The Fall of Abilene

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Erastus left, and, eating my second biscuit and drinking what passed for coffee, I moved to the fire to watch the game.

  I’m a quick learner, and five-card stud’s pretty easy to figure out, although it would take till we reached the Red River for me to learn all the particulars, like a straight being better than three of a kind, but a flush—five cards of the same suit—being higher than a straight.

  Six, including Sam, played. I watched, standing between Wes Hardin and a cowboy with a big red mustache who called himself Marvin Hatley. Sam sat catty-corner from Hardin.

  Hatley soon brought out a flask, which moved around the circle. Fascinated, I focused on the cards, learning the game by eye and ear, and felt annoyed when Hatley, then dealing, said: “This oughta be the last hand, boys. Erastus’ triangle sounds real loud when it’s still full dark.”

  By then, Hatley’s flask was empty, so nobody objected, and the dealing began. First card down for each player, the next ones up. Sam had the jack of spades showing, the only face card up, and, with a grin, he tossed in two half-dollars.

  A curly-headed cowboy called Box Head muttered a curse, started to turn over his three of diamonds, but, sighing, said: “Well, since it’s the last hand.” He laid out a bunch of change, that nobody bothered to count, but which came out to be seventy-nine cents. It wasn’t my place to point out that he was twenty-one cents short. Everybody else stayed in, and everybody else bet an entire dollar.

  Hatley dealt himself a jack, but since his first up card was only a five, Sam’s hand remained high, and he bet two dollars this time. Maybe that six of clubs helped him, but I couldn’t see how, though it was slightly higher than Hatley’s jack-five. Box Head tossed in a pocketknife. All the others paid in greenbacks or coins. Most of the players groaned when Sam got the jack of hearts, then Box Head got another jack, and John Wesley Hardin paired up his nine.

  “Well, well, well,” my brother said, and he dipped his long fingers into his pouch, pulled out a Liberty gold coin, and flipped it into the pot, where it leaned against Box Head’s pocketknife. “Ten dollars, my friends,” Sam declared.

  Cursing again, Box Head turned over his cards, gathered them up, and tossed them into the center. He pointed at the knife he had just lost. “You reckon I can buy that knife back from you oncet we get paid in Abilene?”

  “Absolutely,” my brother said, reminding me that this was a friendly game.

  Wes Hardin looked at his cards, shook his head, and started to fold as well, but those cold eyes locked on me.

  “What did you say?”

  I blinked. I hadn’t been aware of saying anything out loud.

  Hatley laughed. “He said … ‘Don’t’ … Wes.”

  “Don’t what?” Hardin asked.

  I swallowed, wet my lips. Sam scowled at me.

  “Well?” Hardin demanded.

  “I said ‘don’t quit,’” I told him.

  Hatley laughed. “It’s called folding, kid. Not quitting.”

  Hardin snorted. “He’s got me beat.”

  “Right now.” I nodded.

  “I don’t like this kind of table talk,” my brother said.

  “I don’t see no table,” said Three-Fingered Dave, sitting on Hatley’s left. That got a few chuckles from everyone, even Sam—except Wes Hardin.

  Hardin scratched the heel of his right hand on the hammer of the Colt in the left-side holster of his checkered vest.

  “You know what my hole card is, boy?” he asked. “You been standing behind me all this time. Is that why your brother’s winning so much?”

  “Wes …” Three-Fingered Dave tossed in his hand. “He’s just a kid.”

  The last player, the one on Sam’s right, folded, too.

  “Well?” Hardin demanded.

  Sam licked his lips. He looked worried. Because Hardin looked ready to put a lead ball in my belly? I wondered. Or because he might lose this hand?

  “I don’t know what you have,” I said at last. “I just know you have a chance to win.”

  Sam’s mouth turned flat and tight.

  “How you figure that?” Hardin hooked his thumb—at least his hand wasn’t close to that big .44 anymore—toward my brother. “He’s got a pair of jacks to my pair of nines. He can get a third jack.”

  My head shook. Hatley even laughed, and Hardin demanded: “What?”

  “All the jacks are out, Wes,” Hatley said.

  Now Hardin turned to look, but everyone had folded their cards, so he couldn’t see the other two jacks. He glared at Hatley briefly before looking at me again.

  “He can pair up his six,” he said. “Or match his hole card. Criminy, he might have two pair already. Might even get himself a full boat.”

  Full boat. I had not heard that term on this night, but it must have been something like the full house Hatley had gotten when Box Head had been dealing several hands earlier.

  All the spit in my mouth had dried up, but I managed to say: “There’s only one six left.”

  “Noah …” Sam whispered.

  “You’ve got a two,” I somehow managed to tell Hardin. “There hasn’t been a two dealt this whole hand. And both nines are still out.”

  “If they weren’t one of the down cards,” Hardin reminded me.

  “That’s true,” I conceded.

  Hatley laughed. “Like anyone with half a brain would stay in this game with a deuce as your hole card.”

  “Table talk, table talk, table talk …” Three-Fingered Dave chuckled.

  “Ten dollars,” Sam said. “What will it be, Wes?”

  Hardin turned back, considered his cards, looked again at Sam’s, and grinned. He pulled his watch out of his pocket, wound it, and laid it in the center of the pile. It was an open-face Elgin, pretty big, and gold, or at least gold-plated.

  “That’s worth a slight more than ten bucks,” Hardin said. “Wouldn’t you say?”

  “You’re raising?” Sam’s voice came out as a whisper.

  “Twenty more.” It wasn’t a question. Hardin gave a nod in my direction. “I’m betting on your little brother. He’s starting to amuse me. And he better hope I stay amused, because it’s a long way to Abilene.”

  Sam pulled out some coins and greenbacks and laid them in the pot.

  “Best hand of the night,” Three-Fingered Dave said.

  “Biggest pot,” Hatley commented, nodding.

  “I’m glad I ain’t in it,” Box Head said.

  Hatley dealt Sam the ace of clubs and delivered Wes Hardin a third nine.

  My brother’s shoulders sagged, and Hardin laughed. “Do I need to bet?”

  Sam shook his head, and Hardin gathered up the money, his Elgin, and Box Head’s pocketknife, which he examined and tossed back to the cowboy, saying: “I’m generous tonight, Box Head. Pay me two dollars in Abilene. Plus a beer for interest.”

  “Thanks,” the cowboy said.

  Hatley gathered the cards and passed them to a man called Munroe, who shoved the deck into his vest pocket as he stood, stretched, and yawned. “How’d you know all those cards that were out?”

  I shrugged.

  “I might have been able to count what was out and what wasn’t, too,” Three-Fingered Dave said, “if Marvin here hadn’t passed around that flask.”

  They laughed, and Hardin slammed his hard left hand on my shoulder. “What’s your name?”

  Meekly, I answered.

  He shoved a dollar into my torn shirt pocket. “Well, Noah, me and you are gonna be pards. You’re all right. Maybe you ain’t a man to ride the river with, just yet, but you sure come in handy around a poker game.”

  They wandered off, leaving me alone with my brother.

  Chapter Three

  “Next time I’m playing poker, or any card game,” Sam told me, “be somewhere else.”
/>   My head dropped. “Sorry,” I whispered.

  After a heavy sigh, he shook his head. “You counted the cards? Memorized them?”

  I answered with a slight shrug.

  “How’d you learn to do that?”

  Another shrug.

  “Look at me. I ain’t mad at you.” That was a lie, but Sam kept up. “Perturbed, maybe. And curious, for sure.” My eyes lifted, and he faked a grin. “Pa wasn’t no hand at numbers. Ma never got much of an education. Me and you got through our Readers good enough, I warrant, but I still have to use my fingers when we get up to them big numbers. That subscription school teach you all that ciphering?”

  “Mr. Wiley says mathematics is my forte,” I told him.

  “Your what?” Sam fished out the makings and started rolling a smoke.

  “Forte,” I said. “Means I’m good at it.”

  “You are that.”

  He finished making his cigarette, which he wet with his lips, and struck a lucifer with his thumb. Once his smoke was lighted, he pitched the match into the fire and inhaled deeply, held it, and blew a smoke ring that the wind destroyed. His eyes seemed lost in some deep thinking, as he shook his head.

  “I’ve heard of folks counting cards in vingt-en-un … twenty-one most folks call it now. And I’ve tried to remember some cards dealt in poker, but once somebody folds, it’s hard for me to recollect. But you …” He shook his head, took another pull on the cigarette, and exhaled. “You can remember that good?”

  “Always had a good memory,” I told him. “Ma said it’s a blessing to have a good memory. Pa said it could be a curse.”

  Sam’s laugh might have been genuine. “Well, your memory sure helped Wes Hardin tonight. Me? Not so very much.”

  “Sorry …”

  “Hell, I made out all right … not as good as I could have, had Wes folded that last hand … but that’s poker. Besides, from what I know of Hardin, he don’t take losing real good. This’ll make him a mite friendlier anyhow.”

  “Maybe I can help you next time,” I suggested.

  He had started to bring the cigarette back to his lips, but he stopped and flicked it into the fire. Sam’s face hardened. “No. I don’t want you doing that. At least, not if Hardin’s playing with us. He’s a hard rock. Killed a colored fellow up north after some argument about a wrestling match. At least, that’s what the stories I’ve heard told. He’s killed plenty more since.”

  “I know,” I said. “I read the newspapers to Ma, and now Pa, when we happen across one.”

  “Yeah, well, did you read that he got arrested for shooting down some fellow in Waco last month? Got arrested by a couple of state policemen, who were hauling him to Austin. He shot one of those men dead … how he got the gun, I don’t know … then beat the other one’s brains out.”

  “My goodness.”

  Sam looked around to make sure no one remained in earshot. “Ain’t no goodness to it. Nor him.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  Sam shrugged. “From what Marv told me, he figures the law’ll be looking for him to make his way to Mexico. Who’d ever think they might find a fugitive pushing steers to Kansas?”

  * * * * *

  After the boys road-branded our steers, I swung onto my gelding and began easing them to join the herd that we would push north.

  While I had read a few newspaper and magazine articles about cattle drives, and certainly had heard quite a few stories, this was my first glimpse at just how many cattle we’d be trailing. I had trouble digesting just how many we’d be driving north.

  Even after our two-year-olds had found grass to chew on, I just sat in the saddle, trying to count how many steers had already been road-branded. That’s what I was doing when out of the corner of my eye, I saw this black man on a dun horse riding into the herd.

  I had not seen him last night or at breakfast, so I turned Star—that’s what I’d named the gelding, on account of the white star on his brown head—and nudged him into a trot. The man wore duck trousers and a muslin shirt, and looked as solid as an oak tree. A belt was strapped across his middle, and he wore a pistol of some fashion in the holster. His gloved hands pulled the lariat from his saddle horn, and he moved closer to this old mulberry steer with one bad eye.

  “’Morning,” I said, pulling Star to a stop.

  He reined in his dun. “You the …?” He stopped, shook his head, and spit tobacco juice into the grass. He laughed. “I was gonna ask if you was the boss man.” His head shook. “But I don’t think you’re boss … not yet, anyways.”

  My lips tightened, but his eyes seemed full of good spirits and his laugh was almost infectious. I grinned back. “No. I’m just a hired hand.”

  “Name’s King. Bob King.”

  I gave him my name, and he said: “You boys have rounded up some of my steers. I’m cutting them out.”

  The grin disappeared as Bob King began to shake out a loop. “Well,” I said, “I think you should speak to the ramrod first. I heard the owner mention that nobody was to enter the herd without permission.”

  Bob King turned his big bald head to me. He wasn’t looking so friendly now. “I suppose I could say the same thing about my cattle. And my land.” He tilted his head southeast. “Got a half section. Deeded.”

  I’d filled my stomach with biscuits, gravy, bacon, and coffee that morning—Erastus McDougal was a finer cook that Ma—but the food started swirling around in my belly. The swirls turned into gale-driven waves at the sound of hoofbeats and sight of Wes Hardin galloping toward us.

  Bob King focused on Hardin, who slid his black gelding to a stop.

  “You got business here, boy?” Hardin demanded.

  “The boy,” Bob King said, “is home with his mama. My name’s King. Bob King. I’m cutting my stock out of your herd.”

  “Who gave you permission?” Hardin said.

  “I don’t need permission to cut out what’s mine.” Bob King pointed at the brand on the hip of his dun. “My brand. Slash Backwards K.” He nodded at the mulberry steer. “Which you’ll find on that steer’s hide, too.”

  “You gotta get permission from the boss,” Wes said.

  “Who’s the boss?”

  “I am the man,” Hardin answered.

  “Well, boss, I’ve come to cut this herd.”

  “No.” Grinning, Wes Hardin folded his arms across his chest, and the movement caused the two Colts in his vest to turn the butts close to his hands.

  Bob King looked at those revolvers, then into Hardin’s dead eyes, and after that at the steer. I studied my saddle horn.

  “When I nudge that steer out, you’ll see the brand, mister.” Bob King was one proud man. “If it’s not the Slash Backwards K, I’ll leave him with you, sir.”

  He rode toward the big steer, and Hardin spurred his black and came up alongside King in a heartbeat. This happened faster than it has taken me to pencil down these words. The Colt on his left side came out in Hardin’s right hand, and the barrel slammed hard against Bob King’s head. The cattle bolted a few yards in all directions as Bob King fell to the ground, and his dun horse loped off a few rods.

  Hardin spun his horse around, cocked the revolver, and aimed the barrel at the black man, whose head leaked blood.

  “Catch up his horse, Counting Boy,” Hardin said without looking away from the freedman. “Bob King will be leaving us directly.”

  Numb, I spurred Star to the dun. By the time I’d gathered the reins and started back, Sam and three other cowboys from our crew had formed a semicircle around Bob King and the mulberry steer. I noticed the brand on King’s horse. It matched the brand on the steer. Hardin saw this, too, but he just smiled.

  Swinging out of the saddle, I brought the dun over to Bob King, now sitting as he pressed a stained bandanna against the cut on his head and dent in his skull.
>
  “You might want to beg my pardon, boy,” Hardin said. “Or … well …” He laughed, and waved the barrel of the Colt he still held in King’s direction. “You’ve got a gun.”

  Somehow, I managed to extend my hand. Bob King’s eyes held on mine just briefly. Grunting, he pushed himself to his feet, staggered, almost toppled, but drew in a deep breath. He shifted the stained bandanna to the mule-ear pocket of his pants, and he took the dun’s reins. He didn’t look at me. Fact is, he made eye contact with none of our crew, and it’s a wonder he could even climb into his saddle after the blow Hardin had laid upon him.

  He rode out ramrod straight. I don’t know how he managed to do that, either, and nobody said anything till he disappeared on the horizon. Only Hardin spoke then, a curse and a laugh, followed by: “Let’s get the rest of this herd road-branded, boys.”

  After sliding the Colt into his vest scabbard, he mounted his black and spurred his way toward the branding fire.

  Three-Fingered Dave spit tobacco juice, wiped his lips with his sleeve, and shook his head.

  “That ol’ boy’s a few pickles short of a barrel,” he said.

  * * * * *

  That seemed like enough excitement for one day, but such would not be the case. Because as we sat around the Studebaker that evening, eating our supper of coffee, biscuits, and beans, Hardin squatted in front of me.

  “You ever night-herded?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Good. It’s your turn. But this close to starting our way north, it might be risky handing that chore off to a green frog. How’s your counting this day?”

  My lips parted. I held the last bit of biscuit in my fingers, dripping bean grease, not able to think of how I could answer or what Hardin was asking.

  He blurted out: “What’s twelve multiplied by nine?”

  I couldn’t help myself. “One hundred eight.”

  He laughed, took a swallow of coffee, and shook his head. “I’ll have to take your word for it.” Gesturing with the cup in his hand, he said: “Eat up, Counting Boy. There’s a Mexican outfit a few miles south. Me, Box Head, and Brit are paying them a visit.” Brit was one of the hands I’d met that morning. “And in case that granite-headed charcoal decides to pay a call on the county sheriff and file a complaint, Hatley, you point out that road brand if the law shows up. That brand means that it’s our steer. If one head’s missing when we get back, I won’t be feeling pleasant.” He pointed at my plate. “Eat up.”