by Lou Bradshaw
I wasn’t used to hearing people talk rude for no reason, and I was guessing that we weren’t going to get much help from him. So, I just moved Andy aside and addressed the eyeshade because he wasn’t even looking at us. Then I reached across the counter and plucked that green eyeshade from his head taking a handful of greasy hair with it. He gave out a squawk and looked up, and then he quickly looked at the door to his left. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a figure there, but it wasn’t moving, so I didn’t worry about it.
I laid his eyeshade as far down the counter as I could reach without moving and said, “Mister, didn’t you ever learn any manners? You are about as rude a body as I ever saw. You work for the United States of America gov-ment, and we belong to that gov-ment, so we are your customers. We ought not to be treated like that.” I took a breath and went ahead with, “I’m only fourteen years old, but if you don’t straighten up I’m gonna drag you across that bar and out in the street. Then I’m gonna stomp you into a pile of dog poop.”
He pushed his chair back and looked at that door again. Then his sneer was back as he said, “Deputy Marshall Stewart, did you hear what this insolent boy said?”
A puff of blue cigar smoke came from the door and was immediately followed by a man who said, “Yep. I heard it. What’re you gonna do about it?”
The clerk started to rise, and then sat back down and asked, “W…W…What do you mean what am I going to do about it?”
Deputy Marshal Stewart said, with a good deal of impatience, “Hancock, this youngster gave you two choices – which will it be? Personally, I’m pullin for the dog sh… poop. I was comin out to see if he needed any help, but I think he can handle it.”
Hancock stuttered and blustered for a few seconds then grabbed his eyeshade, looked up, and almost politely asked, “Now, what were those names you were interested in?”
The deputy marshal said, “Never mind, Hancock, I’ll talk to these gentlemen.” and motioned us through the door.
I stuck out my hand to the clerk and said, “Sorry mister, I just got a little carried away.” He timidly took my hand but didn’t say anything.
Inside the room, there was a rough table, some beat up chairs, and a row of file cabinets. The table was stroon with wanted posters and fliers. The room was none too tidy, but it looked like it would be workable. I got the impression of a workshop with paper instead of hammers and boards. He motioned us to pull up some chairs, and he sat down behind the table.
Stewart was tall, lean, and broad shouldered. He didn’t look like he carried much meat on him, but what he had was in the right places. His dusty brown hair hung to his collar and his sideburns connected with his mustaches, and both were somewhat in need of a trim. I couldn’t help but notice the gunbelt and gun draped over the back of his chair; they were well used and well cared for. He had on a white shirt, a black vest, and a black string tie, and his dark gray pants were tucked into his polished boots. A black frock coat and a broad brimmed black hat were hanging on the hall tree in the corner. I figured those were his town clothes.
“Now,” he said, “what’s all this about? First off, what’re your names?” We told him, and he went on, “So, who are these fellers you’re lookin’ for? And why?”
We gave him the names of Amos Poke, Clyde Gentry, Dan Coleman, and Bill Frazier. Then we told him about the raid on our place, and how they had killed Andy’s folks.
“I remember somethin about that.” he said as he wrote down the names, “If I recall a couple of ‘em were killed.”
“Yeah,” Andy said, “one named Winslow and another named Mullins. Me and Ben here done them.”
The deputy looked up with a shocked look and said, “Why, that was two or three years ago. You two couldn’t have been more’n…just kids. Hell, your still just kids.”
“I was fourteen and Ben was twelve.” Andy told him.
“Holy sh… poop!” was what he said, “A couple of milk pap babies took down those two. Well I’ll be damned. I guess old Hancock out there didn’t know what he was dealin with.” Then he laughed.
“Hancock,” he yelled, “bring in whatever you got on Amos (the Judge) Poke, Clyde Gentry, Dan Coleman, and Bill Frazier. And be quick about it.” Then he turned to me and said, “That little weasel needs a good shake up now and then.”
He yelled out again. “And get what you have on Abe Winslow and John Mullins.”
The three of us sat around that table, and he asked a few more questions about how we took down the two outlaws while Hancock went through files. In a few minutes, Hancock came in carrying a small stack of flyers with other papers pinned to them. Stewart spread them out in front of him, and started to study them.
I said, “Thank you, Mister Hancock.” The clerk snapped a look at me to see if I was serious – I was. He nodded and showed a slight smile.
“The latest we have on them is that they crossed over into the Nations.” the deputy marshal said, “Probably went across downstream. That was a couple of years back. We think that Poke went south into Texas, and nobody’s heard nothin about Gentry for quite a while. The other two are still there. Every now and then, we get somethin on Coleman or Frazier, who sometimes calls himself Bill Turner. They pull jobs in Kansas and hotfoot it back across the line.”
“Yep,” he said leafing through the two remaining files, “here you are, Abe Winslow, killed by Andrew Moore, and John Mullins killed by Ben Blue. Says rewards of one hundred and fifty dollars was paid on each.”
Andy and I looked at each other, then I blurted out, “But we only got a hundred dollars each.”
Stewart frowned at the paperwork and said, “Looks like your sheriff took some commissions from those rewards, probably figured it was due him because of the papers he had to mail. You want to file charges against him? Or would you just like me to send him a little letter tellin’ him that he has been naughty, and he might want to make amends?”
“That would be best.” Andy told him, “He’s a pretty good sheriff. You can tell him to get the money to Mr. Thompson. He’ll know what to do.”
“I’ll send out some fliers to the Indian police and the agents in the north central part of the territory. That’s about all I can do for you fellas from here.”
“All right,” Andy said, “what do we need to do to get over to the Indian Nations?”
“Can you perform miracles? Cause that’s what it will take. First, You got to get me to say it’s okay, then you got to get the marshal to approve, and finally you got to get the judge to sign off on it. It happens, but not very often. Considering your ages, I’d say it was a million to one shot.”
“But,” I said, “We ain’t scared. And nobody would miss us if we got shot or somethin.”
“The US of America would miss you if you wound up dead over there.” Stewart countered, “If we let a couple of puppies go over there and they got into trouble with the Indians or got killed, the marshal would be answering congressional questions for years. Newspaper people would be all over us.”
We tried everything cept throwing ourselves down kicking and screaming, but the only thing Stewart would do was get us in to see the marshal the next day. So we thanked him and headed for our camp.
On the way out, we talked about what we should do if they wouldn’t let us into the Nations. I suggested that we just find a ford and cross over or just swim the river. Andy wasn’t so sure. He wanted to keep on the good side of the law. I did too, but I didn’t mind cutting a few corners. We turned off the road onto the little trail leading to our campsite and into the thicket.
As we got close to the camp, we heard noises coming from that direction. They weren’t much, and my first thought was the pony had gotten tangled up with our gear. When we were within twenty feet of the clearing, we heard someone say, “Damn it! We ain’t got all day!” We got down quietly but quickly.
I pulled the shotgun from my saddle scabbard just in case. Edging our way up through the brush, we stepped out into the open and saw two me
n loading our stuff onto the pack pony. Just like a dumb kid Andy yelled, “Hey! What’re you doin’ with our stuff?” Both men swung around facing us. Both were scruffy and ornery looking, and both looked like they hadn’t seen any soap for a couple of months.
We stared at each other for a couple of seconds, then the shorter one said, “Aw, it’s just a couple of yearlin’s.” The other fella kind of moved off to the right. I knew that Andy’s eyes were following him, so I kept mine on the shorter one who said, “Sorry boys but you got more stuff than you nee…”
A flicker of movement from the taller one and Andy’s gun was roaring and smoking. That fella was fairly thrown backwards into the brush arms akimbo and pistol landing in the dirt. The pony tried to bolt, and knocked the shorter man to the ground. As he started to get up I was within six feet of him, and the shotgun was aimed at his head. I wasn’t near as good with a gun as Andy, but at that distance, I was right fair.
He just looked at the barrel of that shotgun and his eyes showed a great deal of concern. Finally, he wet his lips and said, “Oh, praise the Lord you’ve saved me. That monster had kept me as a slave for two years doing his dirty work for him. He chained me up every night and beat me. Oh, thank God you’re here!” He sounded too much like a preacher for me to trust, so I just eared the hammer back on that old single barrel.
His voice changed from that of a quavering pulpit shouter to something pretty meek and mild and he almost whispered, “Boy, for the love of God, don’t shoot me. I ain’t ready fer it. Please don’t do it – please.”
I told him I wouldn’t if he did what I told him, and just lay there with his belly to the ground and his arms and legs spread. I figured that would be the hardest position for him to make any sudden move from. I heard Andy say, “This one’s dead.” The one on the ground dug his fingers into the dirt.
Andy came over, took the thief’s belt gun, and tied his hands behind him with some rawhide strips. We lifted him to his feet and sat him against a tree. “What do you think we ought to do with him?” Andy asked.
“I don’t have any idea.” I answered, “We can’t go draggin him around with us, specially if we go across the river. We could just shoot him. His pardner tried to do it to us.” Both Andy and the thief snapped up when I said that, and they both started to squawk. “Oh, simmer down, I’m not gonna shoot anybody. I just want this yay-hoo to know that I’d sure think about it while you’re gone.”
“Gone? Where am I goin?” Andy asked.
“You’re goin into Ft. Smith to tell Deputy Stewart that we got one dead one and another that will be if he tries anything.”
“By God, Ben, that’s just what I’ll do. Boy, you’re getting’ smarter and smarter.”
We tied that fella to his tree real snug, with his hands still tied behind him. I don’t see how he could be in the least bit comfortable, but I wasn’t much worried about his comfort. I fussed around the camp building up a fire and putting on some coffee. There was a pot of beans all wrapped up on the pack animal, so I got it down again. I told that fella that I wasn’t happy about having to unpack everything again. Pretty soon, he started grumbling about his hands hurting, so I told him he was lucky that he could feel anything. Then I told him, “If you’d a kept up that slave business much longer I’d have shot you then and there. You were soundin’ so much like one of those flannel mouthed travelin’ preachers that I was expectin’ you to pass the plate.”
While I was busy, getting supper ready that fella was whining about one thing or another the whole time. It got to the point that I just didn’t hear him anymore, until he yelled out really loud, “Hey, kid! I said I gotta pee! Bad!” I looked up from what I was doing and just stared at him like a fool. I wasn’t about to cut him loose, and I sure wasn’t about to help him in any other way.
“Well, Mister, you got two things you can do. You can just go ahead and do what you are bound to do, or you can bust. Either way you’re gonna be real uncomfortable.” He commenced to cussin me real good and I told him, “If you hadn’t tried to steal our goods you wouldn’t be in this fix. If you was a real preacher you’d know what the wages of sin was.” I went back to my cooking.
Pretty soon I heard him say, “Ahhh.” then he said, “Dammit, dammit, dammit, oh man! Oh dammit to hell… let me out of this.”
I wanted to laugh, but I was big and rough not cruel, and that would have been cruel. So I thought on it for a few minutes and came up with a solution. “Mister,” I said, “I think I can make your life a little easier, but you’re gonna have to cooperate.” Then I went over to where he was and took off his boots. Sure enough, there was a knife inside one of them. I frowned at him and tsked. He just shrugged his shoulders. I patted him down to see if he had anything else hiding out, but he didn’t.
Next, I untied him from the tree and walked him over to the fire with his hands still tied behind him. I made him sit on a rock and bring his left foot back as far as it would go and tied it to his right hand with more rawhide. When that was done I untied the rawhide that had bound him. So there, he sat on that rock with his right hand and left foot about a foot and a half apart, all tied up behind him. There wasn’t much he could do without falling over, but he could at least have some coffee – or pee. Too bad I hadn’t thought of that before, but those were the wages of his sinful ways.
“Now, you just sit there real quiet like, drink your coffee, dry off a little, and no one needs to know about your little accident. While you’re doin that I’m gonna ask you about some people you might know of.” I ran down the list of men we were looking for, and he had heard of the Judge, but didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know anything about Gentry. He knew both Coleman and Frazier, but he wouldn’t tell me anything about them. I cocked the hammer back on that shotgun; his eyes bulged out like melons, and his face lost all its color. That man surely didn’t like shotguns. I’d have to think about that some.
I eased the hammer down and he relaxed a bit. I told him that I really didn’t want to hurt him, but I was just a dumb kid and sometimes things got me fuddled. He nodded and the color started coming back to his face. “Maybe I asked you all wrong…. Let me ask it another way. What can you tell me about where Coleman and Frazier are?”
“Oh.” he said, “that’s what you want to know.” He took another cup of coffee, and told me the story.
About an hour later Andy, Deputy Stewart, and another man came riding into camp. They came to the fire and Deputy Stewart said, “Well, youngster it looks like you caught yourself a real bad’n. Howdy, Preacher. Boys, this is Abe Puckett, also known as Preacher Puckett because when he ain’t stealin’ with a gun he’ll just start up a church and do his stealin’ from the pulpit. The trouble is he’d get a little carried away when some of the flock didn’t anti up to the basket. He’d get so worked up at their sinful way of holdin’ out that he’d just go take it from them.”
Andy led the way over to where the other thief was laying. I heard some talking, and they soon came back. Deputy Marshal Stewart said, “Preacher, it looks like you’re gonna need another deacon cause old Gus is all used up. Boys, I reckon you got about another three hundred dollars coming to you for these two.” Then he laughed and said, “You fellas stick around much longer, and you’ll put me out of business.”
The other man who turned out to be a county deputy brought in the outlaw horses and he and Stewart tied Gus across the saddle. Then they put shackles on the preacher and got him into the saddle. Stewart laughed again when he saw how I had tied the preacher hand to foot. He said he’d have to remember that.
As Stewart was getting ready to head back to town with the prisoner and the body he told us to sit tight in the morning until he got here and not to make any immediate plans.
Chapter 7
When Stewart and the other deputy were gone, I told Andy what the preacher had said to me about Frazier and Coleman. It seems that they were doing exactly what Stewart had told us and what everyone believed, but they had a simple little
twist. They would ride into some of those Kansas border towns, raid a bank, a stage, or a ranch, and then rustle a few cows and disappear over into the territory. The only ones who could chase them would be a US Marshal or the Indian police. The marshal was clear up in Dodge over a hundred miles away. The Indian police would settle for a percentage of any cattle that were brought in and the tribes would make a deal for the rest. What it boiled down to was for a few rustled cows and a little loot, the Indians in that northwest section were giving Coleman and Frazier free passage.
The territory had a panhandle at that point, which was a fairly narrow strip of land separating Texas from Kansas. They would make their raids east of the panhandle and cross into the territory at that point. The Kansas law thought that was where they were hiding out. When in fact they would cut across the territory southwest to Texas, where they would live it up for a few months in those border towns.
When Preacher Puckett got started talking about it, he had eased up and forgot himself. He would laugh and talk about how stupid the law was. Yeah the law wasn’t very smart, but the preacher was headed for a long stretch of hard labor.
After talking it out for a long time that evening, Andy and I decided to go after Frazier and Coleman first since we had a good idea where they were. In other words, two birds in the hand were better than two birds we didn’t know where to look for.
Deputy Marshal Stewart showed up about mid morning. He swung down and accepted a cup of coffee. “Well boys, Andy and Ben that was the first time he used our names. We got the preacher all tucked away in a nice cell where he can’t infect any of the other prisoners. He sure is a strange one – wants to preach at Gus’s funeral. Gus didn’t have a funeral… just a buryin’.”
“Marshal Stover said there was no way in hell he would let you two yearlings go into the Nations lookin’ for outlaws. Now, I for one know for sure that’s exactly what you are planning to do, and I don’t think you’re ready. You been almighty lucky so far, but you need to do a little thinking about what you’re up against.” He looked up from his cup and said, “I’d lay money that you two just barged in on those yay-hoos and started yellin.” He looked at each of us but we couldn’t look back.
