Miller, “Now you’re gonna have to clean up your mess.” Except Junior wasn’t pulling his .38; he was looking at the ice cream on the linoleum and Mr. Deering was calling to him about his mother’s medicine and about raiding stills and Frank Miller was turning from the counter with the Colt in his hand, firing, shooting Junior Harjo and stepping closer to shoot him again.

  There was no sign of Mr. Deering. Jim Ray Monks came over to have a look at Junior. Frank Miller laid his Colt on the glass counter, picked up the cash in both hands, and shoved the bills into his coat pockets before looking at Carlos again.

  “You said something to me. Geronimo come in and you said something sounded smart-aleck.”

  Carlos said, “What’d you kill him for?” still looking at Junior on the floor.

  “I want to know what you said to me.”

  Frank Miller waited.

  Carlos looked up, rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. “I said, ‘Now you’ll have to clean up your mess.’ The ice cream on the floor.”

  “That’s all?”

  “It’s what I said.”

  Frank Miller kept looking at him. “You had a gun you’d of shot me, huh? Calling you a greaser. Hell, it’s a law of nature, you got any of that blood in you you’re a greaser. I can’t help it, it’s how it is. Being a breed on top of it—I don’t know if that’s called anything or not. But you could pass if you want, you look enough white. Hell, call yourself Carl, I won’t tell on you.”

  Carlos and his dad lived in a big new house Virgil said was a California bungalow, off the road and into the pecan trees, a house that was all porch across the front and windows in the steep slant of the roof, a house built last year with oil money—those derricks pumping away on a back section of the property. The rest of it was graze and over a thousand acres of pecan trees, Virgil’s pride, land gathered over twenty years since coming home from Cuba. He could let the trees go and live high off his oil checks, never work again as long as he lived. Nothing doing—harvesttime Virgil was out with his crew shaking pecan trees. He had Carlos seeing to the cows, a hundred or so head of cross-Brahmas at a time feeding till the day they were shipped to market.

  When Carlos got back from a haul Virgil would be sitting on the porch with a bottle of Mexican beer. Prohibition was no bother; Virgil had a steady supply of beer, tequila, and mescal brought up through Texas by the oil people, part of the deal.

  The night he witnessed the robbery and murder Carlos sat with his old dad and told him the whole story, including what he’d left out of his account to Bud Maddox, even telling about the ice cream on Frank Miller’s mustache. Carlos was anxious to know if his dad thought he might’ve caused Junior Harjo to get shot. “I don’t see how,” Virgil said, “from what you told me. I don’t know why you’d even think of it, other than you were right there and what you’re wondering is if you could’ve prevented him from getting shot.”

  Virgil Webster was forty-six years old, a widower since Graciaplena died in aught-six giving him Carlos and requiring Virgil to look for a woman to nurse the child. He found Narcissa Raincrow, sixteen, a pretty little Creek girl, daughter of Johnson Raincrow, deceased, an outlaw so threatening peace officers shot him while he was asleep. Narcissa had lost her own child giving birth, wasn’t married, and Virgil hired her on as a wet nurse. By the time litt
le Carlos had lost interest in her breasts, Virgil had acquired an appreciation. It wasn’t long after Narcissa became their housekeeper she was sleeping in Virgil’s bed. She cooked good, put on some weight but was still pretty, listened to Virgil’s stories and laughed when she was supposed to. Carlos loved her, had fun talking to her about Indian ways, and her murderous dad, but never called her anything but Narcissa. Carlos liked the idea of being part Cuban; he saw himself wearing a panama hat when he was older.

  He said to his dad that night on the dark porch, “Are you thinking I should’ve done something?”

  “Like what?”

  “Yell at Junior it’s a robbery? No, I had to say something smart to Frank Miller. I was mad and wanted to get back at him somehow.”

  “For taking your ice-cream cone?”

  “For what he said.”

  “What part was it provoked you?”

  “What part? What he said about being a greaser.”

  “You or your mama?”

  “Both. And calling me and you breeds.”

  Virgil said, “You let that bozo get to you? Probably can’t read nor write, the reason he has to rob banks. Jesus Christ, get some sense.” He swigged his Mexican beer and said, “I know what you mean though, how you felt.”

  “What would you have done?”

  “Same as you, nothing,” Virgil said. “But if you’re talking about in my time, when I was still a marine? I’d of shoved the ice-cream cone up his goddamn nose.”

  Three days later sheriff’s deputies spotted the LaSalle in the backyard of a farmhouse near Checotah, the house belonging to a woman by the name of Faye Harris. Her former husband, Olin “Skeet” Harris, deceased, shot dead in a gun battle with U.S. marshals, had at one time been a member of the Frank Miller Gang. The deputies waited for marshals to arrive, as apprehending armed fugitives was their specialty. The marshals slipped into the house at first light, fed the dog, tiptoed into Faye’s bedroom, and got the drop on Frank Miller before he could dig his Colt from under the pillow. Jim Ray Monks went out a window, started across the barn lot, and caught a load of double-aught that put him down. The two were brought to Okmulgee and locked up to await trial.

  Carlos said to his dad, “Boy, those marshals know their stuff, don’t they? Armed killer—they shove a gun in his ear and yank him out of bed.”

  He was certain he’d be called to testify and was anxious, couldn’t wait. He told his dad he intended to look directly at Frank Miller as he described the cold-blooded killing. Virgil advised him not to say any more than he had to. Carlos said he wondered if he should mention the ice cream on Frank Miller’s mustache.

  “Why would you want to?” Virgil said.

  “Show I didn’t miss anything.”

  “You know how many times the other night you told me about the ice cream on his mustache?” Virgil said. “I’m thinking three or four times.”

  “You had to see it. Here’s this Frank Miller everybody’s scared of, doesn’t know enough to wipe his mouth.”

  “I’d forget that,” Virgil said. “He shot a lawman in cold blood. That’s all you need to remember about him.”

  A month passed and then another, Carlos becoming fidgety. Virgil found out why it was taking so long, came home to Narcissa putting supper on the table, Carlos sitting there, and told them the delay was caused by other counties wanting to get their hands on Frank Miller. So the matter was given to a district court judge to rule on, each county laying out its case, sounding like they’d make a show out of trying him. “His Honor got our prosecutor to offer Frank Miller a deal. Plead guilty to murder in the second degree, the motive self-defense as the victim was armed, and give him ten to fifty years. That would be the end of it, no trial needed. In other words,” Virgil said, “your Frank Miller will get sent to McAlester and be out in five years.”

  “There was nothing self-defense about it,” Carlos said. “Junior wasn’t even looking at him when he got shot.” Carlos sounding like he was in pain.

  “You don’t know the system,” Virgil said. “The deal worked ’cause Junior’s Creek, or else Cherokee. He was a white man Frank Miller’d be doing twenty-five to life.”

  Another event of note took place that same year, 1921, toward the end of October and late in the afternoon, dusk settling in the orchards. Carlos shot and killed a cattle thief by the name of Wally Tarwater.

  Virgil’s first thought: It was on account of Frank Miller. The boy was ready this time and from now on would always be ready.

  He phoned the undertaker, who came with sheriff’s people, and pretty soon two deputy U.S. marshals arrived, Virgil knowing them as serious lawmen in their dark suits and the way they cocked their soft felt hats down on their eyes. The marshals took over, the one who turned out to be the talker saying this Wally Tarwater—now lying in the hearse—was wanted on federal charges of running off livestock and crossing state lines to sell to meat packers. He said to Carlos to go on and tell in his own words what happened.

  Virgil saw Carlos start to grin just a little, about to make some remark like, “You want it in my own words?” and cut him off quick with, “Don’t tell no more’n you have to. These people want to get home to their families.”

  Well, it began with Narcissa saying she felt like a rabbit stew, or squirrel if that’s all was out there. “I thought it was too late in the day,” Carlos said, “but took a twenty-gauge and went out in the orchard. The pecans had been harvested, most of ’em, so you could see through the trees good.”

  “Get to it,” Virgil said. “You see this fella out in the pasture driving off your cows.”

  “On a cutting horse,” Carlos said. “You could tell this cowboy knew how to work beef. I got closer and watched him, admiring the way he bunched the animals without wearing himself out. I went back to the house and exchanged the twenty-gauge for a Winchester, then went to the barn and saddled up. She’s right over there, the clay-bank? The sorrel’s his.”

  The marshal, the one who talked, said, “You went back to get a rifle but don’t know yet who he is?”

  “I knew it wasn’t a friend stealing my cows. He’s driving them down towards the Deep Fork bottom where a road comes in there. I nudge Suzie out among the cows still grazing, got close enough to call to him, ‘Can I help you?’ ” Carlos started to smile. “He says, ‘Thanks for offering but I’m done here.’ I told him he sure was and to get down from his horse. He started to ride away and I fired one in the air to bring him around. I move closer but kept my distance, not knowing what he had under his slicker. By now he sees I’m young, he says, ‘I’m picking up cows I bought off your daddy.’ I tell him I’m the cattle outfit here, my dad grows pecans. All he says is, ‘Jesus, quit chasing me, boy, and go on home.’ Now he opens his slicker to let me see the six-shooter on his leg. And now way off past him a good four hundred yards, I notice the stock trailer, a man standing there by the load ramp.”

  “You can make him out,” the marshal who did the talking said, “from that distance?”

  “If he says it,” Virgil told the marshal, “then he did.”

  Carlos waited for the marshals to look at him before saying, “The cowboy starts to ride off and I call to him to wait a second. He reins and looks back. I said, ‘But you try to ride off with my stock I’ll shoot you.’ ”

  “You spoke to him like that?” the talker said. “How old are you?”

  “Going on sixteen. The same age as my dad when he joined the marines.”

  The quiet marshal spoke for the first time. He said, “So this fella rode off on you . . .?”

  “Yes, sir. Once I see he isn’t gonna turn my cows, and he’s approaching the stock trailer by now, I shot him.” Carlos dropped his tone, saying, “I meant to wing him, put one in the edge of that yellow slicker . . . I should’ve stepped down ’stead of firing from the saddle. I sure didn’t mean to hit him square. I see the other fella jump in the truck, doesn’t care his partner’s on the ground. He goes to drive off and tears the ramp f
rom the trailer. It was empty, no cows aboard. What I did was fire at the hood of the truck to stop it and the fella jumped out and ran for the trees.”

  The talkative marshal spoke up. “You’re doing all this shooting from four hundred yards?” He glanced toward the Winchester leaning against a pecan tree. “No scope on your rifle?”

  “You seem to have trouble with the range,” Virgil said to him. “Step out there about a hundred yards and hold up a live snake by its tail. My boy’ll shoot its head off for you.”

  “I believe it,” the quiet marshal said.

  He brought a card from his vest pocket and handed it between the tips of his fingers to Virgil. He said, “Mr. Webster, I’d be interested to know what your boy sees himself doing in five or six years.”

  Virgil looked at the card and then handed it to Carlos, meeting his eyes for a second. “You want you can ask him,” Virgil said, watching Carlos reading the card that bore the deputy’s name, R.C. “Bob” Cardell, and a marshal’s star in gold you could feel. “I tell him join the marines and see foreign lands, or get to love pecans if you want to stay home.” He could see Carlos moving his thumb over the embossed star on the card. “Tell you the truth, I don’t think he knows yet what he wants to be when he grows up,” Virgil said to the marshal, and to Carlos, “Isn’t that right?”

  Carlos raised his head.

  “Sir, were you speaking to me?”

  Later on Virgil was in the living room reading the paper. He heard Carlos come down from upstairs and said, “Will Rogers is appearing at the Hippodrome next week, with the Follies. You want to go see him?”