Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr

by Phil Truman

  Henry scratched the side of his face. He walked to a front window and looked out. “Gonna get married, Boone. Gal wants me to settle down. Think I’ll head on out to Colorado, maybe get me a small ranch out there.”

  “Believe I’ll head down to New Orleans,” Happy Jack said. “I heard some profits could be made there in privateering.”

  “What’s that?” Kid Wilson asked.

  “Piratin’, Kid. Piratin’. I ain’t much good on land. I’d be better off at sea.”

  “What about Link?” Watt wanted to know. He looked at Henry, expecting him to answer.

  “What about him?” Henry returned.

  “I’m taking off. He can’t ride,” Watt answered. After some further thought, he added, “He’s my pard.” He looked at Henry and nodded once as if satisfied that would explain what he was trying to say.

  “Well, I reckon he can bunk here with Frank ’til he’s back on his feet.” Henry looked at Frank for confirmation. Frank nodded.

  With that Watt headed for the door. “I’ll go get my gear, and saddle up,” he said. “Pick up my share when I come back in?” Frank nodded again, and started counting out the bills placing them in individual stacks.

  “I got a cousin lives down in the Ouachitas,” Boone said. “Reckon I could ride with you that far, Happy Jack?”

  “Aye, mate.”

  Without turning from his gaze out the window, Henry asked, “What about you, Kid?”

  “I heard about Colorado,” he said. “Thinking maybe I could travel along with you. I’d like to see Colorado and them mountains.”

  “I reckon that’d be okay,” Henry said. He turned back to the room. “Kid, you and Boone and Jack go on out to the barn with Watt and get your stuff. We might as well divvy up and get on out of here.

  “Boone, I’d appreciate it if you’d saddle up my horse. I need to talk to Frank for a minute before we go.”

  After the three men had exited the cabin, Henry sat down in one of the chairs at the table where Frank counted and stacked the money.

  “You about got it all divided up?” Henry asked.

  “’Bout,” Frank answered, still counting and building the last stack. When he finished, he started aligning the bills in neat stacks at their spots on the table.

  Henry grabbed the closest stack. “This here mine?” he asked.

  “Good as any,” Frank answered.

  Henry started counting out some bills, stopping at two hundred dollars. “Put this here in Link’s stack. Don’t tell the others.”

  Frank looked up at Henry, but didn’t say anything. He took the bills Henry held out, then gathered up the stack designated as Link’s, folding the bills, and shoved them into his shirt pocket. “I’ll make sure he gets this,” he said.

  The two men sat in silence, Henry drumming the tabletop with his fingers, Frank still fiddling some with the stacks of money. Both men felt something needed to be said, but neither knew where to start.

  Henry had known Frank only a little over three years, but it seemed longer, like half a lifetime. They’d first hooked up back on Roberts’ ranch. Frank was maybe ten years older than Henry, but he didn’t know for sure. When Henry came to the Roberts bunkhouse the first time, he was only sixteen. Most of the hands ignored Henry at best, harassed him at worst. He was a kid and a greenhorn... and an Indian. Some tried their level best to kill new guys, or at least send them packing. In the tough, hardworking and dangerous world of the cowhand, new men had to earn respect, and acceptance. It was even harder for teenagers... boys, especially boys they called “breeds.”

  But Frank wasn’t quite like the other men. Oh, he did his share of teasing, but he didn’t leave Henry out on a precarious limb so much. Frank would let Henry learn a lesson the hard way, even a dangerous way, but he never abandoned him. And he never set Henry up in some devious trap that would leave the boy looking guilty of some wrong doing.

  On one such occasion, a burly cowboy named Krause—the biggest bully of the bunch, in size as well as disposition—had accused Henry of stealing some of his things. Everyone avoided any confrontation with the big German, but he clearly had it in for Henry. Immediately following the angry accusation, Krause had tossed Henry out of the bunkhouse and followed to further thrash the boy. Several blows and kicks into the beating, Frank drew his pistol, and coming up behind Krause, whacked him across his right ear with the gun barrel. Krause fell like an oak from the force of the blow, and when he rolled over to see who’d delivered it, found himself looking up the bore of the big Colt, just as Frank cocked back the hammer.

  “You best lay off that boy, Krause,” Frank had said to him with calm menace. “I seen you put them things of yours in his footlocker, so you know and I know he didn’t steal ’em. Now if you put a hand on him again, I’ll damn well shoot you.”

  Krause didn’t bother Henry again after that, nor did any of the other hands. Henry stayed close to Frank, and their friendship increased. Both gained an appreciation for the other’s abilities as time went on. The two of them thought the bogus horse thievery pinned on Henry a few months later, and which sent him off to face Judge Parker—and subsequently on into the boy’s outlawing ways—was engineered by Kraus, but they never could prove it.

  “Whadda you reckon you’ll do, Frank?” Henry asked eventually. “You want to go to Colorado with us?”

  Frank remained quiet for a few seconds. Then he spoke slowly, not looking up at Henry. “Naw, I seen Colorado. Don’t need to see it again, I reckon.” He rubbed his chin and looked out the window. “Got me this place here, but I expect the law will be tracking me down soon enough. They’s a fella named Case in Wagoner once told me he’d like to buy this land if I ever wanted to sell. Think I’ll find out if he’s still interested. Then I might take off for Texas.”

  Henry didn’t say anything for a while, just nodded. “Texas is big,” he said at last. “Fella could likely find plenty to do down there.”

  Frank smiled and nodded back in agreement.

  * * *

  “Meg, this here’s Kid Wilson. He’s going to be traveling with us out to Colorado.”

  Meg had told herself not to expect Henry to show up at all, so she’d be pleasantly surprised if and when he did. But she hadn’t told herself to suppose he’d bring along a scruffy, surly teenager with double mounted six-shooters on his hips. That was totally unexpected. If they were going to run off and get married, she didn’t see how this boy figured into the wedding party, and that’s exactly what she would tell Henry.

  “Nice to meet you,” Meg said to the Kid with as sincere a smile as she could muster. He tipped his hat, blushed, and looked at the ground where he described a circle in the dirt with his boot toe. He looked like one of her male charges in the schoolhouse, all of whom had a crush on her.

  She grabbed Henry by the forearm and pulled him along with her. “Would you excuse us for a minute?” she said politely to Wilson. With Henry in tow, she entered the back of the school and closed the door behind them. “Why’d you bring him?” she demanded of him.

  “He’s just a kid,” Henry answered, not at all certain why she seemed so angry.

  “That’s not what I asked you. We’re supposed to be going off to get married. Why is he coming with us?”

  “Well, he said he’d never seen Colorado and would like to. I didn’t see how him riding along would be a problem. He’s a good kid.”

  “Well, it is a problem for me. I swear, Henry, sometimes you can be so... so... obtuse.

  Henry screwed up his brow, and looked out the window to where the Kid stood with the horses. He didn’t have any idea what “obtuse” meant, but he figured it wasn’t a compliment.

  * * *

  The man’s body was round, and his pink moon face made him look childish, but Henry didn’t figure him to be no child. He had a mustache of sorts. It was sparse and the guy had tried to let it grow long like maybe the length of the whiskers would make up for the lack in numbers. The vest of his brown wool suit p
uckered at the buttons from the expanse beneath it, and when he’d remove his derby to mop his brow—something he did frequently—his also thin head hair was plastered down with pomade and parted in the middle. The front ends of the parts formed flat curls which laid on both sides of his forehead like little horns.

  He sat next to the Kid on the train seat facing Henry and Meg; Meg at the window, him opposite Henry at the aisle. He’d sat down with them before the train left the Coffeyville Station, and struck up a conversation. He’d Introduced himself as Audubon Henderson, offering Henry his hand. “Folks call me Audie,” he added, smiling at Meg and tipping his derby. Settling into his seat he looked at the Kid, his stare lingering, a wicked smile on his lips. Turning back to Henry his smile faded some. “Who might you folks be?” he asked.

  “Name’s Jackson,” Henry answered. “This here’s my missus. Believe that feller next to you goes by the name of Charlie Smith.”

  Audie nodded to the couple across from him, directed his look at Kid Wilson again, leaned closer and offered his hand. “Pleased to meet ya.” He turned to look at Meg. Lowering his eyes to her ankles which she had exposed with her legs crossed, he frowned disapprovingly. Henry watched all this—the man’s attraction to the Kid, his disdain for Meg. He decided he didn’t like the guy.

  The fat little man looked studiously at Henry, twisting one end of his scrawny mustache with some fingers. “Seems like I know you, Mister Jackson, he said. “You ever been in Bentonville, Arkansas?”

  Henry glanced over at Wilson, who shifted in his seat and stared out the window. “I had me some bidness there some time back. Only there onest,” he said.

  “Were you in the bank?”

  “Don’t reckon,” Henry answered. “Sold a man some pigs; cash money. Believe I ate some supper at a hotel. Like I said, been a while back.”

  “Well, you sure look familiar.” Audie looked at the kid again. “We had us a bank hold-up there a few weeks back. You hear of it?”

  “Can’t say I did. We come from Missouri.”

  Audie nodded as if accepting the explanation. “Yeah, it was quite a deal. Gang of about ten or twelve come riding into town in broad daylight, shootin’ and hollerin’. Walked right into the bank and took every last cent. Town people and the lawmen were waiting for them when they came out, though. Shot and killed about four or five of them, but the others still got away. Bank had some big payrolls at the time. I heard they made off with a couple hundred thousand dollars. Rode off into the Territory, and disappeared into the sticks. Stupid marshals are afraid to go in there after ’em. They say the leader’s an Indin by the name of Henry Starr. Kin to Belle Starr. As fierce and bloodthirsty as they come.”

  Audie picked up his derby and dabbed his forehead, while looking steadily at Henry. “Yessir, quite a deal,” he said again.

  Henry and Wilson traded looks. “Well, by the way you tell it, it sure musta been,” he said. “I heard of Henry Starr. Don’t believe he was kin to Belle Starr, though.”

  “Well, I wasn’t actually there. Just heard tell of it. Some of them shot weren’t all outlaws neither. A few was citizens.”

  Henry furrowed his brow with real concern and asked, “Did any of them die?”

  “Not by gunshots,” Audie said. “One old man named Feathershed was sitting in front of the dry goods store across the street from the bank when all the commotion started. They found him still sitting there later, deader than a doornail, but no bullet holes in him. Several holes in the store front, but none through the old man. Doc said it was likely from a stroke brought on by all the excitement. He was close to eighty, old war veteran.”

  Henry shook his head sadly and said, “Durn shame.”

  “Well, I expect they’ll catch up with Starr sooner or later,” Audie said.

  “What makes you think so?” Henry asked.

  “He’s a little arrogant, and he likes to rob places, especially banks. Gets a little bolder after every one. Also, when you ride with a bunch of brigands, there’s always at least one who’ll get drunk and start braggin’ about what him and his friends have done. Pretty soon, a man like Starr, thinking he’s better than the law, will make a mistake which’ll get him caught... or shot.”

  Meg leaned closer to Henry and put her arm under his, looking at him with alarm. Henry patted her hand on his forearm, smiling at her. Audie watched the exchange, smiling back at them.

  “What line of work you in, Mister Henderson?” Henry asked. “You sort of talk like a lawman.”

  Audie chuckled. “Naw, I’m in debt collections. I get hired to find people who don’t pay their debts, and see if I can’t work something out for my clients.”

  “Seems like that could get a little dangerous.”

  “Not if you do things right,” Audie said with a grin. He looked at the Kid again. “But it does have its moments.”

  The two men fell silent for several minutes, looking out the window at the passing Kansas prairie.

  “So where you folks headed?” Audie said, breaking the silence.

  Henry hesitated for several seconds before he answered. “West,” he said. “Then getting on a ship in San Francisco. We’re missionaries. Going to China to save some of them heathens over there. What about you, Mister Henderson?”

  “Nothing that exciting. Getting off at Garden City. There’s a debtor there I need to see.”

  Meg spoke up for the first time. “The Lord tells us we need to forgive our debtors just as He forgives us for our debts.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Audie said. “But that don’t pay the bills, Miz Jackson.”

  Chapter Eight

  July 1893

  Colorado Springs

  Henry had a difficult time understanding how a dress could cost seventy-five dollars, especially one which weren’t likely to be worn more than once, but that’s the one Meg wanted to get married in, so that’s what he bought her, and another one for after the wedding... with a hat. On top of that, she thought he needed to be outfitted better for the occasion, too, so they went to a haberdasher and fitted him up in a dark wool suit, a navy blue one with lighter blue pinstripes running through it. Then a new hat to match. Then new boots; not range boots, boots like a city man would wear. Still, it wasn’t like they got hitched in a church or anything; just him and her and Wilson and the justice of peace and his wife in the man’s cluttered little office. They made a handsome couple, the justice’s wife had told them.

  The wedding night had started out well enough, even if it didn’t end so. First they convinced Wilson he needed to go find his own entertainment for the night, then the two of them went to dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Colorado Springs. It was the big dining room at the Antlers Hotel where they were staying. It was a place with chandeliers, where the waiters dressed fancy, and a collection of fiddle players over in one corner played soft music the whole time. Fancy prices, too. Their waiter had introduced himself as “Onray.”

  “You a Frenchman?” Henry asked him.

  The man stood straight, grabbed the bottom hem of his vest pulling it down with a jerk. “Non, monsieur,” he answered in a haughty, superior tone. “I am Canadien.”

  Besides their steak dinners, they also ordered some champagne, at Meg’s suggestion, to toast the occasion. After their waiter presented the bill and then stood discreetly off to the side, Henry examined it closely. When he got to the next to the last line, he furrowed his brow and frowned. The word looked French, and it had a price of four dollars assigned to it. The total at the bottom read $19.50.

  “Onray?” Henry signaled to the waiter while still looking at the bill. When the man approached, he bent slightly toward Henry and asked in a half-whisper, “Oui, monsieur?”

  “Uh, what’s this?” Henry whispered in return, pointing to the line in question.

  The waiter turned his head slightly, placing his lips closer to Henry’s ear. “That is the gratuity, monsieur.”

  Henry kept looking at the word on the bill and slowly shook his hea
d side to side. “Well, Onray, I just don’t recall ordering no gratuity.”

  The waiter straightened, closed his eyes, and sighed. Still talking in a lowered voice, he said, “Non, monsieur. It is what I believe you Americans refer to as a teep.”

  “A teep?”

  “Oui, monsieur. For my services.”

  “Ah. I see.” Henry smiled and nodded. Reaching for his wallet in the pocket inside his new suit coat he said, “I sure could’ve used a man like you in my former business; however, me and this lady has just got married and I’m going to buy me a ranch.”

  He took twenty-five dollars out of the wallet and handed the bills to the waiter. “You done a fine job tonight, Onray. You keep whatever is left over there.”

  Onray bowed graciously and said in his heavy French Canadian accent, “Merci, monsieur. I wish you and your beautiful new wife the best of fortune in your marriage.”

  When they entered the expansive hotel lobby, still giddy and somewhat tipsy from the champagne, Henry and Meg, laughing and arm-in-arm, didn’t at first notice the round little man wearing a brown suit and derby approaching them.

  “Mr. Jackson?” the man said loudly from the couple’s left and slightly behind them.

  Henry, a mirthful grin still spread across his face, stopped and looked back at the inquisitor. He studied the man’s face a few seconds. “Why if it ain’t Mister...” Henry hesitated trying to recall the man’s name.

  “Henderson,” the fellow said. “Audie Henderson.”

  Henry nodded, still grinning. “Yeah. I thought you was in Garden City.”

  “Nope. I’m right here in Colorado Springs.”

  Henry broke his grin, and swiveled his head to look about the nearly empty lobby. He noticed two uniformed policemen, who’d been leaning against wooden pillars, start to approach them, too. “You got some debtors you’re looking for around here?”

  “Believe I do, sir. Believe I do.” Henderson snapped his fingers and made a “come here” motion with his right hand. A third gentleman rose from a lobby chair and walked to Henderson’s side.