Wild Boys: Six Shooters and Fangs

by catt dahman

  “I needed to do some things on my own." Ford caught Paris' eyes. "Surely you can imagine that."

  "I can.”

  "What about you and Frannie?”

  With his voice expressionless, Paris outlined all that had happened, referring to the baby as his own and letting them think Frannie had been a true wife to him.

  Nate Newcomb whistled. "Fallon, marrying will ruin your reputation. Good thing Tell and I never settled down.”

  Paris smiled a little. Then said, "We hear Doc Holliday is in Tombstone, any truth to it?"

  "That’s supposed to be the truth."

  “Well then I ‘spect Frannie will go out there. I know with her stubborn streak she’ll be where she don’t need to be," Paris said. Then he tilted his head. “You fellows sure are well mounted."

  “Tracking some rough men, I don’t suppose you have the time to throw in?” Newcomb’s words were casual, but there was something in his tone.

  “We were on our own trail,” Tell said.

  Newcomb lit a pipe. “Well then you've your own worries. I guess you have a lot of ground to cover."

  Tell nodded. “Yep, Nate, I ain't never known you to mince words; what's on your mind? Why don't you think you can handle these fellows you're tracking?" Newcomb's men looked to be tough.

  "We could use veteran trackers."

  “How many men you trying to bring in?”

  Newcomb grimaced. "Five.”

  "Seems the eight of you could bring them in; you look formidable.”

  "Normally."

  Tell huffed loudly. "Nate, what is this about? If you need us, we'll throw in, but you gotta level with us."

  "This has to do with your cousins Tom and Belle Starr," Nate told Tell.

  "That hell cat bitch." Tell's uncle had adopted Tom which had been a mistake since the boy was Cherokee with a desire for mayhem. Early on, Tom joined a gang that took pleasure in robbing and burning families, and when a posse of men came for revenge on Tom, they didn't get him but instead, got his adoptive parents and brother. To avenge the brutal murders, Tom hunted down all twenty-eight members of the posse and killed them with equal brutality.

  One of Tom’s henchmen was Jim Reed who took up with Myra Belle Shirley, a coarse-faced woman who had once been the lover of Cole Younger when he was robbing banks with Jesse James. She had even bore Younger's child.

  She had helped Jim Reed and the men torture a prospector to death to learn where he had hidden thirty thousand dollars worth of gold; then, Reed was shot by a man hidden in the shadows, a man whom Tell knew well.

  Myra Belle didn't miss a beat but promptly married Tom Starr’s son, Sam Starr while at the same time taking as a lover the infamous outlaw, Blue Duck.

  “What have they done?” Tell asked.“Robbing, killing, torturing, the usual.”

  Paris' eyes narrowed with his own memories. "Animals...worse than animals."

  "Yep."

  “I ‘spect you intend to kill them?” Paris asked.

  Ford's head jerked up. “We’re gonna take them in for trial.”

  “I’m of the belief that some men don’t need trials; they gave up their right to justice when they failed to be human.”

  Benjy Quick one of Nate’s men spoke up, "What I've seen that those men have done, it’s enough to make me want to turn tail and run, but it was my neighbors that they killed. It was a mother and father, little boys, three little girls, golden-haired.” His voice broke, "They skinned them alive, nailed the parents to trees like crucifying them, and used railroad nails to do it. God, but they peeled those little children like fruit, took a long time, and then, they burned them alive. Those men, they enjoyed that pain and fear, drank it up like the sweetest of water.” He rubbed his eyes.

  Tell and the rest traded glances. Might be some vampyres.

  At first, no one spoke.

  Benjy Quick looked back up and finished his story. “The wife didn't die at firstly. She was still alive, all burned black and twisted up. We heard this terrible noise coming outta that mess and realized that it was the wife. She crackled when we touched her. Then, finally, she was gone.” He stared at the sky.

  "God A'mighty," Tell whispered.

  "We'll ride with you," Paris said lowly, "and do not tell me again that you intend to take those bastards to trial. You with us, Coy?”

  “I sure am.”

  “There’s a fifth man.”

  Tell could see that something was going on. “Who is the fifth man, Ford?”

  “They’re saying that Patrick is the fifth man,” Ford said.

  “Your brother?”

  Nate broke in, "We have witnesses that put Patrick Masterson there.”

  “It ain’t him, you’ll see,” Ford said stubbornly.

  “Why are you in the posse?” Tell asked with his head cocked to one side.

  “He thinks that'll keep us from killing his brother,” Paris pointed out.

  “I'd like him to get a trial if he is with them.”

  “Boy, if he’s with that crew, he’s gonna go down fighting. He ain't gonna come in peaceful for a trial,” Tell said honestly, but not unkindly.

  Paris raised an eyebrow. “Ford, I don’t want you in this posse if you plan to get in the way of justice. I’d hate to have to kill two of Frannie’s brothers.”

  Ford adjusted his bedroll. He knew that Paris wasn’t threatening him but just being honest. "I'll do what's right."

  “He will," Tell declared.

  “Ford, what happened in Dallas? Last we heard Doc and your father went out there to get him outta jail.”

  Ford nodded at Paris. “Brodie Marren had him in jail. We had been in Dallas, and Patrick was drunk. He got rough with a whore and pushed her down on the floor. She jumped up and got all over him like a cat, and he pushed her off of him, and she fell down the staircase, looked like a broken doll. Marren arrested us both. We were in separate cells. Patrick was with this big son of a bitch whom later we tracked down and killed, I might add, but in that cell, that man…Patrick never begged for a thing in his life, but that big bastard beat Patrick bad, and then I could hear my brother beggin' and that bastard boogered Patrick."

  "Marren had to have known."

  He grimaced. “He told Patrick that he was the whore now. Patrick never talked about it.”

  “He couldn't, son," Tell said calmly, “it was more than a physical pain.”

  “When Doc got there, he told Marren that he could also bring in you, Tell, and Paris, the Earp brothers, cousin Bat, and all kinds of other people. Marren got real cooperative then."

  Nate laughed. “I'll bet’"

  Ford laughed and then grew serious again. "So when it was all said and done, Patrick went after the guy and castrated him before he killed him. That wasn't enough. Patrick just wasn't the same anymore; it was like he was where we couldn't reach him."

  "When you hurt bad enough, you go deep within yourself because it's safe there; no one can reach you," Paris said, and some of the men, including Tell, nodded thoughtfully.

  "I wanted to bring Patrick back to the ranch; then, I met up with these men, and they had accusations against my brother."

  "I've known Nate a while now,” Tell said, “and he don't accuse nobody without being sure ‘cause accusing men is sometimes as good as putting the bullet in him yourself."

  "Well, we best be gettin' after those boys," Nate announced.

  "How far are we behind them?"

  Nate frowned with a shrug. "About a day."

  "Ummm." Tell mused. He was known for his tracking and could usually tell within minutes how close he was to a quarry. "We'd better git then; I'd hate them to do any damage while we're here jawin’.'

  Paris's eyes held the killer-hunter glimmer that his friends knew.

  “These men are deadlier than rattlers in your bedroll,” Tell said, "and they like to sink their fangs in." He made snake teeth of his fingers and jabbed them in the air dramatically. "Boys, let's go on a snake hunt."

  F
ord watched both Tell and Paris a lot as they rode. Tell was verbose while Paris was silent, and Tell pointed things out while Paris remained quiet although Ford was of a mind that Paris never missed the slightest things.

  Tell taught Ford to track as they rode, but Ford didn't think he’d ever get it all; Tell was the best Ford had ever known even if he deferred to Coy Willis as a better tracker.

  Tell knew that Ford was learning, but there were things he couldn’t teach the young man like which way to turn his heart. Life gave its own lessons, and what a man was made of determined which way he would go. The stronger the man, the more he was likely to be bent. Some men went bitter like Patrick, some went cocky like Wyatt Earp, or good like Bat Masterson or vengeful like Paris.

  “I’ve never ridden in a posse,” Ford mentioned to Tell.

  “Not a lot to it. I track them, and then we get a plan, and we go in and get them.”

  “Kill them?”

  “Sometimes.” Tell was honest.

  “Are these men dumb or crazy or smart?” Ford asked.

  Tell was studying tracks. "Stupid for riding with Tom Starr is my opinion. You gotta be evil to ride with him, and I believe some men are so evil that they ride hand in hoof with a demon. These men, they're mean, black hearted, and eaten up with the devil's seed. And they're smart.”

  Paris heard, and he looked up a little uneasily; it wasn’t like Tell to talk like that.

  “You’ve been watching me track. Is that Patrick’s horse's print?” Tell asked Ford what he already knew.

  “I don't know."

  “Don't bull-shit me, boy. It puts me in a bad humor. You know his print. Is that it?”

  Ford looked miserable. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Maybe he ain't the one doin” the actual torturing, boy, but he’s standing right there when it's done.”

  Ford nodded. “I guess so, but he isn't like that.”

  “He ain’t the brother you used to know. Life’s done bent him a direction you don't want to look in. He is doin' what he wants and ain't no one making him ride with them. I can read signs.”

  “He wouldn't hurt me.” Doubt clouded his voice.

  “Boy, you are naive. He rides with blood- thirsty man killers. If you take him back for a trial, he'll swing either by a judge or a lynch mob." Tell was blunt.

  “I guess.”

  “He don’t aim to go back, so you be careful not to get killed, trying to take him alive. Don’t be a fool.”

  Ford looked over at Tell and asked, “You ever worry about getting killed?”

  “I’ve had a fear before; you can't be a Ranger and a lawman without getting a scare now and then, but your life is over when it ends. You don’t get one more second than your allotment."

  “I don’t want to die.”

  Tell nodded. “Well, I don’t either; that's why you don't do foolish things; you have to keep a clear head. You know I always had a hankerin' to see the ocean. That's a lot of salt water.”

  Ford didn’t quite get the change of topic.

  Tell told the others, “Paris and I can go on ahead and take all them bandits if you boys would like; we're just lettin’ you fellows go along for the ride."

  “Could you two take them alone?” Ford asked.

  "Oh, I’d like to have Doc along, but we could do it.”

  Nate looked worried. "Is it gonna be that bad, Tell?”

  “I reckon so.”

  Nothing else was said, but the unease built.

  The next day right at dawn, Paris raised squinted eyes to the sky then back to Tell. “We’re being watched.”

  The men looked around nervously, but Tell chuckled. “They ain't that close…up in them hills.”

  “I can't see anyone.”

  "No one to see…a flash of light.”

  Ford frowned and asked, “Do we go up there?'

  “No, they'd pick us off like crows. They're up there counting us, seeing if they know us.”

  Tell led them around the hills and along a good-sized creek. Five horses had watered there and then gone away. Tell studied the prints and looked back up uneasily. Paris caught his eyes. “What are they doing?”

  TelI shook his head and stared into space. “I don’t know.” He’d never said that before. “They are going to try something. They want to throw us off the track.” Blue Duck was not such a fearsome man but a sneak who robbed and shot when people weren’t looking. He was about opportunity. But being the slick outlaw, he was one of the best at evading posses and trackers, having learned from the Cherokee tribe, or so he claimed; some thought his tales of being a half-breed were false.

  Paris pointed out one of the prints. “Splittin’ up, aren’t they?”

  Tell cursed angrily. Blue Duck was the master at throwing off a tracker, and he’d undoubtedly taught this group well. “Could be they've doubled back on us. Hell, I ain't sure.” He walked back and forth, knelt several times, looked all around, and then stared off into space again. “We’ll leave some men here and go on ahead, damned if I know this trick.” He was visibly worried.

  They left Benjy Quick, Hank Odom, and Ned Barrow at the creek’s edge with a warning to fire shots if they heard or saw anything. Tell’s uneasiness made the rest of the crew anxious. Tell kept glancing at Paris to see if the other man was picking up on anything, but Paris only shrugged; it felt wrong.

  "What if I'm wrong; what if these are the cleverest men we’ve ever gone against?" Tell asked.

  “Ain't seen a thing to indicate that yet,” Paris argued.

  Finally, Tell stopped again. The ground was rocky, and he couldn't see what the men had done or where they had gone. He motioned the others to stay back, and then he rode ahead a little, weaving from side to side of the creek slowly, then very quickly.

  All at once, he whirled his mount around, eyes wide, and raced back. “God A'mighty, they've split and have come back together and circled back on us.”

  They looked back to the empty trail behind them. Paris's calm face went suddenly tense. “Shit.”

  “Doubled back on the men we left?” Nate looked confused.

  Before anyone could reply, they heard gunshots. "Stay behind us with an eye on our backs; damnit, let's ride." Paris spurred Bic hard, and the big paint leaped into a dead run.

  Ford, with his heart pounding furiously, kept a watch on their backs as he tried to keep up with Tell and Paris and their thundering horses. All at once, Tell motioned them to stop. The older man sniffed at the air, cocking his head. “Sometimes you find you ain't as good as you think; I have to take the fault for this; I made a mistake.”

  Paris took charge. "I’m goin' in slow, Tell, you skirt around, and the rest of you come in slow behind me.”

  Tell paused. “Ford, when the wind blows hard, there are the trees that bend and twist with it, and there are the trees that fight to stay upright; they stand straight against the wind, and they break off.” he winked. “Life is that wind. You bend, or you break; don't let life break you.” He looked at Paris and said, “Let’s go.”

  Paris waited for seconds that dragged like hours, alert for any sound; then, he rode in on Bic, letting the gelding fly in wildly with his head held high. Tell and Paris yelled as they came in from two sides, hoping the shouts scared the men into freezing.

  There wasn't anything to see at first, certainly not the men they sought, and just the horses belonging to the three men they had left behind. Paris and Tell dismounted to walk slowly over to mounds that Ford couldn't identify at first, red, shining things that smelled coppery and of feces.

  Ford got to the ground, moved closer, and then moved and saw that those messy mounds had once been men whom he had ridden with. Ford's eyes bulged as he stumbled backwards and went sprawling on his tailbone. His stomach emptied as he vomited up everything in his belly.

  “Them was men.” Nate Newcomb was pale.

  “Skinned them,” Paris said as he grimaced. “Then those bastards fired those shots to bring us back to see their handiwork. I ain't
ever knowed the likes of men like this. Blue Duck outdone himself.”

  Ford wiped his mouth, looked up in shame.

  “It’s a bad thing to see,” Tell told him, “I ain't seen this either, not even from the Apache or Sioux.” He began digging graves and hardly noticed when the others joined in to help. “Ain’t no shame in feeling a might sick, Ford. It’s a hard thing to see a man and then see him skinned.”

  Paris heaved a rock on a grave. “You always bury your own; it helps some.”

  “God, we left ’em here to be slaughtered.”

  “We didn't know,” Tell pointed out, “and you know like I do, that blame ain't there to be doled out.”

  They remounted as a somber group. Paris’s face was cold. “Don’t mention a trial again. These sons of bitches have given up their rights, and I intend to kill them, so if any of you can't handle yourselves, drop out now. I can't watch over you, and I can’t watch your backs all the time. If you're afraid of being skinned, go on; there ain't no shame in dropping out.”

  Ford asked Tell, “Isn’t he worried about being skinned?”

  “Paris? Hell, Ford, the way he handles a knife, I ‘spect he'll be the one skinning them.” Tell wasn't kidding,

  "Patrick didn't do that; he didn't get off his horse. I saw the prints.”

  Tell squinted. “I read the tracks. He didn't do it, but he stood by.”

  “I couldn’t have watched. How could he watch that?”

  “I don't know, son. But you can't stand by and allow any more deaths.” Tell slapped his horse, and dust billowed behind them as they rode out.

  Like it was yesterday, Paris Fallon remembered having to grow up fast, having to face all the hard lessons that life had wickedly thrown his ways. Once, Ford had been a passive young man with laughing eyes and with strong beliefs in his brother, but that was gone. No longer did he endlessly question Tell and Paris; gone was the puppyish enthusiasm; it had been replaced by a silence that Paris knew well.

  Ford rode quietly, hardened by cruelties that he hadn't suspected even existed, and that all seemed to hinge around his brother. His innocence had been left back at the graves of the skinned men.

  They rode through the Guadalupe Mountains and into El Paso where the gang had stopped to play poker. The harsh wind blew unmercifully, taking away sounds, making dust sting their faces. Everything in the dry area either stung, bit, burned, or stuck. Paris and Tell kept bandanas over their mouths, their eyes in slits; their coats were buttoned up high.