by J. Lee Butts
Swartz got a kick out of the joke. Said he’d write our names down, and make sure any interested females got informed of our whereabouts. Then he led us over to Dugan’s office, where five other men, a woman, and little girl had already been posed.
He sat Boz on the corner of the plank boardwalk, and stood me right behind him. Kept mumbling about how he’d never seen that many guns on two men before in his whole life. Saw that picture in Swartz’s Studio window several years later. Smaller and considerably less famous, our images rested behind a well-known rendering of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and their celebrated train robbing syndi-cate. Them arrogant bastards got a case of the bigheaded stupidity by posing for that photo. Swartz put a copy on display and, before the Wild Bunch knew what hit, the Pinkertons swarmed all over them. Do believe their case of smiling bravado was the most dim-witted thing any gang of Texas outlaws ever did.
We purchased a fine piece of mule flesh named Butterbean from Boz’s friend, Cretis Kincaid. Never did understand why Tatum liked the man so much. Near as I could tell, Kincaid had the personality of a teased tarantula and the social graces of a starved rat. But, have to give a man credit where credit’s due. He took good care of his stock. Butterbean was a mite elderly, but sleek-coated and well-fed.
Soon as we got the extra weapons, ammunition, food, and possibles off our mounts and loaded onto the mule, Boz headed us north and west. He said, “Hell, it’s only about fifty or sixty miles. We’ll just mosey along and save the animals. Still won’t take but a couple of days to make the ride. Nice little community, if memory serves. Mixed bunch of folks who migrated from Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia back in ’65. Think most of them came in with a group from Georgia that was simply trying to get away from the mess Sherman left on his march from Atlanta to the sea. They sure enough found the garden spot of north Texas. There’s thirty artesian wells in and around the town, pumping water into some of the richest soil in this part of the state. Once heard a feller from up that way say he could stick a piece of stove wood in the ground and grow an oak tree.”
’Bout the only way to stop Boz talking was to get his mind on something else. Course, then he’d rattle on for hours about whatever you’d set him out after. Not much of anything but rolling grassland west of Fort Worth. As a consequence, began to think ole Tatum would talk my ear completely off the side of my head by the time we got to Sweetwater.
We hit the two-rut Jacksboro Road and stuck to it for the most part. Gullies, riverbeds, and creeks tended to foster the only trees available to the eye. Infernal sun had cooked all the green out of the prairie. Anytime we took to the countryside, parched brittle grass crunched under our animals’ feet, and straightaway turned into drifting waves of yellow dust. Soil of the roadbed and beneath the burnt-up vegetation looked like the bottom of an iron skillet seasoned over countless open campfires.
Late on the evening of our second day out, we came upon an area lush with trees and well-watered farmland. Grass turned green again, and seemed to grow on the tiniest piece of ground not touched by a plow, or where something else wasn’t already planted.
Ambled into Sweetwater about an hour before sundown. Came up from the south and had to cross the covered bridge over Walnut Creek. I liked the rumbling sound our animals made as they clomped beneath its arched roof. Noticed how the clear, fast-running stream below virtually encircled the entire town like a horseshoe. Almost all the buildings stood along a main thoroughfare that ran straight as a chalk line from south to north.
On the right, almost as soon as you came off the bridge, was a good-sized church topped with an impressive steeple. Building looked newly whitewashed and sparkled in the dying sunlight. The pious and faithful who sat in pews along that side on Sundays had a great view of the creek.
As we got closer to the center of town, rode by a livery stable and blacksmith operation. Passed at least three saloons on either side of the street. Bashwell’s and the Texas Star were on the east. The sign above a rough joint directly across from the Star proclaimed itself as Shorty Small’s. Town had several stores, including Hickerson’s Dry Goods Emporium, where the post office, the telegraph office, a barbershop, and the local lockup had spaces in parts of the same sizable building.
Opposite them, on the western edge of the square, was an outfit called Bruce Brother’s. Not nearly as imposing as the Hickerson operation. A respectable presence nonetheless. Bit further up, and almost in the woods, sat a building that put me in mind of a one-room schoolhouse.
From all available appearances, town of Sweetwater looked like the kind of place anyone would want to live. Kids trotted along behind our horses, and giggled when Boz spit a stream of tobacco juice their direction. Dogs lazed on the boardwalks not bothering to rouse themselves to protest our invasion of their territory or the flies bedeviling their ears. Well-tended horses, singly and attached to buggies and spring wagons, stood at hitch rails all along the street. Others sought shelter from the sun beneath a patch of grand-looking oak trees, growing in the middle of a grass-covered central square, plopped down right in the heart of town. Cool, shady, and inviting-looking, the spot was decorated with a Civil War cannon and plaque dedicated to Southern men who’d died valiantly during the Unpleasantness.
Folks on the boardwalk saw us first. Word must have got around right away that strangers had arrived. Gawkers streamed out of every doorway, or hung from open windows, and watched as we passed.
Reined up in front of Hickerson’s, Boz muttered, “That damned bridge sends out a warning sure as a cavalry bugle. Whole town must have heard us when we crossed it.”
Prosperous-looking gentleman wearing a spotless apron and starched white shirt with fancy garters on his sleeves came out of the store and said, “You boys looking for anyone in particular?”
“Hickerson,” Boz said. “Burton Hickerson.”
Man in the garters wiped his hands on a piece of rag, and looked uncomfortable. “I’m Burton Hickerson. What can I do for you?”
“Name’s Randall Bozworth Tatum. This handsome young feller here’s my partner, Lucius Dodge. We’re Texas Rangers from Company B over in Fort Worth.” He turned and pulled sealed papers from his saddlebag. “Letter of introduction from Captain Waggoner Culpepper,” he said as he leaned forward and offered the note to the merchant. “We hear you folks been havin’ some problems, and need help.”
Believe the smile on Hickerson’s face could have lit up that side of the town’s square at midnight. “Step down, gentlemen. I can guarantee our entire community will be most pleased to hear of your arrival.” Guess he thought better of such an all-encompassing statement. He scratched his chin and said, “Perhaps I should revise my welcome by saying those citizens of Sweetwater who matter will be pleased with your arrival. Do come inside.”
We left a nice-sized crowd buzzing around in the street. Hickerson ushered us through his store. Past the flour, pickles, rakes, hoes, and a variety of saddles, boots, clothing, and all manner of canned and bottled goods. Stock was located behind two counters that ran the entire thirty feet of wall space on both sides of the building. Several large tables in the center bulged with a variety of sundries for those with loose spending money in their pockets.
Melon-headed boy in the aisle, whose eyes looked a bit too far apart, stepped aside and bobbed his head. He leaned on a well-used broom, doffed his raggedy cap, and as we passed, said, “Evenin’, fine gennemums. Good evenin’ to yez. Fine evenin’, ain’t it. Right fine evenin’.”
Hickerson paused and placed a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder. “This is Lenny Milsap. Lenny lives in the shed, out back of the store. Cleans up for us, and runs errands. Everyone in town knows Lenny. These are Texas Rangers, Lenny. They’ve come to help us.”
Milsap held his cap over his heart, threw his head back, and weaved around like wheat blowing in the wind. Went to talking to himself again. “Rangers. They be Texas Rangers, Lenny. Done come to help Mr. Hickerson. Maybe save us from the dark people. Yes, save
us from the dark ones.”
Hickerson smiled and patted the unfortunate boy’s shoulder. We followed the storekeeper through a door and into a comfortable-looking room that appeared to double as a parlor and kitchen. An attractive, well-dressed lady stood at the stove and stirred the contents of a large iron pot.
Boz sniffed the air like a Kentucky coon dog that had died and gone to heaven. “Whatever you’re a-cooking there smells mighty good, missus.”
Hickerson waved us toward the table. “Please sit. Marie, these men are Rangers Tatum and Dodge. Captain Culpepper has finally responded to our concerns.”
The lady nodded. “You’ve arrived just in time for supper, gentlemen. We have vegetable-beef stew and jalapeno pepper cornbread. And for dessert, hot apple pie.”
Boz pulled a chair, sat, and held his hat against his chest. I thought, for a second, he was praying. But then he grinned and said, “Well, missus, they’s a feller what cooks for us, over in Fort Worth, name of Biggerstaff. Been eatin’ from his bill of fare for nigh on six months. Don’t remember anything he’s cooked up so far smelled as good as your stew and cornbread. And my God, that apple pie already has my poor mouth a-waterin’. Hope you’ve done cooked up enough for eight or ten people. My young friend here has a right healthy appetite. As you can readily see, he’s still a growing boy.”
She laughed at my obvious embarrassment, and sassily snapped back, “Well, just have to see if we can fill him up, won’t we. Long as he don’t have a stomach the size of a rain barrel, I think there’s plenty to go around.”
Hickerson said grace over the groceries, then launched right in on the town’s complaints before I could get the first spoonful to my mouth. “Little over three years ago, a busted-up piece of wagon, held together with rawhide straps, rumbled across Walnut Creek and stopped right in the middle of the town square. Scruffy Nightshade bunch set up camp under the biggest live oak. Man, woman, gang of kids, all kinds of animals. Bet they had twenty dogs. Kids went to work with hatchets and chopped limbs for firewood out of that precious hundred-year-old tree. Sheriff had to stop the beastly little savages, or they would surely have killed it. He made them corral all their animals too. His efforts at controlling the rowdy family worked for about a day. Typical of the Nightshades. Everything with them works for about a day. Sometimes two. Then they’ll start something else that’s usually twice as bad.”
Boz slurped at his spoon a couple of times, before he responded. “Sounds like you felt these Nightshades were a problem from the git-go.”
Mrs. Hickerson, who’d taken the seat opposite me, didn’t have a plate or bowl, and sat with hands folded in her lap. I knew the lady would eat after we’d finished. She said, “No, they weren’t considered a real problem at first. In fact, most expressed a degree of pleasure at the prospect of having another Southern-bred family in our community. Just about everyone in town tried, in one way or another, to make them feel welcome.”
Not exactly sure how much Boz expected me to contribute, but he didn’t look at all surprised when I chimed in with, “Why would you welcome a family whose very first act involved destruction of town property and disruptive behavior?”
Mrs. Hickerson smoothed the apron covering her lap. “Well, given that nearly every family in Sweetwater arrived from some part of the still-smoldering South in a similar state, we wanted to be neighborly. But every effort on our part met with the most foul and belligerent kind of response. Besides, we had no way of knowing the Nightshade clan was a bunch of yellow-dog traitors who sided with the North during the great War of Yankee Aggression.”
“Can you give us an example of their quarrelsome behavior?” I asked. “Something you would consider, as Mr. Hickerson has said, typical.”
She didn’t have to think long. “Well, my friend Ellen Wilson tried to invite them to church for the Sunday service and fellowship.” She hesitated. Her face and ears reddened. “The language those Nightshade girls used on Ellen would have made a Georgia moonshiner blush. Ladies standing nearby couldn’t even bring themselves to repeat the outburst of filthiness they heard that morning. I finally dragged the encounter out of my friend Ageline Whitaker. Never would have believed girls that young knew such words.”
Soon as she said girls, twice, my ears just naturally pricked up. “Mrs. Hickerson, are you saying the female members of the family cursed your friend?”
“Absolutely. Language so hot, Sweet Lord, it’s a wonder that offensive rant didn’t set their wagon ablaze and scorch the trees around it.”
Hickerson listened and nodded his agreement like a deacon on the front row at a fire-breathing hard-shell Baptist tent revival. He held his hand up as if to stop his wife’s testimony and said, “Fortunately, less than a week after they arrived, Titus, paterfamilias of the churlish tribe, purchased several plots of land about a mile off the Jacksboro Road south of town. We still haven’t found out how he managed the transaction. No one in these parts will admit to the sale. Land certificates he showed came from a Fort Worth bank. I’ve heard a number of folks express an opinion questioning whether the documents might be counterfeit.”
Boz picked at his teeth and muttered, “Has been known to happen. Exact thing that caused the Regulator-Moderator War over in Shelbyville, some years back.”
Hickerson shook his head. “Guess it don’t matter. You see, we celebrated when the whole rambunctious crew vanished from the square, one morning, and threw up a ramshackle log house beside Little Agnes Creek. Thought we’d pretty much got rid of them. Couldn’t have been any further off the mark on that one.” He stopped, and looked sneaky for a few seconds. “You boys rode right past their place on your way into town. I’d be willing to bet they’re already aware of your arrival. And only God knows what they’ll do.”
Marie Hickerson leaned toward me and whispered, “Yes, and only God knows what goes on out there in that den of iniquity. The stories we’ve heard could turn a body’s hair white.”
“What kind of stories?” I asked.
Hickerson and his wife swapped furtive glances. He nodded as if to approve her yet-to-be-told tale. “Well,” she said, “that oldest gal, Nance, appeared to be with child when they arrived. But no one here ever saw a baby, or heard for certain what might have happened to it. There have been rumors, though.”
“What kind of rumors?” Boz sputtered though a mouth stuffed with a third slab of cornbread.
The lady got more conspiratorial, cupped her hand beside her mouth as though afraid some unseen person might hear. “Lady of my acquaintance tells as how she saw Nance stop in the woods, deliver the babe while holding the reins of her horse.” She paused, clutched her throat, and said, “Then smashed the newborn’s tiny skull with a rock.”
Boz coughed and spit chunks of yellow meal and peppers into his hand. “Sweet Jesus, missus. That’s murder if’n I ever heard of one. Saw a jail when we came into town. Did your resident lawman investigate the charge?”
Burton Hickerson pushed beef and vegetables around in a still-steaming bowl with his spoon. “’Bout three months after the Nightshades arrived in town, our sheriff, nice feller named Charlie Fain, up and disappeared. No one has seen hide or hair of the man since. Scared everyone so bad, the town council can’t get any of the locals to accept the job. We’ve tried to hire a new man, but haven’t had any luck. Talk was that anyone taking the job just might disappear too. People around here are scared to death. Nightshades come to town, and everyone runs for cover.”
Marie Hickerson shook her finger in our faces. “And boys, what we’ve told you thus far is merely the first rattle out of the box. Good many people hereabouts believe those girls are all soiled doves, and that ole Titus is nothing more’n a whoremonger. Lots of strange faces on our streets since that family arrived. Hard-looking men. Rustlers, thieves, and probably worse. Burton and I could go through the entire story, but think it would be better for you to speak directly with those who’ve encountered the Nightshade bunch, and lived to regret it.”
&
nbsp; Boz leaned back in his chair, and stretched. “Given what we’ve seen so far, a body would never guess Sweetwater suffered under anything like the kind of antagonism you’ve described.”
Hickerson stared into his bowl. When he looked up, ominous lines crackled around his eyes and mouth. “Well, Ranger Tatum, just you wait till the Nightshade gang comes to town. Amazing how swiftly the citizens of our beautiful piece of heaven can disappear from the streets, not to be seen again until Titus and his bunch of thugs head back to Little Agnes Creek.”
Marie Hickerson’s voice dropped like a bucket of ice on a frozen well rope. Sounded unearthly, prophetlike, when she said, “You seem like nice young men. Do be careful. The Devil is coming to Sweetwater and won’t be satisfied until he’s collected many an unsuspecting soul. You can take my word on this, there’s a bloody time ahead. It’s been creeping this way since the day that evil family, and their friends, arrived. Everyone in town has had his hackles up, and knows that all the rude behavior, beatings, gunplay, and livestock theft will eventually lead to Satan’s bloody wrath. Sure as chickens can’t lay square eggs, there’s gonna be hell to pay.”
6
“SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME.”
AFTER MARIE HICKERSON’S rib-sticking dinner, Burton led us over, opened up, and helped Boz and me get settled into the abandoned sheriff’s office. Just enough room for two cots, a well-used desk, a pair of rundown chairs, a potbellied stove, and an iron-bound cage. Four metal bunks, lined with straw, hung on chains from the cell’s ten-by-twelve-foot basketlike walls.
Sweetwater’s lockup looked brand-spanking-new to me. Hardly any noticeable corrosion, but covered with a fine layer of dust as though it’d never seen any use. The sad clapboard building appeared to have been constructed around the ominous-looking lockup.
