by Bill Brooks
Bat walked over from his corner and said, “If I’m going to make this look legit, I’m going to hit hard. It won’t be any disgrace if you get knocked down and stay down. Lots of men have.”
“I guess I just won’t let you hit me then.”
Bat looked at him like he was waiting for the punch line of the joke.
“I guess that would be wisest, you not letting me hit you,” he said.
Dog crawled through the ropes, said, “I’m going to referee, since my man here says he doesn’t need a second.”
“That’s fine by me, if it’s all right with him,” Bat said.
Dog raised his voice for all the crowd to hear and signaled Jim to bang on a spittoon with the barrel of a pistol in lieu of a bell. “All bets down now, boys! The fight’s about to begin…” and so on and so forth, announcing it as a long-held grudge between the two men stemming from some dispute years earlier on the Texas plains. It was a hell of a story, Teddy thought standing there listening to it. Finally Dog got on with it.
“You boys shake hands and come out fighting when Jim hits that spittoon again with his shooter,” Dog said.
They shook hands and each walked back to their respective corner. Teddy could see there were slatterns in attendance, some of them smoking cigars. Several of them catcalled remarks about what a good-looking young man Teddy was. He tried ignoring such comments, choosing to concentrate on strategy for fighting Bat instead.
Hell, let’s get this over fast, Teddy thought when Jim clanged the barrel of his shooter off the brass spittoon.
Bat came across the ring in short choppy steps, his fists held high. Teddy circled to Bat’s right. Bat shot a left jab, but Teddy saw Bat telegraph it and ducked easily out of the way. The crowd roared. Teddy felt the rattlesnake in him take over. He moved smoothly, as though he were gliding on ice. Everything in his world grew silent and it looked like Bat was moving in slow motion. He shot a crunching left hook to Bat’s lower ribs and when it landed, as he knew it would, he brought a right hand over the top of Bat’s guard and caught him flush on the cheek.
The combination staggered the lawman and put a look of surprise on his face. Teddy gave him time to gather himself. He didn’t want to embarrass the man too badly in front of his own townspeople.
Bat came rushing in and they ended up in a clinch along the ropes and some of the crowd pushed them back to the center of the ring. Dog stepped in to separate them. Bat pushed him away, threw a hard left-right combination to Teddy’s body. But Teddy barely felt them in the state of mind he was in.
He threw his own combination: a flurry of six straight blows, all hitting their target and sending Bat to the floor.
Bat rose to one knee while Dog counted. A trickle of blood from over his right eye and two trickles from his nostrils looked like red ribbons. He struggled to his feet.
Teddy’s and Bat’s eyes met. Teddy could sense Masterson’s doubt. Bat knew what he hadn’t known before: that he was in against an irrepressible foe. But his own pride wouldn’t allow him to quit.
He came at Teddy, who easily danced out of the way while delivering blow after blow—every punch like the strike of a snake to Bat’s face and body, each doing a little more damage than the previous one. Bat swung wildly now in desperation, hoping to tag Teddy with a lucky punch. It was his only hope of redemption. It wasn’t to be.
Teddy swayed out of the way of a roundhouse right and hit Bat with a solid left-right combination that dropped Bat to his knees just as the man struck the spittoon, indicating that the first round was over.
Jim and Ed helped Bat back to his corner. Teddy motioned Dog over and said, “This is foolish to go on. He has to know by now he can’t win. Tell him to quit.”
Dog went over and whispered in the ear of Bat what Teddy was advocating.
“Hell, I know I can’t win,” Bat said. “But I’m not quitting either. Tell him that.” Bat spat a mouthful of blood.
“No use to go on, brother,” Ed said.
“No use at all,” Jim said.
“Yeah, no use at all. But let em carry me out, I ain’t quitting.”
Dog returned to Teddy’s corner amid the hoorahs and cheering and curses of the crowd and told him what Bat had said.
“Then tell him I’ll quit,” Teddy said.
Dog shrugged and returned to Bat’s corner and told him what Teddy was offering to do. The two combatants exchanged knowing looks. “The hell you will,” Bat mouthed silently.
The spittoon was struck for round two and Bat came out, his movements slower now, more cautious, like an old man.
Teddy didn’t want to brutalize the man. He needed to get it over quick. He feinted with his right and when Bat went for the fake Teddy caught him with a left hook that took him off his feet and landed him on the floor. Both of them and everyone in the house could see it was a blow Bat wouldn’t get up from.
Dog began to count, reached ten, then waved his arms, shouting “It’s all over.”
There were a lot of groans while they revived Bat by splashing a bucket of ice water over him. Disappointed men paid the lucky few who’d bet on the lanky stranger.
“Tall man always beats a shorter one,” someone said.
Teddy sat on a chair with both hands in a bucket of ice water. His hands hurt like hell. It had been a long time since he’d fought anyone like that. In a way it felt good, but in another way it felt terrible.
Dog brought him a whiskey with a beer chaser. “That was some piece of work you did in the ring,” he said.
“How is Bat?”
“Oh, hell, he’s coming around fine. He’s a little glassy eyed still.”
Teddy stood and walked over to where Bat was now sitting and took out a chair across from him, said loud enough for those still hanging out to hear, “I guess you’ll damn well know who your betters are. Next time we cross paths it’ll be more than just fists.”
Bat was fingering one of his teeth, checking to see if it had been knocked loose. Bat looked at him with those dark troubling eyes. Saw none of the lingerers were within easy earshot.
“Thought you said you weren’t a fighter?”
“I’m not, by nature. But I did box on my college boxing team.”
Bat looked at his brothers, one eye swelling. “He boxed on his college team,” he said. They nodded their heads. “I guess I owe you an apology.”
“No, you don’t owe me anything.”
“I even hit you once?” Bat said.
“Yeah, I think a couple of times.”
“I think from now on when it comes to boxing, I’ll stick to refereeing. You didn’t get hit, did you, Dog?”
Dog grinned. “No, but I lost my ass betting on you, Bat.”
“Next time me and you fight, I’ll bring my gun,” Bat said loudly for the benefit of those along the bar. He said it with a crooked smile, his mouth full of wet red. “Whiskey,” he said to brother Jim.
“We better do our meeting from now on in private,” Teddy said, standing.
Bat sipped his whiskey, grimaced as the bite of it touched the split in his lip.
They each knew what respect was and how to give it and did, in that silent moment before Teddy walked over and shucked on his shoulder rig, then his coat and hat and went on out into the wild streets of Dodge again.
Chapter 9
Dirty Dave Rudabaugh said, “Boys, I’m tired of running from them Mastersons, ain’t you? I’m tired of digging my way out of jails with spoons, ain’t you?” The boys Dave was talking to simply looked at him and shook their heads.
“No, we ain’t tired of running from the Mastersons,” Cherokee Bill said. “Running from the Mastersons beats hell out of being shot and killed by ’em.”
“It beats it all to hell seven ways,” said Tom Tulip, Cherokee Bill’s first cousin. There had been two others of Dave’s group, but they’d long since fled, not waiting around for any more of Dirty Dave’s outlaw plans.
“I’m thinking we ought to ride back to Dodge a
nd just murder them sons a bitches, then we wouldn’t have to run from ’em no more,” Dirty Dave said.
“Go right ahead,” Cherokee Bill said.
“Yeah, go right ahead, you got our permission,” Tom Tulip said. Tom often repeated whatever Cherokee Bill said and added just a little of his own thinking on the end.
Dave looked at them with unveiled disgust.
“You boys is piss poor when it comes to partners. Why, you wouldn’t even make carbuncles on a real partner’s ass.”
“Me and Tom is going down to the pistol barrel like we planned before the Mastersons caught us and put us in that mud jail,” Cherokee Bill said. “You’re welcome to come along.”
“It’s mean country, that pistol barrel is. They’s a lot of low-down cutthroats hiding out in that country,” Dave said. “You boys is liable for sure to get murdered by them that’s worse’n us.”
“Maybe so,” Cherokee Bill said. “But they can’t be no meaner down there than them Masterson brothers will be if they catch us again.”
“Yeah, they can’t be no meaner,” Tom said. “Next time them Mastersons catch up to us they’ll probably just shoot us and save themselves the trouble of having us escaping from ’em.”
“Well, you boys at least ought to help me rob one more train before you go.”
“What for? We dint get nothing off the last one but a bunch of mail and ain’t a one of us can read,” Cherokee Bill said.
“That’s exactly why we ought to rob another train. This time we’ll rob one that’s got passengers on it. We’ll take their wallets and pocket watches and we’ll take the women’s brooches and rings. Why, we’ll steal the gold fillings out of their teeth if we have to.”
Tom Tulip looked at his cousin Cherokee Bill.
“You up for robbing any more trains and stealing gold fillings out of teeth?”
“Not me. I never did like the idea to rob a train on account of what happened to Jake Crowfoot that time.”
“Me neither.”
“Who’s Jake Crowfoot?” Dave asked.
“He featured himself a first-rate train robber,” Bill said. “He come out of Omaha. Wore two guns. Little feller. Real loud talker, always bragging what a magnificent train robber he was.”
“Well, what happened to him?”
“He was trying to rob a Union and Pacific and fell under it. Cut him into tiny pieces. He was already little as it was.”
“He was a lot littler when that train finished with him,” Tom said. “He quit talking loud too.”
Tom grinned at his joke and Cherokee Bill grinned at it too.
They both spit and then mounted their horses.
“We’ll see you in Paris, France,” Cherokee Bill said.
Dave watched them ride off. He didn’t know what the hell Bill was talking about, saying they’d see him in Paris, France. And when the dust settled again, Dave told himself he was better off without the two of them and the other two, who’d ridden off soon as they broke out of jail.
“I’m better off,” he said to the prairie wind.
But the thought of killing the Mastersons all by himself felt like a daunting task indeed. He’d have to find himself a new partner or three, and he thought he knew of just where he might find such—a place called Mister. He’d been to it once with his old gang—Buck Pierce and Hannibal Smith. They all three had hidden out there because it was a lawless little burg. Fact was, Buck and Hannibal might still be there. It cheered him like sunshine to think they could be. They were two mean bastards if there were ever mean bastards to be had. That was for sure. Mad-dog-killer mean. He’d just have to figure out something to get them to throw in with him and help him rub out the Mastersons. Of course, Buck and Hannibal could just as easily be dead as alive. They could have been hanged or shot by a posse. An outlaw’s life was like love: never a sure bet and never for long.
He rode northeast, back in the general direction of Mister, which lay along Crooked Creek. It was just a shantytown.
He arrived about midnight. He saw that half the town had been burnt to the ground: that which lay on the west side of the main and only street. But the town on the east side of the street was still standing, three saloons and a dope den in total, untouched except by some smoke marks.
It did not take Dave long to locate Buck and Hannibal. They were busy beating a fellow senseless in front of one of the saloons, the word HOGSHEAD painted atop its false front.
Well, once Dave got a clearer look-see in the light cast by torches there in front of the saloon, he could see it was mostly Hannibal doing the beating and Buck doing the holding of the fellow getting beat. A whore in a yellow dress stood screaming like a banshee. Dave couldn’t understand what she was screaming about, but it was clear that she wasn’t happy with the situation. The beaten fellow looked like a rag doll being pummeled.
Dave sat his horse and watched with a certain admiration the handiwork of his old gang. Those boys were still mean bastards, judging by the way they were pulverizing the beat feller. Just the sort of partners Dave would need to go back to Dodge with and finish the Mastersons.
“Boys, let me buy you a drink to celebrate your victory over this no-account, I’m sure,” Dave said when the two grew weary of beating the poor man and left him lying in the dirt. The whore in the yellow dress tried to comfort the felled man. His eyes were rolled back. It took the boys several seconds to recognize Dirty Dave because Hannibal was about blind drunk and Buck was too. They stood swaying like wheat in the wind.
“Why, we heard you was dead,” Buck said when at last recognition penetrated his brain.
“Hanged by the Mastersons, we heard,” Hannibal said.
“Up in Dodge,” Buck said.
“Or somewhere,” Hannibal said.
“As you can plainly see, I ain’t dead hardly. And it will be a cold day in hell before I am, especially by the hand of them Mastersons.”
Then Buck fell down, passed out cold, and Hannibal bent down to look at him and he fell down too. That’s when the whore took her revenge and ran into a saloon and back out again with a spittoon and began banging the boys over the head with it until Dave pulled his Smith and Wesson revolver and said, “I’d sure hate to shoot a woman, especially one in such a pretty yellow dress, but thems’ my old pards.” Her battering had more or less aroused the boys to a lighter stupor.
“You boys is in need of a leader, I can see that,” Dave said.
Dirty Dave managed to get them into the saloon, and once seated at a table and drinks ordered, he commenced to lay out his plan. But the boys passed out again before he could finish, so he drank himself into a stupor as well, and awoke lying on a pool table with the morning sun striped across his face. The boys were asleep on the floor like big dogs.
Dave spilled a bucket of beer on them and they awoke growling.
“Goddamn, I can see this ain’t gone be easy,” Dave said.
Dave told them the big fat lie he’d concocted about an easy bank in Dodge they could rob.
“Probably’s got twenty, thirty thousand dollars in gold sitting in it just waiting for a couple of mean fuckers like us to come and take it out,” Dave said.
“What about them Mastersons?” Buck said, rubbing his eyes to get the sting of beer and sleep out.
“Yeah, I heard they was the law up around in there,” Hannibal said. His breath stank like coal oil.
“That’s the beauty of my plan,” Dave said.
“What is?” Buck said.
“Beauty?” Hannibal said.
“We sneak in and kill them Mastersons in their sleep and then rob the bank. Rather than rob the bank and have ’em chase us, we rub out the law first and then they ain’t nobody to chase us. She’s a beaut ain’t she, boys, my plan?”
“Bank robbing, huh?” Buck said, rubbing his jaw.
“That’s a clever notion,” Hannibal said.
“You know where I got the idea?” Dave said.
The boys shook their heads.
&nb
sp; “The James brothers down in Missouri. They’s the first ones to rob a bank. They got it down to perfection too. I reckoned they robbed a hundred banks by now and made themselves at least a million dollars in easy loot. I reckon soon every outlaw in the country will be taking up the trade. We sure enough ought to get in on it ourselves before all the banks get robbed.”
“Is that how they do it, them Jamses? Kill the law first then rob the banks?” Buck said.
“No, that idea is an original, something I thought up personal.”
Hannibal was quiet for a long time. Then he slapped a hand down hard on the table and said, “I got me an idea too.”
“What is it?” Buck said.
“Let’s kill them damn Mastersons and rob all the banks in Dodge!”
“Say, that’s a sparkling idea,” Buck said.
“It sure is,” Dirty Dave said. “We best get started right away.”
“Can’t,” Hannibal said.
“Why not?”
“Buck’s getting married in a few days.”
“Married?”
“Well, if she ain’t changed her mind,” Buck said. “She was mighty upset about me and Hannibal beating the hell out of her daddy.”
“You mean that whore in the yellow dress?” Buck looked at Dave with flinty eyes.
“Careful what you say, that’s my sweetheart you’re talking about.”
“Why’d you beat him if he was your sweetheart’s daddy?” More silence. Dave and Buck and Hannibal trading looks back and forth.
“I can’t remember,” Buck said.
“I can’t either,” Hannibal said. “We was all just drinking and having a good time and next I know, we was out there on the street fighting.”
“Yeah,” Buck said. “You know how we get when we get drunk and to fighting. We’re like a pair of wildcats, Hannibal and me…”
“Like wildcats,” Hannibal affirmed.
“Well boys, all I can say is all that gold might not be too long in that bank. Some other mean fuckers like us could get the idea to rob it too, you know, and beat us to the punch.”
