by Charles Ray
“Well now, boss, I couldn’t rightly say. “Fore ‘mancipation, my master didn’t allow none of us slaves to learn to read or write. After it was ‘lowed, I was too old to go to school.”
“You mean you can’t read or write, not even a word?”
“Nary a word. So, I can’t say whether it’s good or bad, ‘cause I only know one way.”
Clint leaned over to snatch the whiskey bottle from his younger brother.
“I still say we oughta shoot ‘im,” the younger man said in a whiny voice.
“Oh, shut your trap, Billy. You don’t do nothin’ but bellyache. I swear, if you wasn’t my brother, I wouldn’t have you in the gang. Here, boy, have yourself a drink. As one uneducated man to another, eh?”
As Bass reached for the bottle, his coat fell open. Clint Dawkins got a glimpse of light reflecting off metal. He grabbed the jacket and flung it open, exposing Bass’s badge.
“Holy jumping Jehoshaphat, that there is a lawman’s badge. What the blazes you doin’ with a badge, boy?”
Bass straightened his shoulders and stood at his full height, all pretense put aside.
“My real name is Bass Reeves,” he said. “And, I’m a deputy marshal outa Fort Smith, Arkansas. I have me a warrant for your arrest, Clint Dawkins, you and your brother, Billy, both.”
“See,” the younger man said. “Told you we oughta shoot him.”
The elder Dawkins grinned. “Well, for once you got somethin’ right, little brother. I reckon I’m gon’ do jest that.”
He began raising his revolver.
Bass raised his hands again. “Before you shoot me, I’d like to make one request.”
Dawkins laughed.
“I reckon the condemned man’s entitled to one last request. What is it, boy?”
“When I said I never learnt to read or write, I was tellin’ the truth,” Bass said. “But, when I come out to the territory, my wife, who can read and write, gives me a letter, even she know I can’t read it. ‘Fore you kills me, I’d plumb like to know what that letter say, so would you please read it to me?”
“Hell, why not. It’s the least I can do.”
The younger man stood up and craned to see around his brother’s arm as Bass reached into his jacket and withdrew a folded paper. He handed it to the older man, who held it askance to allow the flames from the waning fire to illuminate it. Even though Bass couldn’t read, he knew that what he’d handed the man was one of the warrants Marshal Fagan had given him at the start of the trip, probably even the one for him and his gang. Clint Dawkins, for all his bravado, only knew a few words and how to write his name in a barely legible scrawl, and his brother, Billy, was only marginally better, so the two of them stared in puzzlement at the document, not recognizing more than a word or two of the neatly penned warrant.
While they were thus distracted, Bass reached under his jacket and swiftly drew out his two Colt Peacemakers that had fortunately not been exposed when his coat was opened.
By the time the Dawkins boys realized that they were not holding a letter written by a woman to her husband and looked up at Bass with angry scowls on their faces, they found themselves staring down the business end of two revolvers just inches from their noses.
“Now,” Bass said. “It look like you ain’t gon’ get to kill me today. In fact, I’se placin’ you two boys under arrest and takin’ you back to Fort Smith with me, so jest reach down real slow like and undo your gun belts and let them shootin’ irons drop to the ground. And, don’t you be thinkin’ on doin’ anything foolish, ‘cause I can’t miss from here, and the slugs from these two will take most of your head off.”
At that moment, Henry rode into the camp. When he saw the Dawkins standing with their hands in the air and their gun belts at their feet, he laughed.
“Dang it, Bass,” he said. “Could you not have waited for me to get here. I never get to have any fun.”
CHAPTER 13
After putting on cuffs, Bass and Henry helped Clint and Billy Dawkins onto their horses and took them back to join the other prisoners.
Upon arriving at the camp, Bass saw that Stern and Steadman had also rounded up the stolen cattle. When the four riders entered the camp, Steadman let out a whoop.
“Well, Lordy merch, you done caught ‘em,” he said. “Now, we can go home.”
The injured man, sitting glumly slumped against the wagon wheel to which he was attached by a chain, looked up in surprise.
“Clint, Billy, how’d them two get the drop on you?”
“This boy done tricked us,” Dawkins said. “Plumb got the drop on us when we wasn’t lookin’.”
‘You are lucky,” Henry said. “You might have had the chance to go for your sidearm, in which case, you would be dead now.”
“Oh yeah, says who?”
“You still do not know who has captured you, do you? This is Bass Reeves, the most feared lawman in Indian Territory. He has never failed to capture any outlaw he goes after. A few have tried to resist, even to kill him, and a few of them are dead. The others are in the white man’s prison far to the north.”
“Bass Reeves, eh. Yeah, you said that was your name. I seem to recollect hearin’ that name somewhere.”
“If you have been in the territory for any time, you will have heard the name. Spoken in quiet fear by outlaws, and in respect by the law-abiding folks who wish you outlaws would find some other place to go, so that we may be left in peace.”
“We come here, ‘cause Injun Territory ain’t got no white man’s law.”
“You could not be more wrong,” Henry said. “The white man’s law is here, and it comes in the form of a black man.”
“I ain’t never heard of no black lawman before.”
“Well, now you have, and you will have a long time in prison to think about it.”
“He probably won’t spend too long in prison,” Bass said.
“After all that he has done, why not?”
“He done kilt a man in cold blood. That there’s a hangin’ offense, and even though Judge Parker ain’t no fan of hangin’, iffen the law says you got to hang for what you did, he don’ send you to the rope. Now, the rest of ‘em, that’s another matter, except old Greenleaf, there, who also done kilt and is probably gon’ hang, the rest though, gon’ be up there in Detroit for a long time.”
“What you gon’ do with them cattle?” Clint Dawkins asked.
“We takin’ ‘em with us to Fort Smith. After that, it up to the judge or the marshal what they do with ‘em.”
Dawkins was bigger than his brother or any of his men, but he still had to look up to meet Bass’s gaze. He glared up at him, his chest puffed out.
“You lucky, boy, you know that,” he said. “Iffen you had’na pulled that trick with that paper, I’d of put a slug in that black gut of yours, for sure.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Bass said. “Luck for both of us, you’ll never know. Now, all of y’all get some rest, ‘cause we got a long three-day ride ahead of us.”
CHAPTER 14
The three-day ride turned into four when a wheel came off one of the prisoner wagons as they were traversing a stream with a rock-littered bed, and they had to spend a day waiting for a blacksmith from a nearby community to fix it.
But, finally, the convoy of three wagons, forty head of cattle and two riders on horseback, rode up the curving road that circled the courthouse to the entrance to the federal jail in the back of the building.
Marshal James Fagan stood just outside the door to the jail wing, frowning and pulling at the ends of his mustache. He was still frowning when Bass dismounted and approached him.
“Mornin’, marshal,” Bass said. “Fine day, ain’t it?”
Fagan continued frowning as he looked past Bass at the milling herd of bovines and the prisoners, their chins down toward their chests as they were hauled off the wagons and lined up to be marched into the jail.
“Quite a crowd you brought back, Bass,” he said. “Where’d you
get all the beef?”
“Caught the Dawkins gang red-handed, I did. They was drivin’ this herd to Fort Sill where they was gon’ sell ‘em to the army.”
“Hm, and two wagons of prisoners. I guess that explains why you’re a week past due gettin’ back.”
“Had to take the extra time to chase Dawkins down, then there’s that fella, Greenleaf, who done kilt a mail rider over in Chickasaw Nation.”
“Is that a fact?
“Yeah, and he been runnin’ liquor into Indian Territory to boot.”
Fagan shook his head.
“Bass, you are truly a piece of work. I send you out to roundup fugitives, and you take me literally, and try to rid Indian Territory of every outlaw in one trip, and then you round up a herd of stolen cattle just to confuse the issue. What am I gonna do with you?”
“Well, marshal, if I might be so bold, you could sign off on my trip report so I can go collect my rewards and get on home to Nellie and the chilluns.”
Fagan tried holding his frown, but it was impossible in the face of Bass’s innocent look as he spoke. That a man his size, with his deadly skills could have such a childlike attitude about life never cease to amaze and amuse him. His cheeks turned red with the effort, and finally he began laughing.
He laughed until his sides hurt. Then, he took a deep breath, wiped his eyes and held out his hand. “Give me the dang papers, and I’ll sign ‘em. And you get on home, ‘fore that woman of yours come looking for my scalp for keeping you gone so long.”
Fagan had Bass turn around and he used his broad back as a surface upon which to place the papers so he could affix his signature. That done, he handed them over, shook his top deputy’s hand, and watched him walk away.
As the jail guards took charge of the prisoners, he looked again at the milling cows. He turned to the head jailer.
“Get these danged cows penned up somewhere before they cover the yard with their droppings, will you?
The man looked thunderstruck. Accustomed to incarcerating people, he was at a loss when it came to dealing with four-legged creatures. But, Fagan had spoken, and he would somehow find a way to comply.
Darn that Bass Reeves, the jailer thought. Leave it to him to bring back a jailhouse full of prisoners and a herd of smelly, loud cows.
Ma Barker’s Boys
The Adventures of Bass Reeves
Deputy US Marshal
Volume 5
CHARLES RAY
CHAPTER 1
Chet and Clive Barker looked like twins. Both were about five-six and weighed about 160 pounds, had their late father’s pot belly on slender bodies, and their mother’s dirty brown hair (before hers turned dirty white). They also had her filthy mouth. But, Chet was two years older and thought of himself as the leader of their gang, a position that Clive honored most of the time, but at times felt that it should be his position because he was the smarter of the two. Smart, though, was a relative term when it came to the Barker brothers. Those who knew them well often said that if the sense of both of them was put in a goose’s head it would drown because it would be too stupid to swim.
To make matters even more complicated, the Barker brothers had decided to become outlaws.
Like a lot of young men from both sides who had become caught up in the horrors of the Civil War at an early age, they had been unable to adjust to the calm of peace. Lacking the desire to be dirt farmers and the intelligence to be tradesmen, they’d turned to a life of crime.
Their lax attitude toward hard work and their dullness of wit, though, had made them two of the most bumbling, laugh-provoking outlaws of the Indian Territory.
Only the Barker boys would rob a bank the day after the local lumber mill payroll had been dispensed to the workers or rob a stage coach after it had dropped off a load of gold bullion. The only thing the two had not done since they embarked upon their new calling was kill someone, and that was as much a result of both of them being lousy marksmen than lack of intent.
The brothers squatted facing each other across a fire in a little arroyo some fifty miles east of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Thirty-three-year-old Chet took a long swallow from the whiskey bottle he held loosely in his grimy hands, looking at his brother with crossed eyes down the length of the bottle as he gulped.
“Hey,” Clint said. “Leave some fer me.”
Chet pulled the bottle away and wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand.
“Doggone, Clint. They’s two of you there for a minute.”
“That’s jest the whiskey talkin’. Pass me that bottle.”
After taking another generous swallow, Chet tossed the bottle to his younger brother, who glared at him as he almost dropped it into the fire. He made a great show of wiping off the lip of the bottle with hands that were as grimy as his older brother’s and then drinking with large, loud gulps.
“Hey, take it easy,” Chet said. “Leave a bit for after supper.”
Wiping his mouth, Clint said, “What we gon’ eat tonight?”
“Well, we got them canned beans and fruit we done stole from that farmer. We could eat that with some of that jerky ma packed fer us.”
“Yeah, I reckon that sound pretty good.” He took another drink and then stared thoughtfully at his brother.
“What you got on your mind, little brother?”
“How you know I got anything on my mind?”
“You sittin’ there lookin’ like you constipated. I know how thinkin’ give you headaches, so tell me what it is ‘fore that melon of yours busts open.”
“Uh, I was jest thinkin’ ‘n wonderin’ how come our kin on ma’s side and on pa’s side all named Barker? It don’t seem to be that way with other folks.”
Chet shook his head and made a snorting sound through a nose that was crooked from having been broken several times in the fights he got into in saloons around the territory after he’d had a bit too much whiskey.
“Dang, little brother, how many times I got to explain it to you? Ma’s pa and pa’s pa was brothers name of Barker, so ma and pa is first cousins from the same side of the family.”
Clint screwed his porcine eyes shut in concentration and mopped at the greasy hank of brown hair that kept falling over his eyes. “Oh, yeah. I remember now. That was pretty handy fer ma. She didn’t even have to change her last name like most women have to do.”
“I reckon you got a point,” Chet said. “But some folk say it ain’t a good idea ‘cause that kind of inbreedin’ can lead to kids what ain’t too smart.”
“Well, they was wrong,” Clint said, thumping his chest. “We’s both smart as whips, even if ma do say sometimes that we’s dumb as fence posts.”
Chet’s face clouded with worry.
“Speakin’ of ma, she ain’t gon’ be happy if we don’t come home with a good haul. We ain’t done so good this trip, so far.”
“That’s fer sure. What you reckon we gon’ do?”
“Lemme sleep on it after supper. I’ll come up with something in the mornin’, I’ll come up with something good. Ma’s gon’ be happy as a pig in mud when we come home with a big haul.”
“Speakin’ of pigs, whyn’t you bust out that jerky. I’m hungry enough to eat a bull moose without skinnin’ it first.”
CHAPTER 2
“Bass, I know your job’s important,” Nellie Jennie Reeves said to her husband as he sat hunched over his breakfast. “But, I’m worried ‘bout Bennie. I really believe he’s takin’ up with the wrong woman, and you need to talk to him.”
Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves, an intimidating man, over six feet tall and weighing two hundred pounds, he instilled fear and awe in the fugitives he hunted. An expert marksman shooting handgun or rifle with either hand, he was known in the Indian Territory as the Indomitable Marshal, a lawman you didn’t want on your tail. But, at home, with his wife and ten children, he was like a fish out of water. He loved Jennie more than anything else in the world, but often felt intimidated by her. He loved his children in his own way
, but had problems talking to them; even at times had trouble remembering their names, despite his ability to remember the details of dozens of warrants when he was chasing outlaws. He could, and had, go up against the toughest, meanest, most dangerous outlaw, and do it with confidence—and, so far, had always come out the winner. But, talking to his eldest son about his love life; that he was not prepared to do. At the same time, he wasn’t quite up to saying no to his wife.
He chewed his bacon slowly as he sought a way to wiggle out of the corner she’d painted him into.
“You talkin’ ‘bout that little girl, Cassie? She seem okay to me,” he said.
She shook her head and waggled a finger in front of his face.
“You don’ know that girl like I do, Bass. She got herself a rovin’ eye. I think Bennie gettin’ serious ‘bout her, and I jest don’ think she the marryin’ kind.”
“Aw, Bennie ain’t old enough to be gettin’ hitched.”
“Bass Reeves, what you talkin’ ‘bout? The boy’s near on to nineteen, and I seen the look in his eyes. He smitten by that girl, and he sure ‘nuff is old enough to get married. I think you should talk to him and git him to think it over ‘fore he git in too deep.”
Dang, Bass thought, nearly nineteen years old. How these children grow so fast? He didn’t share Jennie’s concerns about the young woman he knew his eldest had been courting, but then, he knew less about her than he did his own children, and he had to honestly admit that except for Bennie, who took a lot after him, he didn’t even always remember his own children’s names, and really didn’t know all that much about them . Still, he needed to concentrate on his upcoming trip into Indian Territory. He had to memorize whatever number of warrants Marshal Fagan or Judge Barker would give him. He didn’t need the addition of this drama over his son’s girlfriend on his mind.
“I tell you what, Nellie,” he said. “He can’t go gittin’ married ‘fore I comes back, so why don’ I talk to him first thing after I gits back from this trip.”
