by J. Lee Butts
He said, “Hayden, you’re just the man I’ve been looking for. I’m taking a party out next week. Want to have you along with us.”
I liked the man. Enjoyed his company. Trusted him. So I said, “I’ll be glad to go with you, Harry. I’ve had about as much of sitting around a courthouse as I can stand for a while. Tired of spending my time away from Elizabeth doing nothing but looking for sundown and payday. Don’t like the idea of leaving Elizabeth again, but I’m ready for some action.”
“Glad to hear it. By the way, I’ll be carrying a warrant for a no-account piece of trash called Killin’ Bill Barber. He used to run with Magruder. If we can find him he might just know where ole Preacher Bob’s holed up. Pulling out Monday morning. Meet you down at the ferry.”
As I said my good-byes to Elizabeth on the Sunday before my second raid into the Nations, something wonderful happened. I held her hand, kissed her cheek, and turned to walk away. She pulled me back and kissed me with such passion it left no doubt how she felt.
“You must be careful,” she whispered in my ear, “and come back to me safe and well.”
“You know why I have to go. If there’s even the slightest chance I might run across Bob Magruder, I have to take it. And there might be more than a good chance this time out. Harry’s carrying a warrant for a man Magruder used to run with. If we can find him Saginaw Bob could be nearby. You needn’t worry, my dear Elizabeth. No matter what might await me in the Nations, or any other trail I have to travel, I’ll always come back to you.”
“Mr. Tilden, It’s been a long afternoon. Could we take a break? Start again tomorrow morning?” Franklin J. Jr. dropped his pencil in his lap and massaged his right hand.
“Whatever works for you, son.”
“What I want you to do is sit down tonight and make some notes about things you’d be willing to discuss tomorrow. I’ll be back at around ten in the morning, if that’s agreeable?”
“Son, Carlton, Black Jack Pershing, and I aren’t going anywhere. By tomorrow morning I’ll have you a whole raft of things to talk about. Just clear it all with Nurse Leona Wildbank before you leave. Sure wouldn’t do to get her ticked off at us, would it? Gal’s big as something that ought to be rotating on a spit and can dust our feathers like we was poultry ready to be plucked. So don’t leave till you talk to her.”
He smiled, struggled to his feet, shook my hand, and said, “I guarantee everything will be cleared with the mysterious and powerful Miss Leona.” He turned away, stopped, and came back. “Want you to know before I leave, sir, that this has been one of the most interesting afternoons I’ve ever spent interviewing anyone.”
“Glad to hear it, Junior. Look forward to seeing you in the morning.”
Few minutes after he left, I woke Carlton up, helped him into his wheelchair, and we went to supper. If you have to live in a home for the aged, Rolling Hills is about as good as it gets. But sometimes the food really gives me the willies. Most of it’s some kind of paste like that bottled baby food. Once in a while it’d really be grand to suck on a big ole juicy piece of beefsteak. But every time I mention it to the head nurse, she gets this look on her face like someone who’s just been told vampires are real.
Sat at the desk in my room till almost midnight writing down everything I could remember from that first few years with Judge Parker. The special jobs he sent me out on started right after my trip with Harry, Billy Bird, and Travis Teel.
It’s awful quiet at midnight in an old folks’ home. Shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Places are as close to the grave as you can get without being there. ’Bout the only thing that might break a man’s line of thought is those old gomers who sit up in bed every once in a while and start screaming. Fortunately Carlton and me haven’t got that far gone yet. ’Course, Carlton’s so old I’m not sure he would scream if you set him on fire.
Anyway, it’s the perfect time to think about your past, I guess. Only two ways to go once you get to a place like Rolling Hills. You either can’t remember anything—or you can’t forget. I could remember everything like it happened yesterday.
5
“WORTHLESS SCUM SHOT HIM IN THE BACK”
GOT TO HAND it to Junior, he kept his word. At exactly ten o’clock the next morning, he flopped into the overstuffed chair I moved onto the porch and had waiting for him. One minute later, he started scratching in that pad of his.
“Where’s your checkers buddy?” he asked.
“Carlton’s not feeling too good this morning, Junior. He has his good days and his bad days. Today’s one of the bad ones. When you get to be as old as he is you’re lucky to have any kind of a day. Takes a while for some people to realize it, but the older you get, the older you want to get. Carlton might be ninety-two, but he’d sure like to be ninety-three or a hundred and three. Personally I’m going to be surprised if he makes it through the winter this year.”
Junior looked uncomfortable. “Sorry to hear that.”
“Well, son, it’s just life.”
“Where’s the cat?”
“He’ll be around. General Black Jack Pershing’s probably older than me and Carlton combined in cat years, and just like all old tomcats he comes and goes any way he likes.”
“What’ve you got for me this morning? Hope you had a chance to make a few notes last night.”
“Made notes. Raring to go.”
“Yesterday we stopped just as you were about to go out on your second trip to the Nations. As I remember it, Handsome Harry Tate led the party and Killin’ Bill might be a waiting in the boonies with Saginaw Bob.”
That time out we traveled in the company of an old marshal named Travis Teel. He’d been around from the very beginning of Judge Parker’s term.
“Judge hired Travis right after he got off the train back in ’seventy-five,” said Harry as Teel shook my hand. Everything about the man was round. Round head. Round belly. Mustache and chin whiskers made the bottom half of his face look like a black circle inside a white one. I wondered if his feet matched the rest of his body. That lack of sharp edges made him appear shorter than his actual five feet and nine inches.
“This one’s Billy Bird. Billy will be our jailer this trip.” The young marshal looked like a twelve-year-old boy, and in many ways resembled his name. Tall, thin, and long of arm, his gangly appearance disguised a steady, dependable trail mate and a deadly skill with his pistols.
“Not a good idea to get into a quick-draw contest with Billy,” Harry bragged. “We’ve all tried to beat him. No one’s managed it yet.” The boy smiled, blushed, and kicked at the dirt with his toe.
“Aw, shucks, I ain’t that good, Harry. Don’t be leading Mr. Tilden along with things that just might not be true.” Marshal Bird had one of those personalities that drew you to him and made you feel like you’d known him all your life.
From the ferry, Harry moved our little party north of the area Bix Conner covered on my first trip. A week out of Fort Smith led us past several lakes. They were crystal clear in ’seventy-nine and ’eighty. Surrounded by heavy timber. Sometimes, we even saw Indians in the distance.
“Most likely Creeks,” Billy noted. None of them ever approached us.
I wanted to meet a real Indian. The Shawnee had been murdered out and pushed out of Kentucky long before I got born. The possibility of an encounter with living, breathing Plains Indians fascinated me far more than the likelihood of a gun battle with men as bad as those we’d caught on our first raid.
I asked Travis so many questions about the Creeks, he finally said, “They’ll keep their distance, ’less’n they want something.”
Harry led us along and a bit south of the Canadian River. “Judge Parker’s had a boatload of complaints about a bunch of rogue cowboys in this area,” he explained.
“Good men gone bad,” quipped Billy. “They start from Texas with cattle drives that pass through the Nations along the Shawnee and old Chisholm Trails. They get tired of the backbreaking work, or see a chance to get r
ich quick by low means, or get into trouble with their trail bosses, or any of a hundred reasons, and they end up out here running with others of the same breed. Ole Killin’ Bill used to be one of ’em, but he graduated to bigger and more deadly pursuits when he and Saginaw Bob hooked up together.”
Travis lit a cigar that looked like a mud-covered tree root and started talking before he flipped the match away. “These ole boys raid overland mail stations, steal cattle wherever they can, and generally cause trouble with anyone they run up on. Most are nothing more than amateur highwaymen, but some graduate to murder and mayhem of every sort imaginable.”
“Hayden,” Harry chimed in, “lot of these men are just as bad as gangs like the James bunch, but we don’t have enough newspapers or dime novels out here to entertain the public with their exploits. I brought a whole stack of John Does this time in addition to the one for Killin’ Bill. Be real surprised if we don’t use all of ’em.”
We stopped at a couple of the overland stations and found out a new and violent group of cowboys roamed the countryside led by a steely-eyed killer name of Jug Dudley.
Just north of McAlester, Otis Frye, an old stock handler wearing bib overalls, wiped tobacco juice off his chin as he described his encounter with the gang. “They was four of ’em misbegotten Texians,” he said. “Caught me and my friend Orval Rabb ’bout five mile out yonder in the sticks. We was a-driving strays back this way, and them yahoos took the stock and then demanded money. Ain’t had two nickels I could rub together in so long done forgot what they look like. The one they called Jug shot hell out of Orval and laughed like it were something funny to see a man die like that.”
Harry shook his head and said, “Describe Dudley for me and the other marshals.”
“Medium tall, scraggly black hair down to his shoulders, chin beard, grayish blue eyes, and an ugly, saw-shaped scar that ran from his right ear all along the jaw to his chin. Beard couldn’t grow over it.” He pointed at his own face and made a sawing motion along his bony jaw.
“Match anybody you ever heard of before, Harry?” asked Billy Bird.
“Yeah. This feller’s been around for a while. He’s one of the men Judge Parker described to me before we left Fort Smith. ’Course, didn’t know his name then. Think I’ll just write him down on this John Doe right now so I don’t forget it. If we can find witnesses like Mr. Frye here so easy, this bunch has probably done numerous crimes that haven’t come to light yet.”
“Did you see which way they headed after the killing of Mr. Rabb?” asked Travis.
“Went south and west. Toward the Muddy Boggy.” He raised a trembling arm and pointed a shaky finger in the direction of the dying sun.
Sounded like something awful to me. “Muddy Boggy? What’s that?” I asked.
Billy Bird laughed. He snapped his reins over the mule team and turned the wagon south. “An unpleasant garden spot favored by cattle and horse thieves—lots of hidden bluffs and dry washes. Great place to hide stolen stock or just lay low.”
The Muddy Boggy turned out to be muddy, but any bog that might have been there had either covered over with ice or was on the way to it. Flakes of snow had begun to fall, and the cold sharpened with a wind that blew steadily from the west.
Harry and Travis found a sheltered bluff near the river and had Billy pull up out of the wind. We attached a tarp to the wagon and stretched it to some bushes on the side of the bluff.
Billy piled scrub limbs and twigs at one end of the shelter. We got a fire going, and pretty soon our rough outpost turned right homey.
“Here’s how I see it.” Harry scratched at the ground with a piece of broken driftwood. “We’ll use our new camp as a base. Billy stays here. The rest of us will scout the bluffs and wooded patches along the river. Each of us will take a different area. If we find anything, we come back to camp immediately. I don’t have any doubt the Dudley bunch is around here somewhere, but I think we’d best not face them alone.”
Early the next morning, under a sky the color of wet gray slate, we set out on our search. Harry went north along the east bank of the river. Travis Teel walked his horse across a shallow spot and went south on the west side. I struck out south and east traveling in semicircles away from the river. The hardened earth made some of the steep-walled washes treacherous. The hunt proved difficult and dangerous.
Sometime after noon on the third day, I rested Thunder and leaned against a scrubby tree trying to get out of the biting wind. What sounded like shots crackled off to the west. Tried to put a better ear on the situation, but the wind came up. Rattling tree limbs and rustling grass drowned out anything more than a few hundred feet away.
Got back to camp just before dark that evening. Harry had already come in and was sipping coffee with his dinner. Billy handed me a plate and seemed happy we’d made it back again.
I squatted by the fire and poured myself a cup of Billy’s potent up-and-at-’em juice. “Where’s Travis?” I asked.
Billy cast an anxious glance in the direction of Travis’s trail. “He ain’t come in yet.”
“Did either of you hear shooting just after noon today?”
Billy shook his head.
“Not me.” Harry pitched his remaining coffee on the coals and poured himself a new cup.
“Little after midday thought I heard shots off to the west. Happened real fast. Wind kept me from hearing anything else. I’ve noticed in the past that Travis always beat me back and managed to be first in line for every meal.”
Billy laughed, but quickly glanced down the river several times. “Ole Travis has a fondness for food unlike any man I’ve ever met. I’ve seen him take the Mustang Steak House’s challenge one time. You know, that place where they say if you can eat one of their biggest steak dinners you don’t have to pay.”
“I saw him do it.” Harry smiled at the memory. “They brought out a piece of beef about the size of a wagon wheel and, what with the bread, taters, and other side dishes, it made a meal big enough for four normal people. Travis ate every bite of it. He said he could eat two of ’em. You wouldn’t believe he could do it just by looking at him.” His speech slowed as he remembered his friend. “I heard tell he almost starved a couple of times when he was a child. Man is a serious table grazer. Don’t miss a meal. Never even been late.”
Billy grabbed the coffeepot and doused the fire. We moved the horses to a spot behind the wagon and under the bluff. Dragged up several more logs and closed off the open end of our temporary fortress. Took up positions behind our new fortifications. Slept with our weapons at the ready.
Next morning Billy said, “I don’t think a fire is going to hurt anything.” He filled us up with biscuits from an iron kettle and lots of strong coffee. Harry and I struck out to look for Travis as soon as the light got good. As usual, Billy stayed with the wagon. He waved at us with his Winchester when we topped the far bank.
Fancied myself something of a tracker, but my skill was that of a greenhorn compared to Handsome Harry Tate. Every bent twig, scuffed rock, or scratch on the hardened surface of the ground pointed him in the direction of Travis’s past trips over the previous four days. Late that afternoon, he managed to sort out the numerous trails and seemed certain we followed the path left the day before.
About two hours later, in a tight, steep descent to a sheltered wash that led back to the river, Harry reined his horse to a sharp stop and dismounted. He placed his right index finger to his lips and pulled a shotgun from his saddle bindings.
We picked our way from crevice to crevice. When the wash opened back out onto the slow-moving stream, a long, wide sandbar flowed into the water. Not a hundred feet from us, near the only tree in sight for two hundred yards around, lay Travis Teel’s body. Soon as I spotted the corpse I knew Killin’ Bill, and Saginaw Bob, would probably have to be put on a back burner for a bit longer.
We sat in the last crevice of the wash for a long time and waited to see if anyone else might be about. Harry whispered, “Whoever did
this is probably long gone, but it don’t pay to get careless now that we’ve found him.”
Once he got satisfied we could approach the body with some degree of safety, we left our hiding place in a running crouch. I kept guard while he examined Travis.
“Worthless scum shot him in the back when he dismounted over there.” Harry pointed to a spot hard by the slow-moving water. “Two men came at him, maybe three. They got him before he had time to react. Probably didn’t even know what hit him.” He rolled the corpse over. “He went down, and they shot him at least three more times. First shooter must have been in those trees on the bluff behind him. It was a well-planned ambush, Hayden. Guess they spotted him snooping around, set him up, and murdered him.”
Harry stumbled to his feet and stared down at his friend. Muscles in his jaws clenched as his face reddened. He took his hat off and stood for several moments rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.
We carried Travis back to our hiding spot in the wash and continued the examination. Killers had picked him clean. Only thing they left was his long johns. Later, we found his horse almost a mile away. The big palomino must have spooked when the shooting started. Draped Travis over his saddle and covered him with a rain slicker. Then we hurried back to camp as fast as our new load would allow. Not much talking on the way back. Upset can’t come close to describing Harry Tate.
Billy rolled their friend in a piece of tarp and tied it with rope. We found a nice spot overlooking the river for the burial. Picked a place far enough above the high-water mark so the grave wouldn’t float away with the first gully-washing rain. Then we all scoured the surrounding area for what rocks we could find and covered him with them.
“You got a Bible, Hayden?” Billy asked.
“No, sorry.”
“Oh, I understand. It might sound strange, but there’s something about this evil place that keeps men like Harry and me from exposin’ a good book to its influence. Just hoped you might accidentally have one with you.”
