Hickory Jack (Ben Blue Book 1)

by Lou Bradshaw

  “Name’s Bill,” the first one said, “and this is Frank. Andy gave them our names as Jack and Ben.

  They hauled out that chunk of deer meat and I rigged a couple of spits over the fire for it and the jackrabbits. I had made up the dough for the bread and was going to get the skillet ready to put it in and get it going. The coffee pot had been setting on a rock at the edge of the fire, and it was boiling hot. Bill went to pull it back farther from the flames and pulled his hand back as soon as he touched the handle. He looked around for something to wrap around the handle, and he finally had to use his kerchief. When he pulled it off, I saw the rope scar on his neck. I tried to catch Andy’s eye, but he was busy cleaning his fish.

  I said, “Jack, ain’t no one ever taught you how to clean a fish? Let me show you how to do that. Why they won’t be worth eatin’ the way you’re doin’ it.” I went over to where he was working. He seemed somewhat aggravated at my interference until I whispered, “Bill, is Bill Frazier. He’s got the scar. I’ll get him to turn around.” I walked back to the fire.

  I was still carrying my skillet and had intended to put it where the coffee pot had been. I approached a little from the side so that Andy could get a good look at him when I got him to turn. Just before I could open my mouth, I heard Andy call out. “Frazier!”

  Bill looked startled and began to come to his feet as he turned. He was coming up and reaching for his gun as my skillet ruined his hat. He dropped like a rock as Andy’s bullet whined into the woods. I put the express gun into action covering Frank, which wasn’t necessary because Frank was just standing there with his mouth open.

  “What the hell’d you do that for Ben?” Andy growled, “I had him cold. Damnation!”

  Keeping my eye on Frank, who was across the fire I said, “I didn’t want him dead just yet. We need to get some information from him. You’re quick, Andy, maybe too quick sometimes.” Then I took over the situation and got him distracted. “You keep an eye on old Frank there while I hogtie Frazier.”

  Frank hadn’t moved a muscle, but it gave Andy something else to think about. With a piece of rawhide strip I soon had Frazier well secured and disarmed. Frank was still standing where he had been since the shot. I went around the fire and took his weapon and his boots just to keep him at a disadvantage. I never realized how important boots were to westerners until Mr. Jenkins unshod those gents back in no man’s land.

  I said, “Frank, I don’t know what to do with you yet. A lot’s goin to depend on you and how you act up. We might let you go, or you might wind up at the US Marshal’s office in Dodge facing a rope.”

  “A rope!” he blurted out, “I didn’t do nothin to you.”

  “Oh, I’m sure the marshal has your name on one of his flyers. And there’s a good chance that at least one of those charges is a hangin crime. So you best behave yourself.”

  “Damn the luck.” he said, “I shoulda stayed with the boys.”

  “Well, I just don’t know, Frank, your boys ran into some problems back in the wild country. They probably still got some sore feet, and one of them is feedin buzzards and ants. Your trouble is you don’t know how to choose your friends. Maybe you should get a new line of work.”

  “Who got it?” he asked.

  “Don’t know his name.” I told him, “Dark haired skinny fella. Kinda fancied himself as the boss.

  “That’d be Jake. Who got him?”

  “Him.” I said motioning toward Andy.

  Then Andy spoke for the first time since he fired the shot. “If you ever see those boys again, you tell ‘em that Hickory Jack Moore done Jake in. You remember the name – Hickory Jack Moore.” I was starting to worry about Andy.

  On the other side of the fire, Frazier was starting to move and make noises. He was lying where I had left him – face down. With my toe, I rolled him over, and then I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up against a tree trunk. His head was slumped with his chin on his chest, and he was moaning. When he raised his head, I stuck the wreck of his hat on it, and he winced. He looked around at first just to get his bearings.

  Once he realized what had happened he took on a hard dark look, glaring first at Andy and then at me. Frank sitting against another tree with his hands behind him, so he didn’t interest Frazier at all. I told Andy to bring Frank over where we could keep everybody well supervised. When Frank was in my range of vision, I went to work on Frazier.

  Squatting on my heels in front of him I said, “Mr. Frazier, You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, and we’d take it kindly if you didn’t cause us anymore.” He just stared at me. “You don’t understand. Do you?” More staring. “Let me explain. About two years ago, you and a bunch of no-goods went to Missouri and got into some trouble. Three of your boys tried to grab a farmwoman – his ma. Two of those boys died there in the yard. He shot one, and I pinned the other with a pitchfork through his belly.” At that, Frazier showed just a hint of a jolt. “The third man killed this boy’s pa – shot him in the back.”

  Finally, Frazier spoke up. “I wasn’t even there. I didn’t kill anybody.”

  “No,” I said, you were at the hideout waiting for them to get a woman, which makes you pretty guilty. You got the same problem as Frank here. You don’t choose your friends very careful.”

  “I told you I wasn’t even on the job. Can’t you understand that I wasn’t part of it?”

  “But,” I went on, “you were going to be a part of usin’ that woman when they brung her back.” I noticed a slight twitch from Andy, but he didn’t say anything. “Now, we saw how your friend Coleman treated women. Is that what was in store for Mrs. Moore?”

  At that, Andy’s gun was cocked and pressed to Frazier’s left eye socket. “Hold on.” I said, “I’m talking to the man.” and I slowly pulled his gun hand away.

  “What do ya want from me?” Frazier shouted. “If you’re gonna shoot me then shoot dammit!”

  “If you cooperate, nobody’s gonna shoot you.” I told him as I was holding back the surging Andy.

  I turned and pushed Andy back and told him in a low but firm voice, “Look, Andy, if we ever have any hopes of finding Poke and Gentry we gotta get something out of him. Otherwise, we could spend the next five years bangin around lookin for shadows. Or, we might never find ‘em without some lead. Just back off a little.”

  “I know it, Ben, but I can’t help it when I think of that day.”

  “Then take Frank over to the other side of the fire, get that bread in the skillet, and don’t let the meat burn.”

  He yanked Frank to his feet and shoved him to the other side of the fire. Then Andy kicked Frank’s feet out from under him, which put him in the dirt in a heap. Andy was distracted, and that was good news for Frazier and me.

  Back in my squat I told Frazier, “A few month’s ago my partner and I set out on a mission to rid the country of bad men. And so far we’ve done pretty well. We particularly want to add Amos Poke and Clyde Gentry to that list. Now, the problem is we don’t know where they went. You understand what I’m gettin at?”

  “I’m not stupid,” he said, “and you can save you breath. I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’.”

  “You’re wrong, Mr. Frazier, you are stupid, and I sure don’t want to waste my breath.” I stood up, went to my saddle, picked up my lariat, shook out a small loop and turned to Andy.

  “Andy,” I said, “he’s more afraid of Poke than he is of us. He ain’t got nothin to say and I’m tired of messin with him. Let’s just go on and hang him now.” With that, I tossed the loop over Frazier’s head and snugged it up.

  Chapter 18

  Frazier started yelling like a maniac; he was fighting his bonds and trying to stand all at the same time. Pitching himself from one side to another to get that rope off he reminded me every bit of a freshly caught bass thrown up on the bank. His screams were cruel to hear, and his thrashing about was even harder to watch. Andy and I pinned him to the ground and held him until his eyes once again, showed signs of bein
g in focus.

  “All right,” I said, you had better tell us all you know about Amos Poke and Clyde Gentry. And you better tell it straight, or this rope goes over that limb.” I motioned toward the limb above our heads. “Now start talkin’.”

  His eyes went from one of us to the other. I could hear Frank on the other side of the fire; he was babbling and yelling that he didn’t want to hang. He was pleading and almost crying. It had Frazier to the point of panic. From where he was, he couldn’t see Frank and didn’t know his situation. He only knew that Frank was scared. Andy raised up and yelled at Frank to shut up, and then he pulled his gun and shot into the fire. Sparks and embers dusted Frank, which caused him to roll over and flop around, in a few seconds he was quiet.

  Frazier looked at Andy with as much pure fear as I had ever seen in a pair of eyes. He assumed that Andy had shot Frank, and he knew that Andy wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. He didn’t say anything, so I made ready to throw the rope over the limb.

  “All right, all right!” he yelled, “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything and everything you know about Amos Poke and Clyde Gentry.” I said, “We want to know where they are, what their plans are, what other names they might use, and some pretty accurate descriptions – right down to moles and scars. I want to know what kind of liquor they drink and what kind of women they like. You think about that for a few minutes while I get some paper and a pencil.” I stood up to go to my saddlebag, and just before I turned away, I tossed that rope over the limb. Andy gave it a tug and tied it to a mesquite branch.

  I spent the next hour asking questions and writing down the answers. I filled three front and back sheets of my tablet and had to whittle down that pencil several times. Andy went back to the fire after several minutes – supper was going to be a little late.

  When I was satisfied that I couldn’t think of another question that I hadn’t already asked, I asked some of them again just to make sure that I got the same answers – I did. Andy and Frank had already eaten and Frank was tied up again with his back to a tree. I went to the fire and Andy loaded a couple of plates for us.

  Frazier was surprised when I untied his hands and set the plate and cup beside him. His first move was to the rope around his neck. I said, “Leave that where it is.” He hesitated for a second then moved his hands away. I sat while he ate with my express gun in my hands. He was still easily controlled as long as that rope was around his neck. He saw that Frank was still alive and well tied, but it didn’t seem to matter much to him one way or the other. He and I both knew that I had gotten everything I wanted from him, and he didn’t trust me not to hang him anyway. I didn’t trust him not to try and kill me.

  After he had finished, I retied his hands with Andy standing over him. Then I removed the loop from his neck, wrapped the rope around the tree a couple of times, and tied it off. Then, I dug into that food.

  When I had eaten a whole jackrabbit, a good chunk of venison, some of that bread, and washed it all down with a bucket of coffee, I relaxed a little. It seemed like the world had just lifted itself off my shoulders. I just sat.

  The sun was going down and there were still things to do before we could get any sleep. We weren’t used to having prisoners to be watched or tended. I asked Andy what we should do about them. He didn’t say anything, but he got up and walked over to Frazier, and I followed him.

  He stood in front of the seated and helpless outlaw for a full half minute. Then he pulled his gun and aimed it at Frazier’s forehead. He was just getting ready to pull back the hammer when I gently but firmly forced his hand up.

  “Are you crazy? What are you doin?” he said with a good deal of impatience.

  “I can’t let you do that, Andy.”

  “Can’t…let me?” he was starting to huff up, “Let me? What? Kill a rat? Are you gettin soft…you care about this trash?”

  “I don’t give a damn if he lives or dies – one way or the other. But I can’t stand here and watch you commit cold blooded murder.”

  “Ben, I’ve killed four or five men, one more ain’t gonna matter. You gotta kill snakes.”

  “Every one of those others could be justified in some way, but this one would be plain simple murder. I can’t let you put that on your conscience – let alone your soul.” He thought about it for a few seconds, and I kept hammering, “If you kill him you’re going to have to kill Frank too, and he’s just stupid. We’re only a couple of days from Dodge; we can take him there and turn him over, collect the reward on him and Coleman, and be gone. They’ll hang him for sure; we can even wait around for it.”

  He was thinking about it, but hadn’t made up his mind and I told him, “I’ll take charge of him. You won’t have to do a thing. He won’t be any trouble to you.” That was what saved Frazier’s life… for the time being. One thing Andy hated was being bothered with unnecessary work. Aggravation was a cuss word to Andrew Jackson Moore.

  “You got away from that black bird in the nick of time.” he said.

  “Black bird?”

  “Yeah, that parson in the dress. Kinda got to you, didn’t he?”

  “I suppose he did a little – maybe so.”

  We took two-hour shifts through the night watching the prisoners. I wasn’t too worried about Frank getting loose, but Andy would have been hopping mad if Frazier came up missing. Along about three in the morning, I was thinking I had made a mistake by stopping Andy from killing him, but I got through it.

  After a breakfast of whatever was leftover and well dried out from being over the embers all night, I brought in the horses and put Frank to work saddling them. We packed up and got ready to leave. “Frank,” I said, “can you do anything but rustle cattle and play like a big outlaw?”

  “Sure I can. My pa was a boot maker, a cobbler, back in Kentucky. I could make shoes and boots when I was ten years old, but it wasn’t a whole lot of fun.”

  “How much fun you had these last couple of days?” I asked. “And do you know how close you come yesterday to getting killed? Why don’t you find some nice town that needs a boot shop and set up a business because you won’t last another six months as an outlaw.”

  “I reckon.” he said, “Do that mean you ain’t takin me in?”

  “I reckon.” I said, “Now, you just climb on that horse of yours and git. Don’t look back, and find yourself a better class of playmates.”

  He didn’t waste time saying goodbye. He was in the saddle and his horse was kicking up dust in a flash. As he shot out of camp he was yellin, “Thank-eee, thank-eee, thank-eee!”

  We rode into Dodge the next afternoon. It was a pretty raw town, full of hide hunters, cowboys, soldiers from Ft. Dodge, and those who see to the needs and wants of them. It was larger than any town we’d been in since Ft. Smith, but it was rougher than most.

  Frazier became more and more agitated as we got nearer. I guess he knew what was in store for him and was worried. That scar on his neck must have come from a pretty close run in with a noose somewhere in the past. That was why I used the rope to get him to talk back there in camp. It was a mean thing for me to do, but I was hoping he had a strong fear of a rope – I was right. Now, he was facing one in earnest. Everyone has those hidden fears, some are afraid of storms, fires, close places, or high places, but we all have our fears. Frazier had his.

  When we tied up at the hitch rail in front of the jail, the first thing I did was cut the rawhide lashings that had Frazier’s hands tied to his saddle horn. He wouldn’t move. He had a death grip on the horn, and he wouldn’t budge. I finally had to use all my weight to drag him from the saddle. When I helped him up from the dust, he was shaking like a person standing in the cold too long. We practically had to drag him inside. People were staring and talking, but he didn’t notice.

  Once inside we asked to see the US Marshal. The young deputy sent a boy to fetch him. I showed him the flyers on Frazier, and he went to get a cell ready. I didn’t know what that meant and wondered if he was bring
ing in fresh rats or something.

  Marshal Becker came in a few minutes later, and he recognized Frazier right away. “Well, look a here. Someone finally got ya, eh Bill? I was beginnin’ to think I was gonna have to go get you myself. Lock him up, Buck.”

  We introduced ourselves and showed him the letter that Jasper Stewart had written on our behalf.

  “Yeah,” he said, “I got a message from Jasper inquiring about you two. But that was a couple of months back.”

  I told him that we had gotten a lead on Coleman and Frazier, so instead of going north we went south. I showed him the flyer on Dan Coleman, and he read the message that Murdock had written. I also had a duplicate death certificate from the undertaker, but he was satisfied with Murdock’s statement.

  “You boys have been damned busy. Coleman, Frazier, and Jasper says he paid you boys for Preacher Puckett and Gus Perkins. Anyone else?”

  Andy spoke up with a hint of pride, “Well, marshal, we got Abe Winslow and John Mullin back in Missouri. And there was a rustler down in no man’s land.”

  “That’s right. I remember Stewart mentioning Winslow and Mullin.”

  “Puckett and Perkins weren’t part of our plan.” I said, “They just tried to rob us.”

  The marshal laughed, slapped the desk, took a halfhearted shot at the spittoon, and said, “Now, that was a damned dumb thing to do, I’d say.”

  From the looks of the floor and wall around that spittoon, I’d say the marshal needed to work on his aim some or move it closer.

  He went to a file drawer, rummaged through it a bit, and finally pulled out the files on both Coleman and Frazier. “Looks like the price of these two has gone up over the last couple of years.” He said. “They been causin trouble along the south Kansas boarder. Them bankers and the stage company has upped the anti. They’re worth five hunnerd each. Not too bad, I’d say.”

  I heard Andy whistle softly, or maybe it was me whistling. Either way, that was a lot of money. “Marshal,” I said, “could we have about half of that in cash and the other half sent to a bank back in Missouri?”