by Tim Bryant
I would like to have buried everyone there in the perfect little spot by the river, but I had to follow. The Indians couldn’t be far away. If they had Greer, and they didn’t know I was behind them, I might be the best real chance for her rescue. And now that I had Long Gun’s Whitworth, I might be able to do something.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Gentleman Jack was slick as otter snot, to borrow words from one of the Fort Griffin soldiers. A plan developed in his mind somewhere along the way, or maybe it had been there from the very beginning. We arrived at the town center on a Friday morning at ten, just as we had agreed. If we hadn’t, he had announced that he was fully prepared to put a bounty on my head and wait for the townspeople to do his dirty work. Madam Pearlie, meanwhile, heard that he’d done something similar in a town somewhere in Louisiana, and the people had torn the man limb from limb to get a piece of the reward. I felt like, with Reverend Caliber behind me, I had a better shot.
I had a dream the night before, locked inside my closet of a room off the bar in the Black Elephant. I was back on the clearing by the creek, and there were now rows and rows of tents. It was night out, but the stars were shining and the tents seemed to glow from within, like there were lanterns inside them. I walked up and down the rows, my shoes sticking in the mud, and searched the silhouettes, looking for one.
“I know she’s here somewhere,” I said. “I have to find her.”
A figure was walking along behind me, more out of duty than interest. He sighed and hugged himself, hoping each row would be the last, that I would either find this person or give up.
The sound of a reveille bugle call pierced the quiet of the night, and I turned. Lieutenant Hanley, his face suddenly plain to see in my sight, scowled.
“It’s time to go, Wilkie John.”
I turned to take one last look, hoping to find something. I woke up, and in that split moment between sleep and wakefulness, between forgetting what you were dreaming and understanding, I knew. I knew exactly what I had been looking for.
“Wilkie? Are you in there?”
It was Reverend Caliber, calling out from the other side of the door.
“I’m right here,” I said.
I pulled myself up and into a seated position and grabbed for my shirt sleeves.
“It’s time to go.”
And so it was. Now we were standing behind the gallows platform in the middle of Fort Worth. A crowd was beginning to gather and ask questions.
“Is that the guy you’re hanging?”
“What did he do? Is he an outlaw?”
I sat there and thought up answers and didn’t say anything. Was I an outlaw? I didn’t know any outlaws. To me, that meant horse thieves and train robbers. An entirely different breed. They had no principles. They did what they did for money. Even when I killed the storekeeper, Tubbs, I hadn’t cleaned out his money box or even his pockets. I took some ammunition because I needed it.
No, I wasn’t an outlaw. I hadn’t killed eight hundred head of cattle. I hadn’t killed a single soul in Wichita Falls. I was an innocent man, far as I could see. I would tell the truth and everyone would see it. I was not going to hang.
“You’re going to hang, mister.”
A little boy walked as close as he could and still hold on to his father’s finger. The father looked first at his kid and then at me, smiled and nodded his head. They were there early. They would get a place right down at the front.
I was surprised by who I saw. Pretty ladies in soft blue and white dresses. Farmers bringing summer crops in and waiting around for a story to take back. A coach driver killing time before he headed out of town. Every ten minutes the crowd would double. At 11:30, a man climbed the steps to the top of the gallows and led a portion of the crowd through the valley of the shadow of disinterest known to more humble men as the Lord’s Prayer. They weren’t interested in it. I carefully recounted the steps from the bottom up, and then back down again, hoping I’d missed one last time I’d looked, but to no avail. There were still thirteen steps in all. I started to really worry.
At 11:45, I spotted Sunny in the crowd. Like her name, she was a bright spot in a sea of muddy brown and black, the red in her hair looking almost like flames. A fiery angel standing on the edge of the scene, taking it in but not participating. She didn’t want to be there, but she wanted me to know she was.
At 11:50, Gentleman Jack showed up with Simeon Payne in tow. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I don’t know why. I knew Payne had been located in Wichita Falls. He was low enough to do just about anything for money, and I was sure Jack had paid him for his services. I just wondered what he was prepared to say. Having anybody there at the trial to support the prosecution was bad news.
“Can I have anyone to defend me?” I said.
Caliber looked offended.
“I’m not here to lead the prayers, my boy,” he said. “Speak the truth, the truth will defend you.”
I’d heard tell it would set me free as well. I was only hoping it wouldn’t mind if I let a few details slide a little.
By 11:55, the street in front of the gallows was full. The largest crowd I’d ever seen, including a pretty big one on the first night of the carnival in Mobeetie. It reminded me more of the eight hundred head of cattle when the drive into hell had begun. Only this time, the cattle were looking for blood.
At 11:55, Reverend Caliber asked if we could go ahead and have a moment of prayer anyway.
“I don’t expect it’ll hurt none,” he said.
With me and Pearlie in general agreement, I lowered my head and shut my eyes, and the reverend strung together some pretty words, some of which I didn’t quite follow. I could feel eyes on me, and something about hanging my head made me feel guilty so I put a quick end to it and looked at Sunny instead. Then Gentleman Jack came over and said he was going to climb the thirteen steps and make a statement.
Through the whole process, I managed to keep a level head. I had been in trouble before, I’d gotten myself out of it. I had a knack for letting bad news and trouble float along in the back of my mind and not get to me. It was more of the same until it was time for me to climb those damn stairs. The first step was a little higher than I thought. I caught my foot and pitched forward, barely catching myself before I fell face-first into the rough wood.
“He’s about to soil his trousers,” somebody yelled from the crowd. Laughter rose overhead and scattered like birds. My knees grew unsure of themselves. I wanted to sit down. I wanted to run. I wanted my Sidehammer. It had been taken away by Gentleman Jack, and I knew I wasn’t getting it back. I’d seen the gleam in his eye, and I knew exactly what it meant.
I turned to the Reverend, my thoughts made clear and grim in the moment.
“Don’t bury me in no coffin,” I said. “I don’t like small spaces.”
Caliber smiled but said nothing. When I got to the top of the gallows, I looked across the crowd. All eyes were on me. I remembered something Greer Lusk said when we were talking one night in The Flat, due north of Fort Griffin but not to Mobeetie. We were talking about how big the world was, and how we were free to go anywhere we could imagine. I think Greer was starting to feel homesick. Maybe she just wanted to remind herself that she could—that we could—go back to the River Clyde. I wanted to go anywhere but back to where I’d come from.
“Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said the world is a stage, Wilkie,” she said. “It’s your stage to do what you will.”
Now, standing on the gallows in Fort Worth, Texas, next to a New Orleans–born bounty hunter with a strong desire to see me hang, I wanted to shoot Shakespeare for ever saying such a thing. Gentleman Jack was at home up there, using every square inch of it. For me, it was starting to feel suffocatingly small. Still, I knew I would have to put on the performance of a lifetime if I didn’t want to leave by way of the swinging door in the gallows floor.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I caught up with a small group of Blackfoot Indians
not an hour outside of Buffalo Gap. I kept a good distance and watched until I was fairly sure the rest of them had split off and dispersed for good. There was a leader riding in front of the party, wearing a Mexican hat and a blue coat that looked like a soldier’s uniform. There was a second horse riding close behind and a body astride it, a blanket draped over it. I couldn’t make out much else, but I was confident I had found Greer. Behind them rode a handful of others, probably as protection.
I had learned enough about Blackfoots to know they would steer clear of Buffalo Gap unless they were prepared for all-out war. I also knew they were known to camp out south of Buffalo Gap where the Concho met the Colorado. I wasn’t surprised when they took a turn, and I was able to make up some time. By the time they hit the Colorado, I was a step ahead of them, traveling to their west but in a parallel line. If they were planning to stop at the Concho, I would be in a prime position to attack.
Riding along, just Roman and me, I had plenty of time to plan, analyze, and re-plan. I wasn’t dumb enough to think I stood a chance against the whole group. Blackfoot were brutal and ready to fight to the death at a moment’s notice. I would have to surprise them, outsmart them.
As much as I didn’t want to think about it, I knew Greer Lusk was a trophy. The Blackfoot leader would take her as a partner, probably one of several. If I could be patient, I would find the two of them alone. That would be my only fair shot.
They stopped and cooked some kind of meat they were carrying. I ate nothing that first night. I couldn’t afford to divide my attention and energy. I would find an opportunity to go in and rescue Greer, I thought, and I almost went a couple of times when the leader sat alone next to her, the nearest other Indian fifty yards away.
It appeared that he was talking to her, and I wondered if there was any common language they could find. I knew what he was wanting from Greer, and I could only imagine what she was thinking, having just seen her entire party attacked, scalped, and left for dead. Nothing happened that night on either side of Concho, but I watched and planned and, by sunrise, I’d developed a brash and somewhat reckless plan. With nothing to do but await the second night, hoping that they wouldn’t pull up and move farther south, I retreated to a well-covered area and slept the hottest part of the day away.
Another night passed with me watching from a tree-lined hillside on the north bank of the Concho River. An hour before daylight on the second day, I took a scrap of paper from my saddlebag and carefully handprinted: lead him from the rest of the camp when it gets dark.
I took the message and the Sidehammer—I didn’t dare bring Long Gun’s rifle on this escapade—and carefully circled the Blackfoot camp, quietly sneaking in from the back side, where the foliage along the river would give me cover until I was just a few feet from Greer. That gave me just enough time to quickly press the folded message into her hand.
I contemplated taking her then and there. I wanted to, but I knew my chances weren’t good enough. I would’ve been forced to run toward the Colorado, which meant either crossing it or following it south. Neither option was good. I would take my time and deliver justice before I took her away from her captor.
I watched closely that morning for a sign that Greer got the message and understood what was happening. Sitting in the quiet and feeling the thumping against my chest again, so strong and hard that I could count the heartbeats, I knew I had to make a move either way. While leaving the camp, after leaving the message tucked against her palm, I had attracted the attention of one of the Indians upriver. He had come down and investigated the area where I made my entrance and exit, following it back through the undergrowth to the edge of the river. By the time I moved back into a safe position, he was standing in the middle of the camp, looking around and listening for trouble. A few minutes later, a snake wriggled from under a bush and slid into the lake. I couldn’t see it in the water, but the Blackfoot fired several times at it and woke everyone around him. If I hadn’t seen what these same people had done to the Lusk family and their escorts, I would have thought them somewhat wanting in comparison to their reputation.
That day may have been the longest of my sixteen-year-old life. I watched the Blackfoot eat lunch, and I ate the fruit from a patch of prickly pear cactus, as I had been shown by the soldiers at Fort Griffin. Just an hour later, the Blackfoot started loading up. They were moving out.
We followed the Colorado back north for a bit, then turned west toward Amarillo. I took it as a good sign. They weren’t going toward Fort Griffin where there would certainly be a price on my head. Finally, I might run into Ira Lee and set up that cattle drive. I was feeling good enough about things that I decided to hang back a bit and wait for a better shot at rescuing Greer.
The Blackfoot leader was in his usual forward position, Greer hanging back with the one I recognized from when I’d snuck the note to their prisoner. That now seemed long ago. A wasted opportunity maybe. I followed on, and began to feel too confident.
“Mobeetie?”
Roman jumped sideways. I looked up and one of the Blackfoot, a boy in a yellow jacket, not much older than me, stood in front of us.
“Mobeetie?” I said.
Far as I knew, he was speaking Blackfoot. I knew nothing in Blackfoot. Eeya and deeya meant nothing to the boy.
“Mobeetie,” the Indian said.
He pointed ahead to his party in the distance. I nodded at them. Greer never looked up. I don’t think she had a clue I was there. I was there and she was not. The boy in yellow said something else in Blackfoot and the six or seven of them all parted, pulling their horses to the side. And they waited.
“You want me to go?” I said.
They looked at me. Finally, a Scottish lilt rose up.
“Sir, I believe they want you to ride into town ahead of them. Blackfoot Indians aren’t always welcome around here on their own. I’m a woman so I don’t count.”
I felt shaky inside. Why, I don’t know. My mind was racing, and maybe I was struggling to follow it. Part of me figured I could bring the rifle up and pick a few of them off. It still wasn’t good enough. I took a deep breath and rode through the group, managing to tip my hat at Greer as I passed. Anyone might have thought I was thanking her for translating. I did wonder how she had done it.
“Nice to hear such a beautiful voice,” I said.
I passed through to the front of the line and continued up the trail, the Blackfoot leader riding alongside me. Did he know who I was? One of us was riding into a trap. I couldn’t say for sure who.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Ladies and gentlemen, good citizens of Fort Worth, and all Texans from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, from the Red River to the Gulf of Mexico,” Gentleman Jack said, “today we are here to serve justice to a young man whose path of destruction, fortunately or unfortunately, led him into this great city. It’s unfortunate for him but fortunate for us, because we have the power to put an end to his trail of death today. A trail of death that will only end with his own.”
A cheer arose from the crowd. It was as though they were here to see a piece of theater. Maybe Jack and Shakespeare were right.
“I will show you how this mean and foolish young man, this man with no principles and no love for anyone but himself, came to be responsible for the deaths of sixty-five men, women, and children between Mobeetie and Fort Worth. I will show you how he is responsible for the loss of eight hundred head of cattle. Cattle that he was responsible for driving to Kansas. And I will call upon the expert testimony of his good friend and fellow cattle driver Simeon Payne to show you that this man has more blood on his hands and is responsible for more deaths than any Texan who ever lived.”
I was brought up to the edge of the platform, where I was turned this way and then that, so every person there could get a good hard look at the terrible monster. After Jack was sure they’d got their fill of me, he grabbed me by the arm and marched me back to my place at centerstage. He stopped me one step shy of the trapdoor, which was p
ainted black and adorned with the words Proverbs 6:12–19 scrawled on it.
Gentleman Jack motioned to Reverend Caliber that he was free to speak. Caliber walked up next to me, pulled a Bible out like he was pulling a gun, and held it up. I hoped he was about to explain what this sixth Proverb was all about.
“The Lord says vengeance belongs to him and him alone, my friends” he said. “I am here today to warn you. This young boy you see here is not guilty. You will hear a lot of words today. Some of them will be his personal story, the journey he’s taken to our city. A journey which, you will learn, is filled with good luck and bad luck. Is he innocent? None of us are. We’ve all seen too much, we know too much to be called innocent. But he is not guilty of the terrible deeds he’s been accused of. And if he dies here today, his blood will run through your streets. It will not wash away, and it will save no one. This boy’s blood will be on your hands, Fort Worth.”
Gentleman Jack stepped up from behind me and tapped Caliber on the shoulder. Caliber turned to him and held the Bible up to his face in a fashion that brought a murmur through the crowd. I thought I saw a scowl cross Jack’s face. Caliber, satisfied, brought the book down and stepped back. Jack sidestepped over to me and put his arm around me. He may have been hoping to portray a kindness, a fatherliness even. It felt like a spider wrapping up a wasp.
“Son, is your name Wilkie John Liquorman?”
I refused to answer. I stood there and, as the people began to shout out, pretended they were meant for Jack.
“Is your name Wilkie John?” he said.
My body felt as if I was already hanging. I couldn’t suck enough air into my lungs.
“Yes.”
He could barely hear me, and he was standing next to me.
“Can you repeat yourself and speak up, please?”
I launched a shout from the stage. It came out small and shaky.
