And Kill Them All

by J. Lee Butts

  In spite of myself I grinned. “Oh, but I can. ’Cause, you see, Ax, that’s all you are—a run-of-the-mill, common murderer. And once you’re knockin’ on Hell’s front gate, I’ll sleep like a baby tomorrow, tonight, and for the rest of my natural life. You see, I’ll know beyond any doubt that I’ve rid the world, and Texas, of a lethal, boot-wearin’ pestilence.”

  Then, with no further ado, I stood and started around behind him. A look of stunned horror flashed across the heartless bastard’s face. All the color in his bulging countenance drained into his shirt collar. His head swiveled around on its bony stalk as he tried to follow my movements.

  “Wait. Wait. Wait,” he squealed. “I’ve got money, Dodge. Lots of money. Hidden money. I’ll give all of it to you. Every red cent. You can retire, live like a south Texas cattle baron till the day you die.”

  I grabbed the back of the chair and leaned it onto the two rear-most legs. The heavy, wooden seat made angry, piggish, squealing sounds against the stone floor as I dragged it out onto the hacienda’s shadowy patio, and then to the live oak that spread out over one corner of the terrace like a living umbrella. As I remember it, Axel Webb howled like a tortured wolf till I got him situated under the limb I’d chosen.

  Icy shafts of cold, silvery moonlight knifed through that tree’s rustling leaves overhead. The ghostly glow flickered across Webb’s upturned, panic-stricken face. He continued to struggle against his bonds as he eyeballed me and said, “Please. Please. Don’t do this, Dodge. I’ll admit I made a mistake. Made a terrible mistake.”

  “Well, that’s putting it lightly.”

  “Oh, God. Oh, God. Please. Listen. Please, listen to me. I know I shouldn’t have done what I done. Regret the whole mess. Honest. Honest to God. I-I’ve had a religious epiphany. Swear it. God’s done come into my heart and made me realize what terrible things I’ve done. Have mercy, man. Have mercy.”

  “A religious epiphany?”

  “Yeah. Oh, yes. You’ve gotta believe me, Dodge. You turn me loose, and I’ll walk the straight and narrow for as long as I live. You’ll never hear the name Axel Webb and criminal activity of any sort mentioned in the same breath again. Swear it on my dear ole mother’s sweet brow.”

  “Swear it on your mother?”

  “Oh, yes. Sweet merciful Jesus, yes. Just cut me loose. Let me out of this chair. I’ll live the rest of my life like a saint. Swear I will.”

  I’d heard all I wanted to hear. And what I’d heard was enough to make a man sick. Stuffed my bandanna into his mouth and left him sitting there stewing in his own juices. Retrieved Grizz and led the animal into the courtyard. The big gelding’s iron-shod feet made loud clopping sounds against the patio’s stone floor.

  Then I threw my second lariat over the tree limb. I draped it around Webb’s neck and pulled the noose up tight. Man’s head was about to explode. His eyes had gone wild. He bucked and snorted in the chair. Yelled, screamed, and whined into the bandanna, but it was a complete waste of effort.

  I patted him on the shoulder and said, “Sure you have plenty you’d like to say right about now. Tell the righteous truth, I don’t care to hear any of it. Sure God doesn’t want to hear it, either. So, only thing I want, at this particular moment, is to watch you die.”

  I moved to Grizz’s side and urged the big animal back a step or two. Webb’s squealing grunts became louder, more pronounced, more panicked. Kept the horse moving backward. Got the chair four or five feet off the ground before I stopped and patted the animal on the neck. Ole Ax struggled with all the might he possessed. The terrified son of a bitch even ripped one thick, wooden arm completely off that chair. For about thirty seconds, I thought he was on the verge of getting himself loose. But a decided lack of air soon robbed him of his remaining strength.

  Still and all, it did surprise me some at how long it took that murdering skunk to give up the ghost. Have to admit, the man damn sure loved his life and put up one hell of a fight before death finally came and wrenched it away from his grasp. Guess he must have grunted and thrashed around in that heavy chair for every bit of five minutes. Maybe longer. In the final analysis, though, he didn’t do himself any good. You squeeze off a man’s ability to breathe and sooner or later, he’s gonna die. And that’s all there is to it.

  When the wicked slaughterer finally stopped flopping, I led Grizz around the tree several times, just to tighten the rope’s hold and make sure the load wouldn’t slip and end up on the ground. Lashed everything off good, so the dead man dangled amongst all those dolls, just like I’d promised he would. Tell the gospel truth, it was a freakish scene I left in that place. Damned freakish. Right eerie. Kind of sight that had the power to make even the boldest man shudder. Knew when folks finally found him, the stories and legends would start coming fast and furious. But I didn’t care.

  I climbed on Grizz and gave Webb one last look. True to form, his neck was a good bit longer than when I started his last dance with horned Satan. Have to admit something about the sight suddenly sent an icy chill down my spine and made my blood run cold.

  I kicked for Devils River. Didn’t bother to look back after I got past the hacienda’s front gate. Not once. Tell you for true my friends, a boatload of years have passed since that fateful night, and I’ve not lost a single second’s sleep over what I did. Truth is, given the exact same set of bloody circumstances and the opportunity, I’d do it all over again the exact same way quicker than a hummingbird’s heart can beat.

  27

  “I’VE COME FOR MY NIECE.”

  THE DAYS CAME, and the days went. Me and Boz and Glo looked after Clementine as best we could for almost two months. We stayed out on the Devils River place a good bit past the time we’d promised Cap’n Culpepper we’d be back in Fort Worth. And while the girl’s physical recovery took place over the short matter of a few weeks, I’m not to this very instant sure she ever really came back to us.

  During most of that gloomy, silent period, the stone-faced child took up space in a chair out on the front porch and impassively stared at the river. ’Bout the only time she appeared to perk up occurred every evening when flocks of doves made their way to the water to quench their thirst and bathe. Clouds of the birds swirled and darted over the willows and created an endless, eddy-like, ever-shifting painting against the backdrop of a blazing, color-saturated sunset. Would bet all the money I’ll ever have, Clem didn’t speak a dozen words during that entire time. Seemed to the three of us as though Eagle “Mad Dog” Cutner had damaged her spirt beyond any living human’s poor ability to repair it. He’d robbed her of all the spunk, enthusiasm, and drive we’d so admired when she first came into our lives.

  ’Course someone managed to discover Axel Webb’s worm-riddled corpse just a few days after I strung his sorry ass up. And while I did mangage to keep under wraps most of our direct involvement in the various events surrounding all those murderous doin’s—especially the part about how ole Ax ended up dangling from a tree limb in his dead brother’s front yard—a goodly bit of the Webb family’s tragic tale of mindless slaughter and madness did manage to spool out like an unwinding ball of twine and go public.

  The tragic clan’s saga of jealously, anger, and fratricide eventually hit the front page of damn near every newspaper from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Hell, the heartrending tale was just the kind of thing people still love to read about and spend time gloating over.

  Before you could spit we found ourselves knee-deep in a troop of investigating rangers who worked out of Austin, self-righteous committee members of the Texas senate and house, and nigh on every stripe of morbid, inquisitive jackass a body could imagine in his most fevered nightmares.

  I was about at the end of my string with those idiots, and had loudly threatened bodily harm to several of the intrusive skunks, when a most singular event occurred. Me and Boz were sitting on our rickety front stoop late one afternoon, locked in heated discussion over the prospects for Clementine’s future, when a fine-looking spring w
agon rolled up. Painted a bright yellow, with red wheels, the conveyance was pulled by a matched pair of shiny-coated mules.

  A right handsome woman, sportin’ a brace of bone-gripped Colts, occupied the driver’s seat. She removed her broad-brimmed, sweat-stained, palm-leaf sombrero and dropped it on the seat beside her. Ran the fingers of one hand through wheat-colored hair that had begun to go gray on her.

  Striking blue eyes twinkled when she offered us a friendly, tooth-filled smile and said, “Which one of you boys is Marshal Lucius Dodge?”

  I propped myself against the higher step at my back, waved one hand, and said, “That’d be me, ma’am.”

  The lady nodded, tied the wagon’s reins to the brake lever, then climbed down. She sagged against the front wheel, set to jerking at her leather gloves, then flicked a dangling lock of sweat-dripping hair out of one eye.

  “ ’Pears you’ve had a long trip, ma’am?” I said.

  “Yes. Yes, indeed. Has been a right long haul. You boys ain’t the easiest folks in Texas to find, bein’ as how you’re way’n the hell and gone out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “What can we do for you, ma’am?” Boz said.

  She pushed away from the wagon and came several steps closer. She stopped and, with fists clenched on her hips, said, “Name’s Linda McKinley, Marshal Dodge. You can call me Annie, if’n you like. Have a livestock and wagon selling operation up near Tyler way. I’ve come for my niece.”

  Well, that got us on our feet, hats in hand, pretty quick. While surprised right down to the soles of my boots, I must admit I was, at the same time, greatly relieved. I glanced over at Boz and could see he shared my feelings.

  We invited our visitor up on the porch. Something we’d not done with any of the other invaders who’d recently made our lives a shade more difficult. I offered her a chair. One with the best pillow on it. And dragged up ladder-backed seats of our own.

  When everyone got settled, I said, “Can I offer you a dipper of cold water, ma’am? Or perhaps a cup of Arbuckles? Maybe something to eat? Our man Paco sets a fine table.”

  “No, thank you, Marshal Dodge,” she replied. “Just like to rest my weary bones a bit.” She bent over at the waist, rubbed her lower back, then scrunched down into the seat’s thick cushion. “ ’S right comfortable. Bet you boys fight over this chair every afternoon ’bout dark, don’t you?”

  “Not so much recently,” Boz offered, “Clem tends to like that spot, so we’re more’n happy to let her have it.”

  The McKinley woman nodded. “I see,” she said. “And how is Clem?”

  Arms laid across my knees, I said, “God’s truth, we’re not sure. Just not sure. Perhaps she’ll do better with you. Us ole bachelors have come to think that, while we’ve walked on eggshells during this entire ordeal, maybe we’re just not at all suited for the task of seeing to certain parts of a young lady’s healing. Woman’s touch might be just what she needs, Mrs. McKinley.”

  She flashed another brilliant, friendly smile. “That’s Ms. McKinley, Marshal Dodge. Annie to you boys. Mule kicked my husband in the head several years ago. Didn’t kill him right off. Man took almost a month to turn loose and let go of his life. But in the end, he died. So, with his death and my sister’s violent passing, I’m alone now, and I’d like my niece nearby.”

  “She’s asleep right now, Ms. McKinley. Girl sleeps an inordinate amount these days. ’Course we can’t blame her much, given her circumstances of recent.”

  The McKinley woman sagely rubbed her chin with the back of one hand. Then, as if she’d thought the question over for quite a spell, she said, “You boys willing to tell me the whole story? No bull. Entire ugly weasel, teeth, hair, and all?”

  And so we did. Took nigh on two hours to sort through the whole account and answer all her questions as best we could. We offered to take her out to the spot where we’d buried her sister, but she shook her head, then said, “No. No. I have no desire to see where Elizabeth’s buried. Just knowing you men did the best you could for her is enough. In fact, it’s more than enough.”

  We had just finished up with our story when Clem slipped through the front door and came up short when she spotted our visitor. I’d never seen anything like what happened next. The girl fell onto her aunt’s lap, and the pair of them wept as though the world had surely come to an abrupt and painful end. It was so emotional on that porch, Boz and I got to feeling like intruders and crept away. We waited down by the corral with Glo, till all the crying and such finally stopped.

  Ms. McKinley proved beyond any doubt that she was all business. The lady only stayed with us one day. She packed Clem’s meager belongings into that wagon of hers and, the following morning, was primed and ready for the trip back to Tyler. We tried to get her to say over a bit longer, at least another day or two. She refused. And to tell the righteous truth, appeared to me Clem was ready to leave as well. Can’t say as how I blamed her any.

  Girl still didn’t say much of anything, last morning I laid eyes on her. Even right up to the moment for all the good-byes and such. She demurely shook hands with Boz and Glo. But when she got to me, the teary-eyed child pulled me down to her level, hugged my neck, pressed her lips to my ear and whispered, “Thank you for keeping your word, Marshal Dodge. I won’t ever forget what you did for me.” And just like that, she climbed onto the seat of her aunt’s wagon, turned her gaze north, and they were gone.

  There was nothing holding us to the Devils River country after that. So, we headed on back to Fort Worth less than a week later. Cap’n Culpepper sure enough laid into us when when he got a chance to rake his spurs across our tender rumps. But, hell, for all the spitting and sputtering, he finally threw up his hands and admitted that crime and criminals were running roughshod over nine-tenths of Texas. Said he hated like blue-eyed hell to admit it, but he needed our singular expertise to do all we could to stem the bloody tide.

  Guess I didn’t hear anything of Clem for about two years. Then a letter Ms. McKinley wrote caught up with me while I was down in Huntsville to witness an execution. Her short missive mentioned as how Clem had met a young man and that they planned to get married. Must say, I was right pleased.

  Number of years passed before I got any word on the girl again. Nothing but an envelope that contained the front page of the Tyler Tribune. Return address said as how it had come to me from Ms. McKinley. Dead center of the page, the twenty-four-point headline read, “Local Woman Killed by Oncoming Train.” No doubt about it, that was the worst ten minutes I’ve ever spent reading anything. Seems a lady named Clementine Webb Stubbs, formerly of Tyler, had stepped into the path of the Texas and Pacific Flyer somewhere out on the outskirts of Longview on the darkest night of the year.

  High-balling engineer testified as how he tried to stop the train soon’s he spotted the woman in his headlight but just couldn’t manage the feat. Said she opened her arms, appeared to wave good-bye, and welcomed death like it was an old friend returning home from a long trip. Said she smiled at him right up to the end. She left behind a grieving husband and two small children.

  Given that I knew a bit of Clem’s earlier history, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, or so grief stricken, by her sad passing. And I know it probably ain’t the manly thing to admit, but I broke down and wept like a baby before I could finish reading the full description of her tragic demise.

  All that happened almost fifty years ago. But, you know, sometimes now, all these years later, when I’m sitting on the back porch of my little spread out here on the Sulphur River, if the sun gets just right on the western horizon, and the doves come to the river to drink, my heart goes back to that sad girl and all the blood that flooded over her at such a tender age.

  The blood, unimaginable abuse at the hands of Eagle Cutner, and youthful disappointment are the only things I can imagine that would bring her to walk into the engine of a fast-moving freight, smile on her face, to meet her own end. My sweet God Almighty, but what else could account for su
ch an action?

  I sometimes suppose misplaced love could prompt such a dreadful event to occur. But you know, I’ll go to my own grave believing that Eagle Cutner might well have jerked all the love the girl ever had right out of her body with whatever’n hell it was he did to her. Guess I’ll never know for certain sure. Any chance of understanding the mystery died on a lonely set of Texas and Pacific train tracks, in the middle of the night, so long ago that I might well be the only person left alive who even remembers.

  Oh well, think I’ll pour myself a doubled-up beaker of panther sweat, then hit the sack. Cooley Churchpew sold me some special under-the-counter single-malt whiskey from Ireland the other day. Said as how the bottle crossed the Atlantic in the cargo hold of a ship. Being as how a man can easily drive himself to the brink with the kind of thoughts I’ve been having, maybe the whiskey’ll stem the tide of recurrent Clementine memories that have so completely occupied my mind of recent.

  Just hope like hell the girl don’t show up in any of my sometimes chaotic dreams tonight. Then again, maybe if she was to make an appearance I could ask her why she’d chosen to go to the Maker the way she did. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d just hold her close, and as a final reminder, I’d whisper into her ear, “It’s all right now, darlin’. Everything’s gonna be just fine. You can go on and live your life. Live it to the fullest. All those who did you harm, they’re gone. No longer amongst the living. I killed them, just the way you wanted. But more important, I sent them to judgment exactly the way they deserved—one and all.”

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 9ec35e7b-0b8b-4390-a81f-1dd5b4546863

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 17.5.2012

  Created using: calibre 0.8.50, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software

  Document authors :

  J. Lee Butts