Black Hat Jack

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Jack hooted. “You goddamn idiot. You wouldn’t know where your pancreas was if I cut you open and laid your hand on it. Go to the outhouse, jackass.”

  Blowhard got up with a lot of effort and went to the outhouse, saying, “I still believe it’s my pancreas.”

  Me and Jack laid our weapons at the sides of our bed rolls, then dropped down on top of them to sleep. I got dunked into a well of slumber mighty fast and deep, and that’s why when that loud snapping sound come, I thought I was a ghost already.

  Jumping up, grabbing my Winchester, looking around, I saw Jack and a room full of men doing the same. That precarious timber I had mentioned, why it had snapped and the roof was sagging.

  “It’s got about enough strength to hold a few more minutes if a fly don’t light on it,” Jack said.

  That led to some of the men going outside with the idea to tear down one of the poles that was supposed to be part of the Adobe Walls fortifications, and substitute it for a new support pole. The rest of us took to the roof to pull off some of the sod to lighten the roof, which led to some bad gaps in places. If it rained, a lot of us and a lot of the bar would get wet.

  When I was done helping, I went outside. It was still dark, but there was streaks of pink in it like blood poisoning. I looked at that for awhile, then noticed my horse wasn’t in the place where I had corralled it. As the blacksmith was up and about, I went over and said, “Where’s my horse?”

  “It and the others are picketed down by the creek,” he said.

  “By the creek? Why, that’s a good stretch away. Why don’t you just offer them to the Indians, and tell them to come back tomorrow for the saddles.”

  “Now listen here young fellow, you better watch your mouth,” he said.

  Jack had come up now. He said, “Where’s my horse?”

  “Picketed at the creek,” the blacksmith said.

  “The creek?” Jack said. “Why the pig shit would you put him down by the creek? There’s Indians about. It’s where they live, goddamn it, out there in the nothing, the prairies and the trees. Is your head packed with mud?”

  “A horse has got to drink,” said the blacksmith.

  “Bring the water to them,” Jack said. “That’s what buckets are for.”

  “It’s a lot of trips,” said the blacksmith.

  “It is at that,” I said. “That’s what we’re paying for. And besides, you could shorten the trips if you carried the buckets only as far as the well, which is right over there.”

  “It was just easier to take care of them all in one swoop at the creek,” he said.

  “But it’s still a bad idea,” I said.

  “What he said,” Jack said.

  “Oh now, don’t give me trouble,” said the blacksmith. “It’s alright. I’ll go down there and get them right now if you want them.”

  “We ain’t ready to ride nowhere,” Jack said. “But bring them here close, and watch them. Or give us back our money.”

  “I got a mind to do it,” he said.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Take out for the grain and such for the horses, and give the rest of the money back. We’ll go down to the creek and get our own horses.”

  “You do that,” he said.

  “The money,” Jack said.

  “Now, tell you what,” said the blacksmith. “I’ll go get them, and I’ll keep the money. I’ll keep them up here for you, way you like. I’ll be so sweet to them they won’t want to leave.”

  Jack looked at me.

  I said, “Your call.”

  “Oh, what the hell,” Jack said. “I have by nature a goddamn sweet disposition. Go down there and get them and keep the money.”

  So away went the blacksmith.

  When he was gone, Jack said, “Goddamn stupid ass.”

  We walked to where the walls was broken down the most, and as the light had cracked the sky good and was falling over things like sunlight was heavy, we looked and seen the blacksmith hustling toward the creek. There was a run of trees along it, and our horses and others was picketed out, like they was an offering to the Comanche.

  “It’s like he’s lived in a tree all his life,” Jack said. “He hasn’t learned a damn thing. It’s a wonder he ain’t dead. I think he’s the kind of man that will run for politics when he gets the chance.”

  We watched as our horses was taken off the picket line. The blacksmith had ropes looped over their heads and noses, and he was leading them toward us. That’s when he threw up his arms and let go of the horses and made a coughing sound, staggered forward, then began to run. He headed toward us like he had been born on a hill, one leg seeming shorter than the other. But closer he got, we could see something sticking out of the back of his calf, causing him to limp. It was an arrow. Now our horses was loose, the others was there for the Comanche to take, and the dumb blacksmith had an arrow in his leg, which at that moment was the lesser of it to me.

  “We got to get them horses,” Jack said.

  I had left my Winchester inside for the moment, but I had my handguns, and so did Jack, so we broke for the creek like we was running to a party, and in a way, we would be if them Indians got us. They had to be situated down in that creek.

  The blacksmith ran right past us, saying, “This way, you fools.”

  I realized then he might actually be smarter than we were. We kept running though, and when we reached the picket line some arrows whizzed by us like hornets. I pulled my pistols, one in either hand, and started firing toward the creek. I heard a grunt from there, and then we was at the string of horses. Some of the other men from the fortifications, such as they was, had come to do the same, rescue their horses. Bullets barked and arrows whistled. Pretty soon all those horses was free, and we might actually have hit some Indians. I know that grunt I heard sounded serious enough. Here’s the thing though. We didn’t actually see none of them.

  The horses was loose, and we started running them toward the walls, and there was other men there now, trying to run them into the corrals. The only horse that wasn’t there was Satan. He had taken to the prairie or was already captured by a Comanche. Jack’s horse walked from where he was and went into the corral as if he had just remembered he forgot something there.

  We looked up and seen the ridge that was beyond the creek and the trees was filled with mounted Indians. Not ten or twenty, but more of them than you could count with a pencil and paper.

  There have been all manner of estimates since the fight at Adobe Walls, and I don’t think any of them have nailed the truth to the wall. Some said we was eighteen men and one woman, some we was eighteen counting the woman, and others have said we was twenty-eight. And though I must admit I didn’t take a head count and write down everyone’s names, I would say to you that we was over thirty, maybe thirty-five.

  Problem was there was a lot more Indians. At a guess, I’d say there was at least five hundred of them. I’ve heard said there was a thousand, which is too much. I’ve heard two hundred, which is too few. Let’s just say there was enough there to give concern. And let me tell you, they was a sight, them redskins. All festooned in war bonnets, or plumes of feathers stuck to the side of their heads. Them that was bare-headed had hair greased out with buffalo fat, and it shined in the sun. They was all half-naked, or full-naked, but for strands of leather around their necks, wrists, waists, and ankles, from which hung ornaments of brass and silver and bright-white bone. Many of them had round shields of wood and folded buffalo hide. Their horses was painted up in all kinds of colors, yellow and reds, and blues, and enough scalps hung from their bridles to supply hair enough for every white man in the state of Texas to have a wig made, and one that would soundly fit them. I just took it in at a glimpse, mind you, as it didn’t seem standing still was a good idea, but it was a sight. Majestic and wickedly beautiful, but at the same time enough to make you wet yourself and look for a hole to crawl in.

  From the side come running a couple of men waving their arms, one of them yelling, “The wa
gons, there’s dead men in them. They done been snuck on and kilt.”

  They meant some of the buffalo hunters that had gone to sleep away from the saloon. This all seems mighty odd in the telling, us out there in Comanche country, the blacksmith picketing the horses at a creek, and then them men that going out to sleep in their wagons, away from the main gathering of us, and all of us armed. But that’s how it was. All of them, and I have to include myself, had become too confident; the confidence afforded to us not by common sense, but by lust for the dollar.

  Another man ran up from behind us and was almost shot by all of us. “They got the peach-eater. He’s out in the shitter, they turned it over on him and killed him with his ass hanging out, the sons-of-dog-bitches.”

  “Get inside the store,” Jack yelled. This was like asking a fish to swim or a bird to fly. Men was already swarming for the door, and at the same time them Comanche was whooping and howling and riding down off that hill. As we got to the door, we seen there was Indians on foot that had snuck upon the camp. Truth was, that support pole cracking had got us stirring just in time to discover all them savages. They was starting to surround us.

  I was still handling my pistols, and I wheeled and shot one of those Indians that was on foot dead, just as he reached a low point in the wall. I was about to shoot another come from the same direction, a little man with long, dark hair in braids, wearing all white buckskins, or at least they had started out white, when he jerked both hands above his head, started waving them like he was trying to catch humming birds.

  “Don’t shoot me,” he said. “Save me a place inside. Don’t shoot my ass. I’m a white man.”

  It was reckoned, by me at least, that it might be some kind of trick, but that voice was pure Texas, and as he come on closer, bullets darting by him and slamming into the low walls near us, arrows flocking around his head like birds, it was clear he wasn’t no Indian. I might also mention that though he run with some vigor, he was a sloppy runner, his elbows flying all over and his arms now flapping at his sides like he was trying to fan a fire out on his ass.

  When he got to the wall, however, he proved quite nimble. He come over it with a leap, landed on his feet, and passed me on his way inside the saloon.

  Well, here come them Indians then, and I seen then that they wasn’t all Comanche. There was Cheyenne out there too, but I didn’t stop to make sure I was correct on the matter by checking out their hairdos and such. We rushed inside and closed the door, and hadn’t no more than thrown the latch over it, than they was beating on it with fists, bows, lances and rifles. They was hooting and a hollering so loud it was setting my teeth on edge.

  Now they was at the windows, breaking them, firing in. They hit somebody, cause I heard him yell out, and when I turned he was on the ground at my feet, having passed his shadow to the other side. That’s how close I come to getting elected.

  I had a clear path view to the window, because many of the men had dropped to the ground or cuddled up behind something like it was their best friend. I cut down with that loop-cock Winchester, riddling the frame of the window something furious, knocking out what glass was left, as well as sending lead bees through it. One of them plowed a furrow through an Indian’s scalp, dropping him like a bad habit. The others that had been swarming there at the window, even planning on crawling through, was now gone, having decided on another game.

  Men was up with their weapons now. The few windows in the place was all on one side of the building, and they was in a flash protected by men with rifles. Thing was, not everyone there was a crack shot or a hunter. There was some that was just skinners, others that was teamsters, and so on. All of them could pull a trigger, but that didn’t mean everyone there could hit what they was shooting at.

  Jack was at one of the windows, and like the others was firing as fast as he could send a round out there into the air, throw out the casing, and load a fresh one. The Indians was firing back, and bullets was tearing into the walls, and in some places cutting through them like they wasn’t no more than bed sheets. I fetched up behind a barrel and got low, knowing a good round might go through a weak spot in the wall, the barrel, my head and whoever might be behind me, and maybe through the other wall and knock off an unsuspecting prairie dog lingering over his breakfast. Those Indians was well armed. They had bows and arrows, some spears, but they had modern shooters too, and when I thought about the number of them up on that hill, the number of us inside the store, I figured we had about as much chance as a block of ice on hot stove.

  They was still banging on the doors, and some had crawled on the roof. That was a bad thing for us, as the roof had gaps in it from where we’d peeled off the sod, and the place that had been fixed up there wasn’t anything that was going to thrill a professional home builder. We fired up through the ceiling a number of times, heard grunts and yips, and was rewarded by seeing one roll off the roof past the window and hit the ground hard enough a cloud of dust puffed up. Them others lit out of there like their breech cloths was on fire.

  After furious shooting at us from outside, none of us was hit solid, though there was minor wounding. Our shooters was claiming to have cleaned the clock of four or five Indians. The men near the windows stayed there, and while they did, the rest of us stacked feed and flour sacks up against the walls, three and four thick. We piled them up to the window bases, so that men could stand at them for protection and see out and pick off targets that presented themselves. I tell you, it was touch and go all the while. But finally we wasn’t being set upon like we was before, and the shots fired only came now and then, being most likely snapped off by those who was bored or felt they hadn’t gotten their chance.

  It was then that we turned our attention to the white Indian. He was squatting behind some flour sacks pushed up against the wall. Questions was being called out to him.

  Jack said, “I know you. Ain’t you I Got A Hand In My Ass?”

  “Hair,” the man said. “It’s I Got A Hand In My Hair. It’s an Indian name.”

  “No shit,” Jimmy said. “We thought maybe your old Mama from New York City called you that.”

  “My white name is Happy Collins,” he said. “I come from a long line of Happy Collins, and I’m not from New York. I’m from Nacogdoches.”

  “You don’t look all that goddamn happy to me,” said the barkeep.

  “At the moment, I am feeling somewhat dour,” he said.

  Bat said, “We can see that.”

  “What in hell are you doing out here without no weapons, running like a school girl from a bunch of Comanche?” Jack said.

  “It’s not just Comanche,” he said. “Cheyenne as well.”

  “I knew it,” I said.

  Everyone gave me a look. It had just kind of slipped out. But hell, I did know it.

  “There are Kiowa too,” he said. “Led by Lone Wolf. And the Cheyenne are led by Big Bow, Little Robert and White Shield. But it’s mostly Comanche, and they got none other than Quanah Parker as their leader, and Quenatosavit.”

  “Translates White Eagle,” Jack said.

  “Now that there is good to know, and if we just knew all their wives’ names, and kids’, maybe their favorite horses’,” Jimmy said, “we could sleep tight tonight, though our throats might be cut.”

  “No, it’s good to know who’s who,” Jack said. “I know of all of them names, and it tells us what we’re up against.”

  “We have all been out of the city, Jack,” Billy Dixon said. “We know those names as well as you do.”

  “There’s a chief named Little Robert?” Bat said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “That’s because you’re a kid, still wet behind the ears,” Billy Dixon said.

  “Well, I’m all up for any man here wants to try and dry them,” Bat said.

  Bat just got laughs.

  “I mean it,” he said.

  He got more laughs.

  That’s how them hunters was. They was the sort to laugh when another man would be
crying.

  “I have lived with the Cheyenne off and on over the years,” Happy said. “Until today I got along fine with them. I have a Cheyenne wife, Horse Woman, and she is fine. Or I did have one. I have been taken out of the family, it seems. A divorce.”

  “And why is that?” I said.

  “I have been someone who works both sides of the street for quite some time. I like certain aspects of being white, but the Indians are really good about not making you work, at least in a common way. The women do all the work, and the men sit around and watch them work, hurry them about it, tell stories, go hunting and fighting.”

  “Sounds like a goddamn paradise,” Jimmy said.

  “It has its benefits, but Quanah, he’s done got the ass itch for the whites, and wants to run them out, and he’s got the Cheyenne in on it, some Kiowa, and even though Quanah is half-white himself, he has decided we all have to go. He actually talked White Shield, my father-in-law, into giving me the option of having my nuts cut open and stuffed with hot pebbles, or I could try and run back to the white people and take my chances here. I liked my father-in-law, and am surprised he turned on me like that. Now I may have to go back east and go to work for my father’s law firm again. I hated that.”

  “You might as well had your nuts cut and packed,” Jack said. “This here isn’t going to end well neither.”

  “I see that now. You know there’s a lot of warriors out there, and they are in a bad mood, and they think they got magic on their side. Or did. There is some dissension now. I heard some bad language exchanged from some non-believers, right before they asked me to leave.”

  Right then we heard some pounding on the wall from where the outfitter store was, and the adobe began to break, and then the head of a pick-axe come through. Rifles turned in that direction, waiting. The hole got bigger, a face appeared there, but it wasn’t an Indian face. It was Mr. Olds, he of the right cross to his wife’s head.