The Outlaw Josey Wales

by Forrest Carter

  Josey looked at their faces. Tense, strained ... but not a tear nor a whimper in the whole lot. Solid stuff, clear to the marrow.

  They worked in the dark, bringing water to fill the bins and piling the pistols and rifles of the Comancheros on the kitchen table. There were twenty-two Colts’ .44’s and fourteen rifles. Lone checked the loads of the guns. They placed the kegs of powder, ball, and caps in the middle of the floor and stacked heavy logs, head high, with only room for a pistol barrel between them, at the door to the hall.

  It was still dark when they rested ... but the early morning twittering of birds had already begun. Grandma Sarah brought out cold biscuits and beef, and they ate in silence. When they had finished, Josey pulled off his buckskin jacket. The butternut-colored guerrilla shirt was loose fitting, almost like a woman’s blouse. The .36 Navy Colt protruded from beneath his left shoulder.

  He handed the jacket to Laura Lee, “Reckin I won’t be needin’ this,” he said, “ ’preciate it, iff’n ye’ll keep it fer me.” She took the jacket and nodded dumbly. Josey had turned to Lone and drawled, “Reckin I’ll be saddlin’ up now.”

  Lone nodded, and Josey was through the door and walking to the corral before Laura Lee and Grandma Sarah recovered the sense of what he had said.

  “What...?” Grandma Sarah said, startled. “Whar’s he a-goin’?”

  Laura Lee raced for the door, but Lone grabbed her by the shoulders and held her in a firm grip.

  “Woman talk is no good fer him now,” Lone said.

  “Where’s he goin’ ... what’s happening?” she said frantically.

  Lone pushed her back from the door and faced the women. “He knows he can do the best fer us on the back of a hoss. He’s a guerrilla ... they always figger to carry the fight to the enemy, and now he goes to do so again.” Lone spoke slowly and carefully, “He is goin’ into the valley to kill Ten Bears and many of his chiefs and warriors. When the Comanche comes to us... the head of the Comanche will be crushed ... and his back broken. Josey Wales will do this, so thet... if we do as he has said we should do ... we will live.”

  “Lord God Almighty!” Grandma Sarah said in hushed tones.

  Laura Lee whispered, “He is goin’ to the valley ... to die.”

  Lone’s teeth flashed in a grim smile, "He is goin’ to the valley to fight. Death has been with him many years. He does not think of it.” Lone’s firm voice broke and shook with emotion, “Ten Bears is a great warrior.

  He knows no fear. But today he will meet another great warrior, a privilege that comes to few men. They will know ... when they face each other, Ten Bears and Josey Wales ... and they will know their hatreds and their loves .... but they will also know their brotherhood of courage, that the man of littleness will never know.” Lone’s voice had risen in an exultant thrill that was primitive and savage despite his carefully chosen words.

  A thin hint of light touched the rim of the eastern canyon and silhouetted the Comanche warriors, slumped on their horses, dotting the light’s edge above the ranch house. It was in this light that Josey Wales brought the big roan, frisking and prancing, to the rear of the house.

  A sob tore from the throat of Laura Lee, and she rushed to the door. Lone caught and held her briefly. “He’ll not like it, if ye cry,” he whispered. She wiped her eyes and only stumbled once as she walked to the horse. She placed her hand on his leg, not trusting herself to speak, and looked up at him there in the saddle.

  Slowly he placed his hand over hers, and the merest gleam of humor softened the hard black eyes. “Yore’er the purtiest gal in Texas, Laura Lee,” he said softly, “iff’n Texas gits a queen, ye’ll be it ... fer ye fit the land ... liken a good gun handle to a hand ... ’er a hoss that’s bred right. Ye re’clect what I’m sayin’ now and mind it... fer it’s true.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes, and she could not speak, and so she turned away, stumbling to the porch. Lone stood by the saddle and stretched his hand up to grasp Josey’s. The grip was hard ... the grip of brothers. He was stripped to the waist, and the wrinkled, bronze face had two streaks of white ’dobe across the cheeks and another on his forehead. It was the death face of the Cherokee ... neither giving nor asking quarter of the enemy.

  “We’ll make it,” Lone said to Josey, “but iff’n ... it’s otherwise ... no women will live.”

  Josey nodded but didn’t speak. He turned his horse away, toward the trail. As he passed, Little Moonlight touched his booted foot with the scalping knife ... the tribute of the Cheyenne squaw, paid only to the mightiest warriors who go to their death.

  As he passed from the yard, Grandma Sarah shouted ... and her voice was clear and ringing, “Lord’ll ride with ye, Josey Wales!” But if he heard, he didn’t acknowledge the call ... for he neither turned his head nor lifted his hand in farewell. The tears coursed unmindful down the withered face of Grandma Sarah, “I don’t keer what they say ’bout ’em ... reckin to me, he’s twelve foot tall.” She threw her apron over her face and turned back into the kitchen.

  Laura Lee ran to the edge of the yard and watched him ... the roan, held in check, stepping high and skittish as Josey Wales rode slowly down the valley by the creek and finally disappeared around the cleft of a protruding butte.

  Chapter 20

  Ten Bears woke in his tepee at dawn and kicked the naked, voluptuous young squaw from beneath his blankets. She was lazy. His other five women already had the fire going beneath the pot. Three of them were heavy with child. He hoped the newborn would be males ... but secretly, he knew they would come too late to follow Ten Bears. They would grow and ride and fight in the legend of Ten Bears; but Ten Bears would be dead ... fallen in battle. This he knew.

  The only two sons he had possessed were dead at the hands of the bluecoats; one of them shot cowardly under the white talking flag that the bluecoats used. Ten Bears thought of this each morning. He brooded upon it and so rekindled the hatred and vengeance that the drug of sleep had softened in his mind… and in his heart.

  The bitterness rose in his throat, and he could taste it in his mouth. Everything he loved ... the free land ... his sons ... his womenfolk ... all had been violated by the white man ... most especially the bluecoat. He savagely tore at the meat with his teeth and swallowed big chunks in anger. Even the buffalo; once he had ridden onto a high plain, and as far as his eye could see lay the rotting, putrid carcasses of buffalo; killed by the white man; not for food, not for robes, but for some savage ceremony the white man called “sport.”

  Ten Bears rose and wiped the grease from his hands on his buckskin trousers. He reached two fingers into a pot and streaked the blue downward across his cheeks and across his forehead; the death face of the Comanche.

  Now they would go to the white man’s lodge. He wanted them alive, if possible; so that he could slowly burn the color from their eyes and make them scream their cowardice; so that he could strip the skin from their bodies and from their groins where life sprung from the male. The womenfolk would be turned over to the warriors ... all of them ... to be violated; and if they lived, they would be given to the ones who had captured them. The children ... they would know that it was Ten Bears’ wrath.

  Shouts came from his warriors. They had leaped to their horses and were pointing up the valley. Ten Bears waved for his white horse, and as a squaw brought it forward, he sprang easily on its back and walked him to the center of the valley, before the gathering of chiefs and braves. The sun had broken over the eastern canyon rim and Ten Bears shaded his eyes-The moving figure was a horseman a mile away.

  He came slowly, and Ten Bears moved out to me him. Behind Ten Bears came the chiefs, their big w bonnets setting them apart; and behind the chief strung out in a line that almost crossed the valley rode over two hundred warriors.

  Ten Bears wore no bonnet... only a single feather He disdained the showy headdress. But there was no mistaking him; naked from the waist up, his rifle balanced across his big white horse, he rode ten paces ahead of his chiefs
, and his bearing was of one born command.

  The many horses of the Comanches made an ominous hissing sound as they paced through the long grass, carrying the half-naked riders with hideous! painted faces. Behind, from the tepees, a low, ominous war drum began its beat of death. Ten Bears checked the canyon rims as he rode, and saw his scouts comin back, flanking the course of the lone rider. They signaled ... there was only one coming to meet him.

  Now the eager hate in Ten Bears was tempered with puzzlement. The man did not carry the hated white flag, and yet he came on, casually, as though h rode without care ... but Ten Bears noticed he kept the big horse headed directly toward his white one.

  Less than a hundred yards now ... and the horse Fit for a Chief ... taller, more powerful than his owl white charger; it almost reared as it stepped high with power, nostrils flared at the excitement. Now he could see the man. There was no rifle, but Ten Bears saw the butts of many pistols holstered on the saddle, and that the man wore three pistols. A fighting man.

  He wore the hat of the Gray Riders, and what Ten Bears had at first thought ... with a shock ... was war paint, became a great scar on the cheek as he came closer. Almost to a collision, he came so close, so that Ten Bears was the first to stop, and the big roan reared ... and a murmur of approval for the horse ran through the ranks of Comanche braves.

  Ten Bears looked into black eyes as hard and ruthless as his own. A shivering thrill of anticipation ran through the Chief’s body ... of combat with a great warrior to match his own mettle! The rider slid a long knife from his boot, and the chiefs behind Ten Bears moved forward with a low, threatening rumble. The rider appeared not to notice as he meticulously cut a big chunk of tobacco from a twist and shoved it into his mouth. Ten Bears had not flickered an eyelash, but there was a faint glint of admiration for the audacity of a bold warrior.

  “Ye’ll be Ten Bears,” Josey drawled and spat tobacco juice between the legs of the white horse. He had not called him “Chief” ... nor had he called him “great,” as did all the bluecoats with whom Ten Bears had talked. There was the slightest touch of casual insult... but Ten Bears understood. It was the way of the warrior, not the double-tongues.

  “I am Ten Bears,” he said slowly.

  “I’m Josey Wales,” Josey said. The mind of Ten Bears raced back in search of the name ... and he knew.

  “You are of the Gray Riders and you will not make peace with the bluecoats. I have heard.” Ten Bears half turned on his horse and waved his arm. The chiefs and braves behind him parted, leaving an open corridor.

  “You may go in peace,” he said. It was a magnificent gesture befitting a great Chief, and Ten Bears was proud of the majesty it afforded him. But Josey Wales made no motion to accept this grant of life.

  “I reckin not,” he drawled, “I wa’ant aiming’ to leave nohow. Got nowheres to go.”

  The horses of the Comanche braves drew closer at his refusal. Ten Bears’ voice shook with anger. “Then you will die.”

  “I reckin,” Josey said, “I come here to die with ye, or live with ye. Dyin’ ain’t hard fer sich as ye and me, it’s the livin’ thet’s hard.” He paused to let the words carry their weight with Ten Bears ... then he continued, “What ye and me cares about has been butchered ... raped. It’s been done by them lyin’, double-tongued snakes thet run guv’mints. Guv’mints lie ... promise .... back-stab ... eat in yore lodge and rape yore women and kill when ye sleep on their promises. Guv’mints don’t live together ... men live together. From guv’mints ye cain’t git a fair word ... ner a fair fight. I come to give ye either one ... ’er to git either one from ye.”

  Ten Bears straightened on his horse. The vicious hatred of Josey Wales matched his own ... hatred for those who had killed what each of them loved. He waited, without speaking, for the outlaw to continue.

  “Back there,” Josey jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “is my brother, an Indian who rode with the Gray Riders, and a Cheyenne squaw, who also is my kin. There’s a old squaw and a young squaw thet belongs to me. Thet’s all.... but they’re liken to me ... iff’n it’s worth fightin’ about, it’s worth dyin’ about.... ’er don’t fight. They’ll fight and die. I didn’t come here under no lyin’ white flag to git out from under yore killin’. I come here this way, so’s ye’ll know that my word of death is true ... and thet my word of life ... then, is true.”

  Josey slowly waved his hand across the valley, “The bear lives here ... with the Comanche; the wolf, the birds, the antelope ... the coyote. So will we live. The iron stick won’t dig the ground ... thet is my word. The game will not be killed fer sport... only what we eat... as the Comanche does. Every spring, when the grass comes, and the Comanche rides north, he can rest here in peace, and butcher cattle and jerk beef fer his travel north ... and when the grass of the north turns brown, the Comanche can do the same, as he goes to the land of the Mexicano. The sign of the Comanche,” Josey moved his hand through the air, in the wiggling sign of the snake, “will be on all the cattle. It’ll be placed on my lodge, and marked on trees and on horses. Thet’s my word of life.”

  “And your word of death?” Ten Bears asked low and threatening.

  “In my pistols,” Josey said, “and in yer rifles ... I’m here fer one or t’other,” and he shrugged his shoulders.

  “These things you say we will have,” Ten Bears said, “we already have.”

  “Thet’s right,” Josey said, “I ain’t promisin’ nothin’ extra ... ’ceptin’ givin’ ye life and ye givin’ me life. I’m sayin’ men can live without butcherin’ one ’nother and takin’ more’n what’s needin’ fer livin’ ... share and share alike. Reckin it ain’t much to talk trade about ... but I ain’t one fer big talk ... ner big promises.” Ten Bears looked steadily into the burning eyes of Josey Wales. The horses stomped impatiently and snorted, and along the line of warriors a ripple of anticipation marked their movements as they sensed the ending of the talk.

  Slowly Josey raised the reins of his horse and placed them in his teeth. Ten Bears watched the gesture with an implacable face, but admiration came to his heart. It was the way of the Comanche warrior ... true and sure. Josey Wales would talk no more.

  Ten Bears spoke, “It is sad that governments are chiefed by the double-tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all the Comanche to see ... and so there is iron in your word of life. No signed paper can hold the iron, it must come from men. The word of Ten Bears, all know, carries the same iron of death ... and of life. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of death ... or of life. It shall be life.”

  Ten Bears pulled a scalping knife from his belt and slashed the palm of his right hand. He held it high for all his chiefs and braves to see, as the blood coursed down his naked arm. Josey slid the knife from his boot and slashed across his own hand. They came close and placed their hands flat and palms together and held them high.

  “So it will be,” said Ten Bears.

  “Kin, I reckin,” said Josey Wales.

  Ten Bears turned his horse back through the line of braves, and they followed him slowly down the valley toward the tepees. And the drums of death stopped, and out of the hush that followed, a male thrush sent his trilling call of life across the valley.

  It was Lone who saw him coming, as he first appeared around the butte and walked the roan up the trail, nearly a mile away. It was Laura Lee who could not wait. She ran from the yard, down the trail, her blond hair streaming out behind her in the wind. Grandma Sarah, Little Moonlight, and Lone stood under the cottonwood tree and watched them as Josey held his arms wide and lifted Laura Lee to the saddle before him. As they came closer, Grandma Sarah could see, through watering eyes, that Josey held

  Laura Lee in his arms and that both her arms were about his neck and her head lay on his breast.

  Grandma Sarah’s emotion could hold no bounds, and so she turned on Lone and snapped, “Now ye can warsh that heathern paint off'n yer face.”

  With one swoop, Lone swep
t Grandma Sarah from the ground and tossed her high in the air ... and he laughed and shouted while Little Moonlight danced around them and whooped. Grandma Sarah yelled and fussed ... but she was pleased, for when Lone set her down, she gave him a playful slap, straightened her skirts, and bustled into the kitchen. As Josey and Laura Lee rode into the yard, they all could hear it through the kitchen window; Grandma Sarah fixin’ dinner ... and a cracked voice singing: “In the sweet bye and bye ...”

  It was around the dinner table they talked of it. The brand would be the Crooked River Brand; the irons would be made by Lone, in the shape of Comanche sign.

  “It’ll cost ye a hunnerd head of beef every spring,” Josey told Grandma Sarah, “and a hunnerd every fall, fer the Comanches of Ten Bears ... so’s we keep our word. But I figger three, maybe four thousand head in the valley ... ye can still send a couple thousand up the trail ev’ry year, to keep yer grass balanced out.” “Fair ’nough,” Grandma Sarah said, “iff’n it was five hunnerd a year ... fair’s fair. A word to share is a word to care.”

  “I’ll have to git riders fer the brandin’,” Josey said. Lone studied the old map, “Santo Rio, to the south, is the closest town.”

  “Then I’ll leave in the mornin’,” Josey said.

  Laura Lee came to him in his room that night, pale in the moon that made crosses of light through the windows and on the floor. She watched him lying there, for a long time, and seeing him awake, she whispered, “Did ye ... did ye mean what ye said ... ‘bout me being ... like ye said?”

  'I meant it, Laura Lee,” Josey answered. She came to his bed, and after a long time she slept... but Josey Wales did not sleep. Deep inside, a faint hope had been born. It persisted with a promise of life ... a rebirth he never believed could have been. In the cold light of dawn he was brought back to the reality of his position, but still, the hope was real... and before he left for Santo Rio, he kissed Laura Lee, secretly and long.