Red Lands Outlaw: the Ballad of Henry Starr

by Phil Truman

  Jake then offered introductions. “This here’s my wife Beulah and my daughters Lovely and Dandy.” Jake made a general gesture in their direction, leaving it to Henry to figure out who was who. Then Jake yanked a thumb toward Henry. “This here’s Zeke Proctor, a horse trader from Lubbock. He’ll be stayin’ for supper.” With that he held up the string of prairie dogs for his wife’s inspection.

  Frowning, Missus Blakey studied Henry and the prairie dogs, then said to Jake, “You git them dogs skint and gutted, then bring ’em to me, and I’ll fry ‘em up.”

  “Yes’m,” Jake said, and headed toward the grinding wheel next to the barn.

  Henry, still sitting astride his horse, watched Jake walk toward the barn, and then looked back at Beulah. They stared at one another, each sizing the other up. After a bit, Henry tipped his hat to her, and she nodded back. He turned the horse and trotted him to where Jake sat at the grinding wheel sharpening a knife.

  Henry dismounted and looked around. What he thought to be the church sat a hundred yards off from the house, the ruts of a dirt road winding off away from it. Except for the cupola with a small cross atop it, it didn’t look much different than the house or barn.

  “How’d you get to be a reverend all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?” Henry asked.

  “My daddy’s the one built that church yonder, me and my brothers helpin’. Took us better part of ten years, hauling lumber out here from Amarillo a little at a time. Daddy was part of Hood’s Texas boys at Sharpsburg. He told me the night after that battle, he was sittin’ in a ditch cryin’. Couldn’t stop hisself, he said. Around midnight, he said a voice come to him clear as day and said he needed to build a church. Daddy believed it were God, so he took it as a sign. He said he just got up and walked off from that place; walked all the way back to Texas. Decided he’d seen all the fightin’ and dyin’ he wanted to in his life, so he’d build that church God wanted. But t’other thing was, after warrin’, he wanted to git t’hell away from folks, so he hauled us—it was just my ma and me then—all the way up here from Fort Worth. I was jist a boy. This house and barn was already here. It were his uncle’s, he said, who’d died and give it to him.

  “Daddy weren’t a real reverend; jist called hisself that. After I got big enough to suit him, he laid hands on me and declared me a reverend, too. So I went along with it. I brung Beulah out here after the folks passed on. She were a pie-anna playin’ whore in Amarillo, but she seen the light and repented. She be a hard woman, though.”

  * * *

  “Now, which one are you, Lovely or Dandy?” Henry asked the little girl looking up at him as they sat at the table. He judged her to be the youngest. She was a sickly looking little thing, her big eyes dark and sunken in their boney sockets.

  “Dandy,” she answered.

  “Well, how’d you come by such a pretty name as that?”

  “I ‘ont know,” the girl said. She scrunched her brow and looked annoyed.

  “I give her that name,” Jake said looking at her and smiling. “One spring day Beulah was off down by the crik gatherin’ wild onions. I was in the field plowing, when I heared her start to screech like a chicken hawk. First thing I thought was she’d been bit by a cotton mouth, so I took off to git to her. I tell ya, runnin’s hard across a plowed field, but stumblin’ and fallin’ I eventually got there. When I did, there was Beulah layin’ in a field of dandelions holding that little baby girl on her lap. She come out almost as yaller as them flowers, so I named her Dandelion. We mostly just call her Dandy.”

  Henry smiled at frail little Dandy, but she looked back at him impassively. He turned to Lovely and said, “Then I guess you must’ve been born in a bed of rose petals.”

  Lovely smiled and started to giggle, but after looking at her mother, lowered her head and returned her gaze to the plate of fried prairie dog and collard greens in front of her.

  “You coming to the meetin’?” Beulah asked Henry. It sounded to him more like a demand than a question.

  “Reckon so, ain’t like I got far to ride to get there,” he said. Lovely and Jake were the only ones to laugh.

  The brothers arrived first just as Jake opened the doors and windows of the church. They rolled up single file in separate wagons. Twins Jonas and Eli pretty well matched Jake’s roundness of body. Jonas had six kids; Eli eight, ranging in age from sixteen to two. Before the wagons stopped the children spilled over the sides, and converged into a loud, rambunctious mob. Jake introduced Henry; the men greeted him with hearty handshakes, the wives with polite nods. Ten minutes after that, two more wagons trundled in from opposite directions. One brought Jake’s son Juney and young wife Ruth, who held an infant. A toddler of about three climbed down from the back of the wagon followed by a big wire-haired dog named Bob. In the other wagon came the hog farmer, Silas Warner, with a boy of about eighteen sitting beside him on the seat. Silas’s wife, Naomi, their two teenaged daughters, and a boy of about eight sat in the wagon bed. The Warners also brought a dog—a mostly hound-looking cur with only three and a half legs who they called Shorty.

  Twilight had begun and the moon rose full as all the flock filed into the little church where things started up without much preamble. Silas Warner walked to the front—where Jake already stood, rhythmically clapping his hands—and uncased a fiddle. Silas’s oldest boy Billy sidled up to his daddy cradling a banjo. The two faced each other twisting the knobs on the instruments while plunking various strings. Beulah waddled past Jake and sat on the small bench of an ancient upright piano up against one of the side walls. The others funneled into the few pews, all the time clapping along with Jake. A few began stomping a foot alternate to the claps.

  Beulah launched into a badly tuned, but upbeat and pounding rendition of “Standing on the Promises.” At the chorus measures the congregants joined in lustily, not missing a single clap or stomp. They sang the chorus over and over at least five or six times, as one or two individuals at each passing would give forth an impromptu shout out. “Jesus!” they would holler. “Jeee-zus! Oh, Jeeeee-zus!” When Beulah brought the hymn to an end with a hammered chord or two, and a running of her fingers up and down the keyboard, the churchgoers clapped and jumped and whooped with more praises to the heavens. Several of the smaller children had started crying, along with some of the women.

  Henry didn’t know quite what to make of all this, but he clapped in turn, positioning himself at the back of the pack. Thinking it was time to sit, he’d bent to do that when Silas and Billy broke into a churning hymn which aroused everyone again into clapping and hollering and jumping. Jake had started dancing back and forth by this time, singing out, “The Holy Ghost is got me! The Holy Ghost is got me!” The crowd acknowledged his possession, with more shouts and moans, urging him on. Beulah joined in at the piano following Silas and Billy’s lead. By then the dogs Shorty, Bob, and Roy had come into the church, running up and down the aisle barking to the Lord.

  This went on for two or three minutes before one of the women joined Jake in his dancing. She hopped on one foot and then the other, her head thrown back, eyes closed, arms stretched upward, skipping back and forth from one side wall to the other. Little Dandy started twirling through the room, arms held straight out. Juney’s wife Ruth, still holding the baby, bounced in place, her head lolling. Just before she collapsed onto the floor, one of the other women snatched the infant from its transfixed mother’s bosom.

  By this time several of the others, women and children and Eli, had joined in the dancing up front. Jonas had fallen down on all fours yipping like a coyote, and the dog Roy stopped by to join in with Jonas on the howling. In the meantime, the other dog, Bob, had attached himself to one of Jake’s legs and had commenced to humping it, while Shorty ran around whacking all the jumping and whirling kids with his right front stump.

  Henry stood there at the back of the church clapping and whooping and taking it all in. It was all he could do to keep from collapsing in laughter. Then all the commotion
stopped about as fast as it had begun. Jake kicked Bob loose from his leg and raised his arms. Silas and Billy ceased playing and Beulah followed on for about ten seconds before she stopped. The dancers and twirlers and howlers composed themselves and returned to the pews, giving occasional shout outs. The small hot room was awash with the smell of human sweat and musky dogs.

  Jake had closed his eyes and bowed his head. He clamped his hands together and held them out in front of him slightly raised. He was breathing hard and making weeping sounds. The group got quiet. Sweat ran in rivulets down his fat face.

  “Oh, Jesus, I’zuh sinner,” Jake rasped. There was some moaning and wailing from the crowd, and several acknowledged Jake’s testimony with amens. “I ain’t always done accordin’ to your Word, and I often use your name in vain. I done danced with wicked wimmin in my life, and I run with John Barleycorn. No, there ain’t no doubt about it, I be a goddam sinner. But they be hope fer me, ’cause I be washed in the blood. Yes, washed in the blood, halleluiah!”

  Jake paused to let the gathered interject as the Spirit moved them. Then he launched into an impassioned and rambling testimonial prayer, with members of the group occasionally adding their two cents. After two minutes, Henry lifted an eyelid to peek around at the congregants. They all stood with arms raised, their heads tilted heavenward, all eyes tightly shut, weaving, muttering. All, that is, except Dandy, who stood next to her sister in the second pew, somberly looking back at him. Henry smiled and winked at her, then closed his eyes again to wait out Jake’s prayer.

  At ten minutes, it didn’t appear Jake was anywhere near the end of his praying. In fact, he seemed to be building steam, and the congregation had begun to moan and weave with increasing vigor.

  Henry decided he’d had enough of the prayer meeting and moved quietly to exit out the back door. Sliding into the aisle, he saw Dandy still watching him. He put his right index finger to his lips, indicating that she should say nothing to alert the others. She gave no acknowledgement one way or the other, only looked back at him gravely.

  Henry slipped out the church door, and trotted to the barn. He quickly saddled and mounted the sorrel, trotting him by the front of the small church building. Looking in the row of windows, he could see all still swayed in a building frenzy to Jake’s continuing prayer. No one had apparently seen him slip away, except Dandy. It didn’t appear she’d mentioned it to anyone, or, if she had, they didn’t hear it, or didn’t care. He spurred the horse into a gallop, and rode off into the moonlit night, heading east.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The land turned softer the further east he went, and started to undulate. In some places a ridge would heave to a narrow palisade eroding off into a gentle grassy slope. Trees became more plentiful, too—scrub oaks and hackberry stood in small huddled groups across the grasslands with one or two set apart amongst them like outlying sentries. Sycamores and willows and elms gathered along the creek banks.

  On the second day Henry came upon a forlorn settlement of mud and stick huts and a few tepees covered with patched and rotting hides. As he rode into the village, he slowed the sorrel to a walk along the wide muddy path that served as the hamlet’s only street. Several scrawny dogs, standing close to dwellings, joined in a chorus of barking at his passage. Here and there inhabitants stuck their heads out of lodgings to see what was going on, or stopped their outside activity to turn and stare at the approaching stranger and his horse.

  These were Cheyenne, Henry surmised, believing he’d ridden inside their territory. But a sorrier lot he’d never seen. They looked beaten and starved. Just as they showed no defensive aggression in their demeanor as he approached, no welcome came, either. They watched him with sullen eyes sunk in hollow sockets.

  A thin old man with a tattered blanket wrapped around his shoulders, walked to the middle of the road and stopped to await Henry’s approach. He started speaking loudly when the horse came within twenty yards, waving and gesturing wildly with his free hand, holding the edges of the blanket to his chest with the other. He seemed excited and agitated, neither friendly nor angry, but Henry understood not a word he spoke. The man’s nearly toothless mouth spit out sounds like one of the barking dogs. Neither did he lower the volume of his voice as Henry rode up to him. The old man reached out a boney hand to touch the horse’s shoulder. Leaving it lay there, he bent and turned sideways to look toward the animal’s hind quarters, all the time talking non-stop in his near shouting voice.

  “Do you speak English, grandfather?” Henry asked, shouting down at him. The old man paused at Henry’s question, glancing up for a moment, his rheumy eyes meeting Henry’s briefly. Then he resumed his shouting in his native tongue, his attention back to examining the horse.

  A woman’s voice came from behind them. She said something loudly to the old man, yet in a gentle voice. She walked up, putting her hands on the old one’s shoulders and turned him to lead him away.

  “What’s he saying?” Henry asked.

  She looked up at Henry and said, “His old. Not see good. Not hear good. Not think good.”

  “Well, what does he want?” Henry said smiling. “What was it he said?”

  The woman pulled the old man closer to her. She struggled to speak in English. “Father once horse warrior. His fought many battles. Like see good horse.”

  Henry looked down at the old man and his daughter piteously, and nodded. The old man began his loud speaking again; the woman shushed him. “Does he want to ride my horse?” Henry asked.

  The woman looked at the ground, then back up at Henry, smiling. “No. His ask you to come feast tonight.”

  “A feast?” Henry looked around at the few gaunt faces looking back at him. “You’re having a feast tonight?”

  “No feast,” she said. “Father want you stay so we give feast.”

  Henry looked at the small loosely gathered crowd again, at all the hovels and destitution. It didn’t appear these people were in any position to throw a party. “Don’t mean no disrespect, sister, but how is it your daddy thinks we could have a feast?”

  The woman looked up at Henry, her smile still curving her lips, yet with a sardonic edge. “His want us cook your horse,” she said.

  Henry scanned the hungry faces of the people around him again. He straightened some in his saddle, suddenly a little uneasy. The sorrel moved back a step, snorting and bobbing his head as if sensing his rider’s uneasiness... and the crowd’s hunger. A soft ripple of laughter cut through them.

  She said to Henry, “Peoples hungry. Game here not much. But not be scare; we not cook your horse. You stay, eat rabbit.”

  Henry hesitated. The little crowd started to loosen, turning back to their endeavors. Presently, he said to the woman, “I could use a bite. Thank ya kindly for the invite.”

  The woman nodded and continued to lead the old man toward one of the huts. Henry, leading his horse, followed them, nervously looking back a couple times. They came to a fire pit beside the hut. A small animal lay skewered on a spit over the fire, presumably the lunch rabbit. A boy of about ten sat beside the low flames, upwind, jabbing a stick into the coals. He looked up at Henry, one eye milky, the other dull and liquid. A scar near the middle of his upper lip drew it upward in a permanent, humorless grin. The woman spoke to him softly, and he looked at her. Haltingly, he said something back, like a question. She answered him, and he looked again at the fire, poking at the coals angrily with the stick. He shot an angry glance toward Henry.

  The old man went to the ground slowly, sitting cross-legged next to the boy, and resumed his loud one-sided conversation. Henry sat on the ground across from the old man with the boy between them. The woman went into the hut and shortly reappeared with several small well-used wooden bowls. She removed the spit from the fire and began dismembering the cooked animal, placing pieces in the bowls. She handed Henry a bowl, one with twice as much meat as the others. The boy looked at Henry’s food with longing; the old man yammered on.

  Henry was famish
ed, but didn’t feel right about the portion given him. He reached out with the bowl, motioning for the boy to take some of the meat which he eagerly reached for; but the woman snapped something at the boy, and he pulled back his hand.

  Then to Henry, she said quietly, “His not eat more. You eat first.”

  “Well, I…” Henry hesitated, looking at the saddened boy, then the woman. He understood the woman’s reprimand, her pride. It would be an insult for their guest not to eat his fill. Even with their meager meal, he must be given the largest portion. He picked up one of the legs from his bowl and bit into it. He ate all the meat off the bone, gnawing it to the greasy gristle. He threw the leg bone to the cur tied up beside the hut, and sat the bowl on one of the fire stones nearest him.

  “Very good,” he said. “But I et right before I come into your camp.” He looked at the woman, then the boy. “Don’t believe I could eat another bite.”

  The boy looked at the woman, and she nodded. He grabbed Henry’s bowl and began devouring the remaining meat. The old man gnawed on his one piece of meat with his few remaining teeth, and talk on with his mouth full, spitting bits of chewed rabbit in Henry’s direction as he spoke.

  Henry watched the old man. “He still talking about my horse?” he asked the woman.

  “Some,” she answered. “His talk turns like wind. Comes, goes from many places.”

  She picked up a piece of leather and began working it. As Henry watched he could see she was forming a moccasin with it. He looked at the moccasins she wore, then the old man’s. He noticed the boy went barefoot.

  “You making moccasins for the boy?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Make for man in village. Trade for food.”

  Henry looked at the handiwork in her hand. “Fine work you done there. You ever sell these?”