Sam’s eyes and mine were locked on each other, unable to move. We didn’t move a muscle, and neither did Barnes. It was deathly quiet. And suddenly I felt sad and thought that if something didn’t move I would cry. Then Sam’s eyes softened. He breathed out a big breath and laid his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, pard,” he said. “There wasn’t no call for that.”
“I shouldn’t have done what I did, either,” I said. “I was just nervous.”
“We’re all nervous.” Then he threw up his hands and laughed. “Hey! Tomorrow we’ll find us another train!”
Seab was in front of the fireplace wearing his coat and hat, hugging himself. The fire was huge, roaring up the chimney. “I’m freezing,” he said. “Something’s wrong with me.”
I stepped over Sam, who was still rolled in his blankets, and Seab turned and looked at me. His face was drawn and pale, his eyes very bright. His teeth were chattering. “Something is wrong with you,” I said.
“I ache all over. My head hurts.”
His lips and fingernails were blue. I pushed his hat back and laid my hand on his forehead.
“What’s wrong with me?” he asked. “I ain’t never felt so.”
“Some kind of fever, probably. We’ll know soon. If it’s fever, you’ll get hot.”
“I wish I was getting hot now. I’m freezing.”
Sam stirred, then sat up. “Seab’s sick,” I said.
“Bad?”
“Don’t know. I just got up.”
Sam stretched and got up himself. He looked at Barnes and said, “Jesus, you look like hell.” “Your bedside manner isn’t the best, Dr. Bass,” I said. “Well, you’re the great healer. Do something.” I arched my eyebrows at him. “I will, Dr. Bass.” “It ain’t funny,” Seab mumbled.
I opened the saddlebags that Dr. Ross had given me and pulled out McGown and Eberle and flipped the pages to the sections on fevers. “You’re cold, ache all over, and your head hurts, right?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Like what?”
“Well, let’s see. He’s pale and shivering. Do you agree, Dr. Bass?”
“I do, Dr. Jackson.”
“His lips and fingernails are blue. Do you agree, Dr. Bass?”
“Yes, indeed, Dr. Jackson. Very blue.”
“It ain’t funny, damn it,” Seab said.
“Are you thirsty, Mr. Barnes?”
“Yes.”
“Is your mind confused?”
“His mind’s always confused, Dr. Jackson,” Sam said.
“Have you pissed this morning, Mr. Barnes?”
“Yes.”
“What color was it?”
“What color was it? Yellow.”
“Pale yellow or bright yellow?” “Are you funning me, Frank?”
“No. I’m trying to find out what’s wrong with you.”
“Well, I don’t know what kind of yellow it was.”
“You probably have an intermitting fever. We’ll know for sure if you get hot. Dr. McGown says hardly anybody dies of intermitting fever. You’re lucky, Mr. Barnes.”
“Can you fix him?” Sam asked.
I had seen Seab’s symptoms many times on my rounds with Dr. Ross, and I thought I knew what would happen to him. “Yes, I can.” The words gave me a feeling of immense power. I opened the medicine side of my saddlebags and got the quinine and laudanum. “Give me a cup, then go get some water.” Sam jumped to obey, and I poured what I guessed to be about fifty drops of laudanum into the cup. McGown didn’t say whether the laudanum and quinine should be given separately or together, so I assumed it didn’t matter and dropped what I guessed to be about ten grains of quinine into the laudanum and stirred it with a stick and gave it to Seab. “Drink this.”
He obeyed and made a face. “Sam’s getting some water,” I said. “Sulphuric ether would make you better faster, but I don’t have any. This will do it, though.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Seab asked.
“Yes,” I said, not really sure.
Sam brought a bucket of water. I dipped Seab’s cup into it, and he drank gratefully. “Now roll up in your blankets and lie down,” I said. “You’re going to get hot and then go to sleep and then start sweating, but don’t worry. You’ll be all right.”
Without a word he did as I told him, and a few minutes later he was asleep. Sam and I sat watching him. “Well, no trains will run today,” Sam said.
“Not for several days,” I said. “It takes a little time.”
“Could he die?” Sam’s eyes were full of respect.
“No. He’ll be all right.”
Suddenly I understood all that Dr. Ross had told me. My real knowledge of Seab’s illness was scarcely deeper than his own or Sam’s. But because I could read and because I possessed and had administered the medicines and was answering Sam’s questions with an air of confidence, I was a doctor. I found myself wishing I had a beard, and pretending I was chilly, I put on the black coat that Sam had bought me in Fort Worth. I was a physician, for I had a patient and a concerned friend, a relative of the patient almost, who needed comforting and believed whatever I said.
My professional reputation grew when Barnes became feverish and then broke into a sweat, as I had predicted. I bathed his head and neck in cold water, gave him draughts from the cup, and followed the nursing procedures dictated by McGown and Eberle with a great deal of ceremony, barking orders to Sam to fetch whatever I needed. By nightfall Seab was feeling better, and he smiled weakly at me and said, “You ain’t so dumb.” I gave him more quinine and laudanum and a little calomel and said, “You’re not through it yet, but you’re going to be all right.”
Sure enough, the chill-fever-sweat cycle recurred during the night, but with less intensity and shorter duration. I reckoned that my diagnosis must have been right and followed the instructions of McGown and Eberle to the letter, wishing that Dr. Ross were present to judge my performance. I remained at Seab’s side until he lapsed into his sweat. Then I went to sleep, since there was nothing to be done at that stage, and I knew it would be followed by remission.
In the morning Seab asked, “What made me sick, Frank?”
“It could be any number of things,” I replied casually. “My guess would be miasma.”
“What the hell’s that?”
“Bad air from swamps or marshes. You’ve been sleeping in too many creek bottoms lately.”
“It’s the best place for them that’s in our trade,” Sam said.
“He’ll be all right,” I said.
In four days Seab was up and around, though still weak and shaky. Sam asked if it would be safe to leave him alone and ride out to scout our next job, and I said it would.
We left that morning and spent the next three days scouting the Houston and Texas Central through Collin and Dallas counties. We struck the railroad just south of Allen and rode southward in a leisurely manner, sticking to the roads most of the time and stopping and talking to people whenever and wherever we liked. We posed as ranchers looking for land to buy, bought drinks and shared tobacco with men lounging at crossroads stores and talked about cattle, weather and, of course, trains. Sam could be a good talker when he wanted to, and his generosity with his money made many whiskey-jug friends who were eager to tell him everything he wanted to know about anything under the sun.
We chose the village of Hutchins, about eight miles south of Dallas, as the site of our next adventure. The layout there was almost identical to Allen, and the southbound train arrived about ten o’clock at night, which would give us the advantage of the darkness again.
Our decision made, we headed north. When we neared Dallas Sam said, “I’m going to town and visit Maude. Want to come?”
“No, I’d better go on and check on Seab.”
“There’s lots of pretty girls there. You ain’t had a woman in a long time, Frank, and Maude has lots of friends.”
“Next time.”
Sam touche
d his hatbrim and rode away toward Dallas. It was the first time I had been alone in four months, and I was glad to have the chance. It had been a good winter for rain, and the countryside was bright in the new green of spring. The sky was cloudless and the sun warm, and everyone, it seemed, had found work to do outdoors. Women were washing clothes and yelling at children. Men were mending or building fence, and a few had already begun their spring plowing, trudging the rows behind their patient mules. It was still cool, and a great day for that kind of work. I envied them. I stopped at midday at a farm just south of Lewisville and was given fried chicken for dinner and held a little girl, the youngest child of seven, on my knee while I had my final cup of coffee and speculated with her father about when the first herds would pass through on their drive north. I could feel the sap running in me, and regretted that I had declined Sam’s invitation.
But I was getting close to Denton now, so I left the road and struck out across the open prairie, aiming in a general way toward Cove Hollow. I was in no hurry, but my horse felt the juice of spring, too, and I let him have his head. He moved at a long-striding, lazy gallop for a while, then, receiving no restraining signal from me, broke into a run. The cool breeze roared in my ears, and I could feel my blood pumping through me. The bright grass passed under my horse’s hooves in a blur. God, it all felt good after the long winter in the creek bottoms. When we reached Hickory Creek we stopped and drank and rested, then continued at a slower but still brisk pace. If horses could sing, I believe mine would have that day.
Seab was enjoying the spring, too. He was stretched on a blanket on the limestone ledge in front of our cabin, soaking in the sun. He sat up when I started my horse up the slope. “Where’s Sam?” he asked.
“He got the itch. He went whoring.”
He watched us plunge up the slope, then asked, “What’s the plan?”
He looked fit as a fiddle, which made me very proud.
On the night of March 18 Sam and Seab and I rode into Hutchins and tied up at the station platform. We had passed the train on our way into town, so we already were masked, and our guns were drawn. Only the agent and a nigger porter were in the station, and they threw up their hands when we entered. “All right, keep them up and move out to the platform,” Sam ordered.
As soon as the train stopped, I leapt to the engine. The engineer and the fireman raised their hands, too, and I recognized them. “Is this Number 4?” I asked. The engineer nodded, and I said, “You probably remember me, then.”
“I sure do, son,” he said.
I herded them down the steps, and as my foot touched the platform a face appeared around the front of the engine. I swung my gun to it and said, “Join us.” Two men crept slowly around the engine and climbed the platform steps.
“Riding free on the cowcatcher,” Sam said. “The railroad don’t like that, boys.”
The men, shabbily dressed, grinned weakly and took off their caps and held them against their chests, as they no doubt did when asking for handouts. We moved them and our other hostages down the platform until they were opposite the express car door, which was open and lighted. A man holding a bag appeared at the mail car door, just behind the express car, and shouted, “What’s the matter?”
“We want money, and there’s no use kicking!” Sam called back.
The man stepped back and slammed the door and yelled, “Robbers on the platform!” The light went out in the express car, and its door slammed, too. Sam cursed and ran into the station and returned with two axes. He handed one to Seab, and they attacked the door. Soon its splintered parts fell away, and Sam and Barnes were facing the muzzle of a pistol. The express agent was backed against the far wall, taking aim. The station agent yelled, “Don’t shoot! You’ll kill us!” The man lowered his gun, and Seab and Sam jumped into the car while I held our prisoners under my gun. In less than a minute they came out carrying two cloth sacks and ran to the mail car. Sam banged on the door with his pistol butt. “We’ve got you! Come out or it’ll go hard for you!” The mail clerk made up his mind quickly and opened the door.
While my companions were ransacking the mail, a burst of gunfire issued from the rear of the train. One of the tramps groaned and fell. I fired two blind shots into the darkness, then a shotgun boomed, and the station agent grabbed his face. Sam and Seab backed out of the mail car, and we retreated slowly toward our horses, laying down heavy fire toward the muzzle flashes. We mounted and lit out toward the west. A few miles out of Hutchins we swung north toward the Hickory bottoms. It wasn’t until then that we slowed and Sam asked, “Any casualties?”
“Not on our side,” I said.
Our haul was disappointing. Three hundred and eighty-four dollars from the express car and a hundred and thirteen from the mail. One sixty-five apiece. “It’s a good thing old Spotswood ain’t along,” Barnes said.
Barnes ran into the cabin, grabbed his rifle and said, “Riders!” Sam and I grabbed our rifles, too, and we bellied down behind the rocks on the slope. “They’re coming slow and quiet,” Barnes said. “Two of them.”
At last my eye caught the sun glinting on something, then I saw a black hat and part of a face. “Here they come!” I whispered.
They emerged into the clearing. Sam screamed, “Freeze!”
The riders showed no signs of panic. They turned their horses slowly until they faced us, and one called, “You ain’t going to kill me, are you, Sam?”
It was Henry Underwood. I could name fifty people I would rather have seen, but I was relieved that the face was a friendly, although ugly, one. Henry’s companion rivalled Henry himself in ugliness. A big, florid, pig-eyed man with a flat nose and pockmarked jowls, he dismounted and watched, his mouth hanging open stupidly, while Sam and I shook hands with Henry and introduced him to Barnes. “This here’s Arkansas Johnson,” Henry said. “Him and me’s rode all the way from Nebraska together. And spent a long spell together before that.”
I took their horses, and Sam threw his arm around Henry’s shoulders and walked him toward the cabin. Barnes glanced at me skeptically, then followed with Johnson. The horses had been ridden hard and looked as if they hadn’t eaten in days. Their noses never left the grain while I rubbed them down.
When I entered the cabin Underwood was bragging loudly of his escape from the jail in Nebraska. “Your money done it, Sam,” he said. “I give part of it to a man that was getting out, and he proved true to his word. He got me a file and some saw blades, and Arkansas’s wife fetched them to us in a bucket of butter.”
Seab Barnes showed little interest in Henry’s narrative, but the silent Arkansas Johnson made not the slightest move without Seab noticing it. When Henry paused for breath, Seab pointed at the new man and said, “Tell us about yourself.”
Johnson turned his pig eyes to Barnes and gazed stolidly at him. “Ain’t nothing to tell,” he mumbled.
“Where in Arkansas are you from?” Seab asked.
“I ain’t. Missouri.”
“Ever know a man named Tom Spotswood?” “No.”
“What was you in jail for?”
Again Johnson lapsed into silence, regarding Barnes with a vacant stare, as if he couldn’t remember. Then he said, “Stole some lumber. I got to piss.” He got up and slouched outside.
“I don’t like him,” Seab said.
“I don’t, either,” I said.
“Come on!” Henry whined. “Me and him’s rode a long way together.”
“I don’t like him, either,” Sam said. “He’s white trash, and this here’s a high-class outfit. We ain’t got no use for trash, Henry.”
“Aw, Sam,” Henry pleaded, “I couldn’t have made it without him. I promised him.”
“Promised what?”
“Why, that he’d get rich!”
Sam smiled. “Well, all right,” he said. “I’ll try him once. Then we’ll see.”
So we had two hogs in our sty that night.
Two days later, on a Sunday afternoon, another rider came up t
he creek. “We don’t have to go looking for no trains,” Sam said. “This place is a railroad station.”
It was Jim Murphy, looking for me. “You got visitors at my place,” he said.
“Who?”
“Ben Key. Your sister. Dr. Ross.”
“What do they want?”
He shrugged. “They want to see you.”
I rode down the creek with Jim. “I’d listen to them if I was you, Frank,” he said.
Dr. Ross’s hack was standing in front of the house, and my visitors were in the tiny parlor, drinking coffee. They rose when
I went in, and my sister hugged me. Jim went outside. Through the window I saw him walking toward the barn. My sister held a small handkerchief, and she twisted it into a small roll and wove it in and out among her fingers. Ben and Dr. Ross shifted in their chairs. Their feet were noisy on the bare floor. I was glad to see them, but felt embarrassed. Finally Dr. Ross said, “We want you to come back, Frank.”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “We want you to come home with us.”
“I can’t,” I said.
Tears welled into my sister’s eyes. She unrolled her handkerchief and daubed them away.
“Dad Egan’s looking for you,” Ben said, “but who he really wants is Sam. He’s getting hell from the railroads, and he thinks Sam is some kind of traitor. But come home now, and I think he’ll leave you alone.”
“Did Spotswood say something?”
“No, but he might when he’s tried. Everybody knows he was hanging out with you and Sam.”
“That doesn’t have to mean anything,” I said. “We have a right to our friends.”
“That’s my point,” Ben said. “If you come home before the trial, I don’t think your name will ever come up. Dad won’t try to prove anything on you.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Yes. He likes you, Frank.”
“He used to like Sam, too.”
“He thinks Sam betrayed him,” Ben said.
A breeze blew the curtains into the room, and the sun shining through them made patterns like maps on my sister’s gray skirt. Dr. Ross was slouching in his chair, stroking his beard, not fidgeting anymore. “I cured a man,” I told him.
Sam Bass Page 9
