by J. Lee Butts
Anyhow, in spite of the sunporch’s natural warmth, just snatching a sidewise gander at the kid now and again made a cold, creepy river of chicken flesh run up and down my sweaty back. Ocean of long-smothered memories flooded back into my near calcified brain—memories of blood, betrayal, and death.
Finally, I kind of wiggled a finger at Turberville and said, “You got any relatives from over ’round Fort Smith, son?”
Kid shook his head and looked puzzled. “Not that I’m aware of, Mr. Tilden. Nope. Can’t think of any.”
“Maybe some folks who settled over ’round Vinita, Oklahoma, ’fore it became a state, or maybe down ’round Fort Worth, Texas?” Had suddenly remembered as how John Henry was rumored to have kept time with an Indian gal before he went and got involved with that witchy woman from Fort Smith. Same one as caused all of us so much heartbreak and death.
Turberville rubbed his neck, shook a shaggy head like a big ole dog with a flea in its ear, then said, “No, sir. Don’t think so.”
“Ain’t got no kin with the last name of Slate, or maybe Henry, by any chance?”
“No, sir. That’s all new to me. You think I might look like someone by that name, huh?”
Stared at the boy like one of them biology fellers what studies bugs they’ve pinned to a piece of cork in the bottom of a glass-topped box. Discombobulated me so much I hopped up—quick as a man of my advanced age can hop—and dumped Black Jack onto the floor. He yowled his displeasure at being so rudely treated, then reached over and swatted my leg to let me know he didn’t like it one little bit. Started shuffling toward the hallway and the hoped-for safety of my room. Cat scampered along behind.
Heard Turberville call out, “What’s your hurry, Mr. Tilden? Nurse McDonald mentioned as how you were once some kinda famous lawman who worked for that judge that hanged so many men up in Fort Smith—think his name was Parker.”
Glanced back his way and muttered, “Yeah, Judge Isaac C. Parker. Helluva man.”
Damn near yelling when he continued with, “Heddy says somebody’s written articles ’bout you that appeared in the Arkansas Gazette, and maybe even a book or two. Thought you might regale an interested party with some of your old horse-manure-and-gun-smoke stories ’bout huntin’ for bad-men over in the Nations. Bet you could tell some mighty tall tales. Come on back.”
Threw a wave over my shoulder and muttered, “Maybe later, sonny. Got somethin’ I’ve gotta do right now. Catch me some other time.” Under my breath I added, “Maybe in a year or two, you spooky sonuvabitch.”
Trundled on down past the nurses’ station, along the hallway of the building’s north wing, and finally made it to my room. Pushed my door open so Black Jack could get in ahead of me. Shot a suspicious glance back down the hallway toward the sunporch just to make sure no one had followed. Slipped inside. ’Course I couldn’t lock my door. Ain’t no damned locks on the doors of this depot for used-up people.
Flopped into the overstuffed, tack-decorated, Moroccan leather recliner I have setting next to my window. Fell into those welcoming cushions like a man on his last, trembling leg. Have a right nice view out that window—better than the one from the sunporch.
See for miles in either direction along the Arkansas River. Sunsets are damned glorious most evenings. Settled my gaze on the spot where I’d cruised out on a paddle wheeler and tossed Carl’s ashes to God when he passed away couple a years ago.
Pisses me off no end that I can’t smoke in my room. Chief Nurse Leona Wildbank’s always prowling around looking for some reason to pounce on rule-breaking ole scoundrels like me. Sneaky moose of a woman likes to confiscate our cigars, cigarettes, cut-plug tobacco, and such. Make us toe the line like a bunch of antique criminals, wet-nosed little kids, or something worse.
She’ll take a man’s liquor, too, if she can sniff it out. Well, by God, that’s just intolerable. Can’t be having such impertinence from a meddling female. So, I figured out how to keep a half-pint bottle of bonded jig juice hid ’neath the padding in the leg rest that pops up when you pull on the little wooden lever on the side of my recliner.
Got another beaker hid in the base of a big ole lamp atop my chest of drawers. Then there’s a third bottle—the one stashed up behind a loose ceiling panel. Kinda dangerous trying to stand on the bed to retrieve that particular jug, but, hell, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And, oh, yeah, there’s a twenty-year-old treasure taped to the back of the mirror on my dresser. Figure if I’ve got three or four different spares squirreled away here and there, meddling woman surely won’t be able to find all of them at the same time.
Even if by some oddity of chance she does, I can always sneak out to the front desk and dial up Lightfoot. Put in a request for whatever brand of coffin paint he can get his hooks on.
May take a day or two, but my scribbling buddy can slide by on the pretext of another interview, first chance he gets, and slip me a fresh flask. Hell, a man needs a nip now and again. Opens up your brain cells and helps a feller ruminate. Good for a body’s constitution, too. No doubt about it, pays to have friends on the outside when you need them.
Sure as hell, and for damned certain, needed a healthy snort after I met Royce Turberville. Sends a man into a bunch of deep pondering once he’s seen a living, breathing, walking, talking phantom from his past in the flesh.
Guess I’d been nipping at the bottle, napping off now and again, and thinking the whole dance over for about an hour, maybe more. Sun had dropped low on the horizon, like it was perched on the edge of the world somewhere way off to the west. Happened to glance over in the corner and spot the ghostly presence of Carlton J. Cecil perched on top of my favorite chest of drawers grinning back at me.
Swear ’fore Jesus, that redheaded scamp’s misty spirit hadn’t aged a day past twenty-five. Flaming shock of stringy, shoulder-length hair jutted from beneath his sweat-stained Stetson. Sporting that droopy moustache he favored back when we chased criminals all over Hell and half of the Indian country for the judge. Grinned at me and went to picking at his fingernails with a big ole bowie knife.
Shook my bottle at the vaporous spirit and said, “Jesus, Carl, done seen what I thought for sure was one unearthly specter today. Now you go and show up. Seems like none a you folks what’ve done passed over to the other side wanna leave me be more’n a day or two at a stretch.”
“Just checkin’ in, Hayden. Got somethin’ of a shock with that Turberville kid showin’ up and all, I ‘spect. Amazin’ resemblance to John Henry Slate, don’t you think? Could be ole John Henry’s twin brother, couldn’t he? Bet as soon as the kid popped up you had a flood of more’n vivid memories come raging to the surface.”
Took another nibbling peck at the bottle. Stared at the liver-spotted backs of my hands for a second, then mumbled, “Sure ’nuff. That he could, Carl. That he could. ’Course you could be Satan in the form of an old friend, too.”
The ghost chuckled, then said, “Aw, hell, you know that ain’t true. Ever notice how the older you get the more it seems as how everyone you meet reminds you of someone you’ve already known? And it’s usually somebody that’s been amongst the dearly departed for nigh on fifty year. Right curious, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, Carl, I’ve noticed. Couple a weeks ago Leona Wildbank hired a feller to come in and mop the floors. Be damned if he don’t look enough like Handsome Harry Tate to be his long-lost great-grandson or something. ’Tween him and the kid who bears such a striking resemblance to John Henry, the whole dance is beginning to make me feel like maybe God just might be a-tryin’ to send me a rather pointed message of some kind.”
Then, God as my witness, must’ve dozed off. Snapped awake like a Texas teamster had cracked a whip at the foot of my bed. Carl’s smiling ghost had vacated the premises. Suppose his ethereal departure might have been what caused the air to snap, sizzle, smell like burning rope, and ensure my leap back into living consciousness. Then again, maybe my return to pained awareness didn’t amount to anything more
than the fevered memories of John Henry Slate. Recollections brought on the undeniable realization that my short, brutal acquaintance with John Henry still burdens my soul and remains written in blood across my barely beating heart, even after the passage of so many years.
Whatever the cause, I went back to staring out my window, along the slowly drifting waters of the Arkansas, and finally let my gaze settle on a bank of puffy, white clouds hovering over the whole scene. Not sure whether it was real, or maybe just the mental gyrations caused by the liquor, but those clouds started to move and take on shapes. As God is my witness, the whole bloody tale came back to life right before my unbelieving eyes. Gore-saturated saga spooled out in front of me like the flickering frames of those old moving picture shows they play for us every Wednesday night down in the recreation room. Except this particular stereoscopic lamp show was all too murderously real.
Haunting images in my restless brain told a tale of ghastly slaughter, and of friendship brought on by the vagaries of time and circumstance. They whispered of betrayal and danced like hellish demons across a brain that hurt and made my fingers itch for the comforting feel of easily accessible, walnut-gripped, case-hardened steel tucked in a greased leather holster and strapped high on my hip—always ready for instant, deadly use.
1
“. . . SHOT DEADER’N A PETRIFIED HOE HANDLE . . .”
HERE OF LATE, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of my dwindling time on this earth trying to pull the fuzzy curtain draped over my aging brain away from the events of the distant past. As a consequence, I’ve discovered there are big, honking gaps in the entire fabric of my recollections of everything imaginable.
Even stranger still, for reasons way beyond my less-than-educated understanding, the exact opposite is also true. Seems certain smells now have the uncanny ability to bring on instantaneous and crystal-clear remembrances of events that occurred nearly seventy years ago. Events I’d not so much as thought of, or even tried to think of, in that entire passage of time.
At breakfast the other day, the aroma of fresh-fried bacon took me back to the time me and Carlton J. Cecil and Billy Bird came together as the Brotherhood of Blood and ran them murderous Crooke boys to ground. Thought for the most fleeting of seconds I was back out in the Nations sitting beside a campfire while Carl whipped up a pan of victuals to get us going on our quest to rid the earth of those lethal sons of bitches’ infernal shadows.
Thanks to the appearance of Royce Turberville, I can still gaze into my turbulent former life and summon up with unerring precision exactly how John Henry Slate and I came to be acquainted. Our history remains as indelible and as clear as a cut-crystal goblet filled with fresh, icy-cold springwater. Not sure why such a thing can occur, but there it is. On top of all that, I can positively recollect—in detail—the dreadful and unfortunate circumstances that brought our brief, violent friendship to its ultimate, blood-soaked, tragic demise.
See, the whole, heartrending dance started when, a couple of weeks after his twentieth birthday, a benighted half-breed Kiowa feller name of Zeke Blackheart led a gang of other desperadoes that stormed into the Missouri Pacific Railroad’s depot at Claremore out in the Indian country. That murderous bunch of whiskey-dipped idiots robbed hell out of the station agent, then pistol-whipped the defenseless man to the floor. Came nigh on to killing him when one of the licks from a gun barrel punched a hole in his skull the size of a nickel just behind his right ear.
My friend Carlton J. Cecil, that red-haired demon with a pistol, slapped his leg with a thick sheaf of telegraph messages as he went over the whole violent tale for anyone within earshot who cared to turn an ear and listen. Nothing like mindless criminal activity to get Carl all hopped up like a banty rooster. And when Carl got the spirit, my God, but it was a sight to behold. Damn near like watching a fire-and-brimstone-breathing preacher at a traveling tent revival. Took everything I could do not to laugh when he went on one of those rips because, hell, that just made him madder.
He got to jumping around, waving his arms and such, before he yelped, “Well, accordin’ to what I’ve read here, once them gutless bastards finished taking everything the railroad man could offer ’em, Blackheart and his thuggish bunch turned their savage attention on eight or ten blameless citizens awaiting arrival of the next passenger train going south.”
“Smells to me like there’s a killin’ comin’,” I said.
“One man, a well-liked local grocer, vociferously objected to having his pockets riffled. And, sure by-God enough, he got his sad self shot deader’n a petrified hoe handle right on the spot for his efforts.”
‘Course I couldn’t do much of anything but shake my head in the face of such barbarity and mutter, “Sweet merciful Father.”
“Oh, hell, Hayden, that’s only the beginning of this Shakespearean tragedy.” He held the papers up, pointed at the top sheet as though reading from it, squinted, then said, “Says here as how several of the traumatized bystanders who witnessed the heartless murder of that grocer feller said Zeke Blackheart was the man who should be held accountable for a cold-blooded deed of pitiless butchery. Others claimed one of his henchmen, a sweet-natured soul identified as Jackson Bowlegs, bore responsibility for the reprehensible act of gratuitous slaughter. Still others maintained that both men took a hand in the witless carnage.”
“I remember Bowlegs,” I offered. “Got a warrant for his worthless self in my pocket this very instant. He’s wanted for a terrible murder down in the Choctaw Nation. White feller, I think. Seems he went and married an Indian gal so he could live out here in the Nations legally. But he got drunk and beat the poor woman to death with an ax handle, if memory serves.”
Carl stared at the fistful of telegraph messages again, shook his head like a tired dog, then said, “Whatever the actual truth of the matter might finally prove out to be, Hayden, the killing of that grocer’s gonna stick to Blackheart like a fresh gob of manure sticks to a horse blanket. Soon as that poor, unarmed gent hit the floor dead, ole Zeke’s appointment with the hangman, or bony-fingered death at our hands, was a lock-nutted cinch, by God. Unfortunately, the pickle-brained skunk’s descent into murder and mayhem had only just begun.”
“Just begun? Jesus, how much worse is this lunacy gonna get?”
Carl rolled his eyes, then held the wad of papers up like a lantern used against the dark forces of evil. “Oh, trust me, Hayden, it’s gonna get a lot worse ‘fore I finish with tellin’ this yarn of epic outlawry. These ole boys have been on a crime spree unparalleled in the annals of the U.S. Marshals Service.”
“Well, get on with your tale of criminal madness then. Might as well hear it all.”
No smile on his face when he went back to hacking at the story like a man possessed. “In a matter of seconds, after the brutality and bloodshed inside the depot, Blackheart led his yelping gang of thieves and killers out into the street where they set to indiscriminately firing their pistols at everything and sundry. That’s when our good friend Deputy Marshal Rogers Kelso just happened onto the scene of the rampage by accident.”
“Kelso? Don’t tell me they killed him, too?”
He shook the papers in my face again. “Way I read it from these here messages, Hayden, Kelso pulled his pistol, held his badge up so everyone within a hundred yards could see it, then called for those desperadoes to drop their weapons and throw up their hands. Poor man fell dead beneath a hailstorm of hot lead fired into his body by Blackheart and his entire crew of iniquitous, addlepated disciples.”
“Damnation. Sure as hell didn’t need another dead deputy U.S. marshal. How many does that make this month, four?”
For a second, Carl looked puzzled. Scratched his ear, then said, “Can’t recall the exact figure. One’s enough. But you know, just sure as they ain’t no icicles hangin’ from Hell’s front porch, Kelso’s bullet-riddled body had scarcely dropped facedown into the dust when Blackheart’s entire band of desperadoes jumped on their animals and fogged away from the
scene of their crimes, headed southwest. Residents of Claremore said the killers hooted and laughed like a gang of red-eyed, horned imps straight from the bowels of the sulfurous, burning pit as they departed the scene of their nefarious misdeeds.”
“Well, by God, that really cuts it, Carl. Rogers Kelso was as fine a member of Judge Parker’s cadre of stalwart lawmen as ever took up the badge of a deputy U.S. marshal. People responsible for his death damned sure need to pay heavy for the crime.”
“True. Shameful part is, he might still be alive if he’d a got some help. Unfortunately, that first-rate gentleman lay on the depot loading dock and leaked a rudely abbreviated life into a growing pool of hot blood beneath his crumpled body. Poor soul bled out long before anything like serious medical help could arrive on the scene and come to his aid and assistance. As anyone with a brain well knows, a hatful of 255-grain, .45-caliber slugs will do that for a body when they slice through muscle and bone. And especially if one of ’em punches a thumb-sized hole in a person’s heart.”
“Shot through the heart. Damnation.”
“And get this. Barely three hours later, barely twenty miles from their initial foray into violent criminal activity and slaughter, the same band of drunken brigands once again applied the old five-fingered withdrawal slip in an effort to lighten the till of the station agent for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas line in Choteau.”
“Blessed Christ on a crutch, Carl, that ain’t the end of it?”
“Not even by a damned sight. ’Pears as how Claremore was only the beginning.”
“This gets crazier by the minute. Them boys must have something against railroads in general, from the sound of it.”
