by Gene Curry
Butch looked surprised when I told him about the need for sleep, then he laughed. “I can see how them two ladies would wear a man down.” He lowered his voice and winked. “Whenever Etta gets mad enough I just bed down with Pearl and Laura, and they’re always glad to have me. You make yourself at home in the little cabin Frank Bisbee built for himself. You’ll find it back of the girls’ place. Got a horseshoe painted silver on the door. Some provisions are still in there, blankets and such. Anything else you need, come on back here and help yourself. Frank won’t be coming back. Poor old Frank, he got shot.”
Butch didn’t offer to show me the way. I guess he wanted to get in there with Etta and the Kid. It was the best way to spend a rainy day in the badlands. Me, I just wanted to see what I could think up in the way of escaping.
I found the place without any trouble and Frank must have been shot fairly recently, because the cabin didn’t have too much dust in it. It was built of stone and wood; the walls were well-chinked and the swayed roof was sound. They were a funny gang of outlaws all right, building cabins as if they expected to be in the stealing business forever. I got a fire going in the stove and that was all I did in the way of improvements. After that I stretched out on the rough bunk bed in the corner, pulled a blanket over me, and fell asleep.
Six
I slept with my gun in my hand and I cocked it when the door opened with hardly a sound. There was Harry Tracy standing in the doorway. He looked at me with the same interest a starving man might have in a pork chop, and took no heed of my cocked pistol. Rain dripped from his hat and ran down his yellow slicker. His face creased in a wolfish grin as he stepped inside and closed the door.
“You won’t need that iron,” he said, meaning the gun. “It’s best you and me be friends. Best for you, anyhow. No reason we can’t get along, Saddler. I didn’t want you here but now you are. I’m offering you friendship. You better take it.”
Everybody in the Hole was offering me too much. “I don’t want it,” I said, pretty sure of what he had in mind. I guessed there were women around I hadn’t seen yet, but no woman could give Harry Tracy what he wanted. He smiled again, and I had a vision of someone standing on my grave.
“That’s too bad,” he said. “Why do you want to make it hard on yourself? Like it or not, you’re going to turn over for me so’s I can spread the cheeks of your ass. You want to do it the hard way, I don’t mind that neither.” He edged a little closer and there was a crazy lust in his flat, killer’s eyes, and I wondered how many men and boys he had corn-holed in his time. You don’t often run into men like that, but they are around. Get yourself tossed in jail and you find them quick enough. I’ve been in jail a few times and I know. But they aren’t all in the pokey. Some are politicians, traveling salesmen, preachers, and prizefighters. I stay away from them whenever possible. As long as they don’t bother me, I don’t give a damn where they stick it I didn’t want it stuck in me, though. “Get out, or I’ll kill you,” I warned. I meant what I said. You can’t make threats if you aren’t ready to carry them out. Tracy took another step and I squeezed the trigger. But Tracy didn’t die, he laughed.
I dropped the hammer on another cartridge and Tracy laughed again. “Butch said to take out the powder and that’s what we did. You were drunk and didn’t know a thing. Hope you’re not too disappointed, Saddler. You been all over, you know how it’s done.”
I knew damn well how it was done. There’s nothing to it. All you do is pry out the lead, spill the powder, then crimp the load again. Cassidy, the son of a bitch! It was an old trick, but I hadn’t thought of it, because it would have been simpler just to take my gun. Why in hell had he gone to so much trouble?
“I won’t be too hard on you the first time,” he said. “Could be you’ll get to liking it after a while. You’d be surprised, the men that get to liking it. Could be it’s something you always wanted to do but were too bashful. Now’s your chance to find out.”
Tracy’s gun came out so fast, I hardly saw his hand move. He drew and cocked the pistol in one fast, slick motion. He reminded me of a rattler about to strike, and maybe he wanted me dead as much as he wanted me alive.
“You’ll have to kill me,” I said. “Where will that leave you with Cassidy?”
The warning was wasted on Tracy and he smiled again. Even at a distance of five feet the stink of whiskey and sweat gushed from him, and I knew the hulking killer wasn’t going to back down.
“One thing at a time,” he said. “You’re first on the menu. I don’t worry about Cassidy, I don’t worry about a fucking thing.” His left hand reached into his pocket and came out with a pair of shiny, nickeled handcuffs. He rattled them in his hand and the small sound they made wasn’t too different from the rattle of a snake.
“You’re going to put these on,” he said. “The latest make there is—took them off a dead Pink. You don’t need a key to put them on. All you do is put them around your wrists, then go click! Strongest cuffs in the world, is what they tell me.”
I looked at the cocked pistol. “You’d better kill me,” I said. I’m no hero, but I meant what I said.
“You’ll put them on,” Tracy said. “I’ve fucked tougher men than you, Saddler, and I’ll break you. Usually all it takes is one hard fuck to break a man. He gets to feeling ashamed and so forth. The ladies won’t like you so good after I get through with you. I’ll just tell them it was your idea. Now I’m going to toss you the cuffs. Put them on and I’ll roll you over.”
I didn’t know if I had any chance at all, but there was no way out of this. The only edge I had was that Tracy might want me alive more than he wanted me dead. If he hesitated about killing me, held back from killing for just an instant, then maybe I could take him. I didn’t tense but I was ready when he took another step forward and tossed the cuffs my way. Tracy meant for the cuffs to fall on the bunk beside me, but I caught them in midair and threw them at his face with all the strength I could muster.
The cuffs hit him in the right eye. I dove off the bed as his gun went off. I felt the breeze of the bullet as I sprang toward him, tackling him around the middle, one hand grabbing for the gun. The gun fired again as we hit the door together, tearing it loose from its hinges. The door hit the porch with a flat crack and the gun flew from Tracy’s hand and landed far out in the mud.
We rolled off the porch into the mud. First I was on top and then he was, trying to draw my face down into his snapping teeth. The stink that came from his mouth made me want to throw up on him. What I did was to go with his pull. I smashed my forehead into his nose and heard it crack. Blood mixed with mud until it was all over both of us. Tracy was heavier than I was, but he found it hard to get a firm hold on me. His hand fastened around my throat, then slipped away before he could start choking me. I knew I had to get up on my feet. If he could put his weight on me and pin me down, I wouldn’t stand much of a chance.
We rolled again and before we stopped rolling I jerked my knee up into his crotch. I heard yelling but was too busy breaking Tracy’s hold to tell who was doing it. My boots skittered wildly in the mud and I nearly fell again. Then I got my balance, sleeved the mud from my eyes, and waited for him to come at me again. With blood still streaming from his flattened nose, he shook his bullet head like a dog coming out of water. I kept trying to see where the gun was. The rain falling on us was cold and hard.
Then he came at me more like a savage animal than a man. Blood ran into his mouth and his teeth snapped. For most of a minute we circled about. I knew he was getting ready for a rush, a mad-bull onslaught that would hurl me back and throw me down. Then it came, powered by weight and savagery, but I dodged aside, tripped him and kicked him in the back of the knee as he went down. I kicked him in the side because I couldn’t get at his head. He grabbed for my ankle, trying to turn it and bring me down where he could get at me. But he had to raise his head to do that, and I kicked him in the face and felt his teeth break.
Thus far he had been fighting silentl
y. Now he reared back and let out a long animal howl. I stopped his howling with another kick and he crashed back in the mud and covered his face with both hands. No man of mercy, I kicked him in the stomach and kept on kicking. Then steadying myself for the last shot, I booted him in the side of the head and he went limp. I stood there sucking air into my lungs, grateful for the cold splash of the rain. Tracy lay on his back like a shot buffalo, and then I heard Butch Cassidy’s voice and felt his hand on my arm.
I jerked my arm away. “Leave me alone, you sneaking bastard!” I didn’t care whether he shot me. I started to walk away and he came after me.
“I didn’t know this was going to happen,” Cassidy said, taking no heed of the rain. He didn’t have his hat on and when I looked down I saw he didn’t even have his boots on. He went back and kicked Tracy savagely with his bare feet. Tracy didn’t move.
“I had no way of knowing,” Cassidy said. “I warned him away from you. Tracy never went against me before, so I thought it was settled.”
I spun around on him. “All that’s settled is that you gave me an empty gun. You know what I think, Butch? You’re just as bad as Tracy. Why the hell didn’t you just take the fucking gun? Then I’d have known to be careful.”
Butch kicked at the mud and his mouth jerked before he spoke. “You wouldn’t have liked me taking your iron,” he said. “But I didn’t know you and couldn’t take a chance on getting killed.”
I didn’t buy too much of that. “How would a Pink-spy go about killing you in the middle of your own gang? Out here in the lands, how could he hope to stay alive if he shot you down?”
“Not a Pink-spy, Saddler. I wasn’t thinking so much of that. I thought maybe you were some crazy man with a grudge against me. I’ve killed plenty of men and maybe one of them was your kin. You wouldn’t care if you got killed as long as I was dead too.”
I went on toward the cabin with Cassidy a few steps behind me. Rain was blowing into the cabin making puddles on the floor. I got the door up on its end and put it against the wall. I looked at Butch standing all wet on the porch. He looked dumb standing there in his bare feet.
“That’s a bullshit story and you know it,” I said. “The real answer is this. You’re a horse’s ass that likes to play dumb jokes.”
Butch’s face tightened. “Maybe you’d better use the soft pedal, Saddler. Nobody talks to me like that.”
I straightened the door. “I just did, Cassidy. So what do you want to do about it? Shoot me yourself and turn me over to that queer out there? Answer me this if there’s such a difference between you and him. Why do you let him hang on here? You got enough men to run him out. Kill him if he doesn’t want to go.”
Butch shook his head, almost admiring my gall. “You got as bad a temper as Etta. All right, it was a lousy joke I played on you. You don’t have to keep bitching about it. You’re alive, ain’t you? What’s more you just half-killed Harry Tracy, as mean a man as walks in leather. Hell, when word of that gets out men’ll get out of your way like you’re the Devil!”
“I don’t want to be the Devil. Now I’ll tell you one more thing. You have the guns and you can kill me anytime you like. And maybe that’s what you’ve been planning to do all along. But keep that shitty-cocked bastard away from me. If he comes at me again I’ll kill him sure. I’ll kill him with a rock if I have to.”
“Jesus Christ!” Butch marveled. “You’re the blood thirstiest man I’ve ever met. Come on now, Saddler, get a rein on that temper and we’ll go get ourself a big drink. About Tracy, I know what has to be done about Tracy. But right now isn’t the time. He’s a useful man and he’s been with me a long time.”
“I think Tracy means to kill you and take over,” I said. Some of my anger had drained away. “One of these days he’s going to kill you.”
“Well, yes,” Butch said. “I know he means to try.”
“Then I’ll say it again so even you can understand. Kill the dirty pervert.”
Butch didn’t get mad at me for calling him thick. Maybe he thought he’d caused me enough trouble for one day. “Tracy’s been with me a lot of years. Once he saved my life when I thought I was done for. Two new boys I shouldn’t have trusted tried to murder me for the reward money. Shit! I wasn’t wanted so bad at that time. The reward money wasn’t even that good, but they were ready to back-shoot me for it. Etta and Harry had gone down to Jackson Hole and I was alone in the cabin. It was early in the morning and I was washing my face after shaving. Jesus! My eyes were full of soap and everything. These two traitors had been studying how I did things—and this looked like a right good chance to put ten or twelve bullets in my back. They didn’t get to do it because Tracy had been studying their moves while they were studying mine. They were coming up soft-footed with their guns drawn when Tracy killed them with two shots in the back of their heads. That’s how good Tracy is, Saddler.”
“All the more reason to kill him.”
“You didn’t hear what I just told you, did you? Tracy may be a crazy queer, but he saved my life.”
“Tracy just likes to kill people. Your two boys gave him the chance. Saving your life was just part of it.”
“It got saved just the same.”
“If you don’t care about your own life, how about mine?”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you, Saddler. Don’t tell me you’re afraid to get killed?”
“I’d like it to be for a better reason.”
“Live and let live,” Cassidy said. “If Tracy likes to do it the rear-end way, what’s the difference?”
“No difference as long as he doesn’t try to corn-hole me.
Butch grinned. “You can’t fault old Tracy for falling in love with you.”
I bunched my fist and Butch stepped away from me, still grinning. “You got to be more tolerant of human failings, Saddler,” he said. “But all right, I’ll keep Tracy far away from you. Maybe I can get him interested in Tommy O’Day. Wouldn’t that be something, though—Tracy and the Irishman. They could set up housekeeping and live happily ever after.”
Yes, without a doubt, Butch Cassidy was a madman. No matter how serious—even dangerous—the conversation, he had a way of turning it into a joke. But there was cleverness, too. He made jokes because that way you could never be sure what he was thinking. You always had to guess.
“Cheer up, Saddler,” Cassidy said. “We’ll all be dead tomorrow.”
That was what I was afraid of.
Butch went to get a bottle of whiskey while I fixed the door. It wasn’t that hard. The hinges had been pulled cleanly from the wood and all I had to do was jam the holes with a splinter and nail them up again. I got the door in place and sat in my longjohns beside the stove. Not much later Butch came in with the whiskey and a towel to dry my head.
Watching me dry my head gave him cause for reflection. “You sort of set me back when you beat up Tracy so bad.”
That called for a drink, and I had one.
I said, “I’m sorry I didn’t kill the bastard. You mind telling me how I set you back by not doing that?” Butch had another drink then gave me the bottle.
“Back there a while ago you asked me why I keep him around. A fair question, Saddler, ’cause Tracy is a rabid rat. They don’t come any faster than he does, and he doesn’t just pull fast—he’s a dead shot.”
“But you’re not afraid of him?”
Butch got the bottle back and grinned. “Everybody not crazy is scared shitless of Harry Tracy. Everybody but me, that is. Tracy does what I tell him to do. Which is not to say he likes it, but he does it.”
I was beginning to understand. “You think Harry Tracy is your trained ape?”
Butch said, “You ought to be kind to animals, Saddler. Tracy’s an ape sure enough and I trained him just fine. If I can hand out orders to a man like Harry Tracy you think I’m going to get any back talk from the rest of the boys?”
“I don’t know the boys,” I said.
Butch said, “A man that can
handle Harry Tracy would just naturally eat them for breakfast. A man who can do that is like the John L. or the Jim Corbett of the outlaw world. Why, he’s the champion!”
Butch thought he had it all worked out. Pick out the meanest man alive and make him say uncle. It was crazy but it wasn’t dumb. But now and then the smartest men get flattened. They get too confident and are killed. As long as he kept Tracy around, snarling at the end of his chain, Butch thought he had complete mastery of his gang. He was sure, but I wasn’t.
“That’s riot the whole of it,” I said. “What boys I’ve seen—the Irishman, Will Carver, Kilpatrick, Curry—all seem well-disposed toward you. So what’s all this shit about keeping them in line?”
Butch thought my question was due to a lack of experience in the outlaw world. “You say that because you’ve never bossed an outfit. There’s not a leader alive somebody don’t want to knock over. That’s human nature, Saddler. Men may set you up but there comes a time when they want to knock you over. May be against their best interest to do that. No matter. They still try to do it. But you’re right. Some of the boys are all right and some ain’t.”
“Harry Tracy means to kill you and take over. Kill him now, Cassidy. Give me a gun and I’ll do it for you. I don’t say that out of love for you, not after what you did to my bullets. Something else you should ponder. Is all this talk about leaving the country going to do you any good? It’s hardly your intention to take the boys along.” Butch took a swallow of whiskey. “Such is not my intention, sir. When we go it’ll be just Sundance and Etta and me. You want to go along?”
“Like hell!”
Butch said, “Etta wants to take O’Day along, but whoever heard of an Irish butler?”
