by J. Lee Butts
Boz snapped, “Well, we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit, Bob. Still haven’t heard who you think started the shooting. So far, all we’ve got is the second, or third, chapter of an ongoing argument between two men who hated each other.”
Horton pulled tobacco from a vest pocket. Took his sweet time rolling a cigarette. Fired up, inhaled the first lungful, and as he blew smoke our direction said, “Euless Whitecotton hasn’t had energy enough to hate anyone since the war. Only person here, this morning, that hated folks was Titus Nightshade. Sorry, friendless son of a bitch has yet to meet anyone he didn’t hate. I personally hope he’s roasting on Satan’s favorite spit in hell.”
Boz got impatient. “You gonna tell me the rest of it in your own words, Bob, or did you pop off at the mouth because you wanted some attention?”
“Swear before Jesus, there ain’t nothing else to tell, Ranger. Nate hit the nail right on the head. I seen it exactly the way he said. Euless Whitecotton is totally blameless in this one. Course, that ain’t gonna mean much when Nance and Jack find out Titus done went and bought it. Gonna be hell to pay over this killin’. Gonna be hell to pay.” His voice trailed off like a man lost in the frightful realization that awful events awaited him around unseen corners in his life.
We headed for the door, but stopped when Horton said, “Heard one thing Nate didn’t mention. Leastways, I think I heard it. Nightshade kept mumbling something under his breath about pigs. Lost pigs. Stolen pigs. Something like that. Didn’t make any sense. Still don’t. But I’ve heard him ramble like that before when he’d been drinking and wanted to pick a fight. Like he had a cocklebur stuck in his craw, couldn’t spit it out, and wasn’t happy till he’d made someone else’s life miserable. Pigs. Incredible.”
Boz shot me a worried glance, shook his head, and whispered, “Well, I guess some of us know what was botherin’ him, don’t we?”
By the time we made our way back to the street, someone had shown a bit of consideration and covered Nightshade’s body with a ratty piece of canvas. Large pool of blood had already soaked through. A solemn cluster of adults, and half a dozen kids, stood nearby, whispered, and pointed at the corpse.
We followed a small knot of the overly concerned to a house near the school at the north end of town. Friends carried Whitecotton home, and sent for the only local resident with something like real medical experience. F. Scott Bryles, called “Doc” by most, practiced a combination of folk remedies, veterinary hocus-pocus, and actual medicine. Heard he’d studied somewhere back East, and served as a Confederate field medic during the war. Enough for me that Burton Hickerson trusted the man.
Stuck around for a spell, and determined the cap’n had indeed been shot in the back. He stayed conscious long enough to confirm the whole story, almost word for word, the way Nate Macray and Bob Horton had described.
Poor back-shot bastard passed out when Doc Bryles pushed his way through the crowd and upended a bottle of whiskey into the swollen, open wound. Agonized yelling, gasping, and bleeding sent most folks outside for fresh air. Seemed like a fine time for us to make our exit as well.
Boz decided we’d best get ole Titus out of the street. He said, “Wouldn’t want to let the family find him still stretched out in the mud, blood, and horse manure. Probably serve to make ’em that much madder. Besides, dogs be goin’ at the carcass soon, if’n we don’t get him up.”
We rolled Nightshade’s body in the tarp and carried him to the sheriff’s office. Laid the corpse out on the boardwalk, till we borrowed a pair of sawhorses from Burton Hickerson. Took the door off the outhouse behind the office to make a temporary funeral platform. Then we dragged our chairs outside the way we usually did, but set up a few steps away from the body. Boz brought his short-barreled shotgun with him. Leaned the big popper against the wall behind us.
We enjoyed the quiet, for a few minutes, before I said, “You reckon we should ride out to Little Agnes Creek and tell his family what happened?”
My partner shook his head. “No need. Bet they’re on the way to town right now. Probably knew what transpired within minutes of the shooting. Likely had tale-carryin’ friends on their doorstep while smoke from Whitecotton’s last shot still hovered over the bodies. Don’t want to alarm you, Lucius, but you’d best get ready for a tense confrontation when they arrive. Tell you what we’ll do. Soon’s we hear them hit the bridge, you take my shotgun, and get back into the office. You can cover me from the window.”
“Damned if I will. Gonna stay out here. We’ll face whatever comes together.”
“No, son. I ain’t tryin’ to be noble, or nothin’. It’s just that this here sit-chi-ation will work out better if they don’t know you’re around, till I want them to. You can do a lot more good coverin’ me with the shotgun from inside, than out here. That way, you can have ’em under the gun soon’s they ride up. She’s primed with buckshot. At this distance, you can make quite a mess, if they start anything. Besides, if one of ’em manages to shoot me, I want you to kill as many of ’em as you can. Comprende, amigo?”
Told him I understood, but the plan still didn’t sit well with me. Figured my place was out on the street by his side, no matter what the odds might be. But when the thunder from the creek rolled over us like a cannon barrage, he slapped me on the leg, handed me the shotgun, and motioned me inside.
Called over his shoulder, “First one makes a move for his pistol, don’t be bashful, open up with both barrels. Kill as many as you can.”
11
“WOMAN HAS WITCHY POWERS.”
“SOON AS YOU close the door, Lucius, cock that scattergun and stand in the window so they can see you when I point ’em your direction. I’ll take care of the rest.”
I’d barely had time to turn around good when they came storming up. Three oldest Nightshades, Jack, Nance, and Arch, led a party of at least seven others. Some of them obviously weren’t family, but everyone in the gang was packing iron and itching for a fight.
When the dust settled, and things quieted down some, Jack said, “You got our father under that there nasty piece of rag?”
Boz didn’t get out of his chair. He sat with one hand on the butt of his belly gun, the other on his hip pistol. “Yes, it is. Unfortunate for you, and him, I’m sorry to say. But, yes, it is.”
Nance pointed at Boz with a braided leather riding quirt. “We want the man who murdered Pa, and we want him right by God now. Gonna string his sorry carcass up to the tree, over yonder in the square, after we fill him full of holes. If he’s inside, bring him out.” Damned good thing she couldn’t have spit ten-penny nails, or her blistering tongue would have pinned Boz to the boardwalk like a sinner on a cross.
Calm as a horse trough in a drought, Boz stood and pushed the chair back with his foot. “Not today, you ain’t. Near as I’ve been able to determine, Titus picked this fight, fired the first shot, and paid a heavy price for a clear-cut case of deliberate back-shootin’ belligerence.”
Stringy-haired kid, I took to be Arch Nightshade, stood in his stirrups. “Who told them black-damnable lies? You turn ’em over to us, and they’ll change their Rebel tune—and right sudden. Git finished carvin’ on one of ’em with my bowie, and won’t be no one else spreadin’ such bald-faced fiction. Won’t take me more’n a minute to put such sorry lies to rest.”
Boz didn’t miss a beat. “No fiction to this one, son. Your pa picked a fight with a better shot. Witnesses saw Titus come into town drunk and lookin’ for trouble. He found exactly that. Now he’s dead, and that’s the end of the story.”
Jack Nightshade’s flushed face gave him the appearance of a man whose head was about to explode. “Just be damned if that’s the end. This bunch of stinkweed-growin’ plow pushers have had a festerin’ hatred for us since the day we got to town. Been laying out waitin’ for a chance to kill one of us. We’ll have payment, in blood, for my father’s murder. No one’s gonna kill a Nightshade and expect to go through this life unpunished.
Jack’s r
ight hand hovered over the pistol on his hip like he couldn’t wait for the blasting to start. In spite of Boz’s instructions, seemed like a good time for me to get a little closer to the action. Pushed the jailhouse door open with the shotgun’s barrel, and took one step onto the boardwalk.
Brought that big double-barreled man-killer to my shoulder, aimed for the three Nightshades on the front row, and said, “Time for you to calm down, Jack. You folks have got too many fingers wandering toward weapons for my taste. First one of you touches a pistol, I aim to cut the three of you out front in half.”
Let my less than delicate threat sit on them a few seconds, then went on with, “I can’t truly believe your grief has made you stupid, on top of all your other less than admirable traits. Think all of you should take a gander at the open muzzle of this 10-gauge, and let the darkness you see at the back bring some enlightening reason into your life.”
For about five seconds, the whole scene got so quiet thought I could hear the cogs turning in all their questionable thinker mechanisms. Half a minute later, a whipped, defeated look gradually settled on the faces of those in the leading rank.
Nance touched her brother’s arm with the quirt and said, “Careful, brother. These men will kill us.” She turned to me and snapped, “Jack is something of a hothead at times, Ranger Dodge. We’ll just take Titus’s body, and be on our way.”
She twisted around in her saddle, and said something I didn’t rightly hear. Several of the other riders stepped down, moved forward, and retrieved her father’s body from our makeshift resting place. They managed to bend ole Titus in the middle enough to get him draped over an extra horse. Then remounted, turned, and headed out of town a lot slower, and with considerable less thunder and lightning, than when they rode in.
Feel fairly certain she didn’t mean for Boz or me to hear, but amidst the noise and movement, Nightshade’s hot-blooded daughter leaned toward her brother and said, “Don’t worry, Jack. We’ll get ’em. I swear ’fore Jesus, we’ll get ’em back.”
Sidled up next to Boz. He squinted at me from the corner of his eye. “Didn’t stay inside like I told you.”
“I know. Got concerned for your safety.”
He chuckled. “Well, not altogether sure I told you right. Got their undivided attention when you stepped up close with that butt-ugly scattergun. Don’t know if you noticed or not, but think I saw real fear in young Jack’s eyes for the first time since we got here.”
“You sure ’bout that?”
He scratched his chin. “Could have been little more than a combination of anger and disbelief over his father’s unexpected departure, or maybe indigestion from this morning’s huevos rancheros. But looked like fear to me. Course none of my amateur face-reading means much in the long run. We’ll just have to wait and see how the whole doo-dah shakes out. To be on the safe side, though, let’s follow these angry dogs, Lucius. Gotta make sure they don’t bite anyone on the way home.”
His suggestion surprised me some. But, once we got to a spot where we could survey the enraged clan through our long glasses and not be seen, I realized he’d made the right decision. Watched as Titus’s agitated family carried the old man’s body into the house. Couldn’t see exactly what happened after that, but tradition called for the women to wash and redress him for burial. Probably laid him out in the front room, or wherever a reasonably cool spot could be found. I know for certain sure, they had to work fast. Ain’t nothing worse than a festerin’ carcass lying around the house for two or three days. Gets to smelling a shade ripe in just a matter of hours.
Just a few minutes before sundown, Nightshade’s oldest boys, and several men I didn’t recognize, carried the corpse, wrapped in a multicolored patchwork quilt, to a spot on the creek about a hundred yards from the house. Half a dozen of them, with shovels and picks, made right short work of a deep hole under the shade of a live oak, and lowered the body, with the aid of what looked like a set of lines from wagon harness. Piled rocks inside the hole, then shoveled all the turned earth on top.
Mourners didn’t spend much time over the grave, once they got him in the ground, though. Mighty little praying got done at that burial. Whole family hustled back to the house, and set to celebrating. Fiddle music, dancing, whooping, hollering, and drinking went on loud, long, and well into the night. Sometime around ten or eleven, when the wake was in full swing, we headed back to town.
Boz cast a parting glance over his shoulder. “Maybe they learned something from this experience.”
“You really believe that?”
He snickered. “No, Lucius. I don’t. The way I’ve got this situation figured, Euless Whitecotton’s desperate defense of his own life has probably lit a fire under the Nightshades that’ll end up scorching everyone in Sweetwater. Like ole Bob Horton said, ‘There’s gonna be hell to pay.’ Might be later than sooner but, trust me, it’ll happen. These kinds of disagreements get goin’ good, and the blood flows like water. We just might be in for a flood.”
Two weeks passed, and nothing out of the ordinary occurred. The town pushed the murderous events of that day aside, and got all worked up over the coming wedding of a double set of twins from two well-known, and much-liked, local families.
The identical Boucher brothers, Tom and Ed, had proposed to, and been accepted by, the McKinney sisters, Barbara and Susan. Nuptials, planned for months prior to the Whitecotton-Nightshade dustup, had some members of both families suggesting a postponement of the event. Naturally, the overheated and anxious young lovers wouldn’t consent to any such delay.
Concerned heads of each family stopped by the office, brought food offerings, and invited us to attend. Unable to resist the opportunity to grace any drinking and eating shindig with his boisterous presence, Boz readily accepted on our behalf. After due consideration of the opportunities to meet young ladies, dance, and have a fine meal to boot, I gamely agreed with his decision. Like the rest of Sweetwater, we soon looked forward to the event with considerable anticipation.
As Boz so aptly put it on at least a dozen occasions, “Lots of free bonded-in-the-barn tarantula juice at these countrified swarees, Lucius. Combine that with fresh-faced farm girls and all the jiggin’ you can do—Merciful Father, she’ll be a night to remember, my friend.” He’d slap his belly, make sounds like a rutting hog, and let out a robust hoot. Deep down the man was something less than the absolute personification of polite behavior. Set me to wondering if I might be forced to shoot him in the foot, before the celebrating finally drew to an end.
Seemed as though the town’s entire population turned out for days before the big knot-tying, and each man, woman, and child took a personal run at helping the concerned families decorate the church house. Every so often, we’d stroll by, look over their progress, and offer suggestions. To this day, I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed a more heartfelt expression of a community’s joy over such an occasion. Difficult to estimate how many hours of labor got expended on the bridal arch placed over a soon-to-be-flower-covered altar.
Country folk, from as far as ten miles away, rode in for an opportunity to lend a hand. Accidentally bumped into Martye McKee on the church steps, late one afternoon. Leastways, I thought it was an accident. She stood barefooted, one plank below me, batted ebony eyelashes, did a little I’m-just-so-embarrassed-I-can’t-hardly-stand-it act, and said, “Been here all afternoon, Ranger Dodge. Had hoped you might stop by. Thought we could do some more sparkin’ out behind the church house. There’s a nice lovers’ spot I know of.”
Held my hat in my hand and kicked at the porch with the toe of my boot. Couldn’t believe the girl managed to discomfort me the way she did. “Now, Martye. That kiss we exchanged, a few days ago, was completely your affair. Can’t say as I had much in the way of anything to do with that hastified romantic interlude.”
“Oh, is that so, Mr. Dodge?”
“Yes. That is absolutely so.”
She picked at a button on the front of my vest and ran a glistening to
ngue around cherry lips. “Am I to assume you didn’t care for my kisses, Mr. Dodge? Not sweet enough for your sophisticated Fort Worth tastes?”
Have to admit her coquettish act was most likely having the exact effect she wanted, because things started to get right warm just below my belt buckle. But my pony-riding, semi-Comanche, white gal still managed to catch me by surprise again. Got me to squirming around under an inquisitive finger she used to dig inside my shirt.
Pretty sure the green-eyed beauty knew exactly what she was about. Devilish gal winked and said, “Well, you done waited too late today anyhow. My ma and me have to get back to the ranch ’fore nightfall. But I’ll be back for the weddin’. Meet me at the lightnin’-split oak, out back of the church, after the big doings.”
“Not sure that’d be a good idea, Miss McKee.”
She flipped up my string tie, stuck her finger in my mouth, and wetly breathed into my ear, “I’ll show you somthin’ you ain’t never seen before, cowboy.” Then, she grabbed me by the ears, locked her lips to mine, and damn near sucked the spurs right off my boots. Held me for what seemed like an eternity. Broke the slobbery kiss with a resounding smack, giggled, darted across the brittle grass, and jumped onto her pinto’s naked back like a painted savage. Left me standing in a cloud of red-hot Texas dust, shaking like a windswept leaf, with the smell of her breath clinging to my upper lip.
When the day of the big event finally arrived, the chapel bulged with people. Behind the crowded building, tables laden with enough victuals to feed Fort Worth adorned an area designated for the joyous reception scheduled to follow. A sizable area of grass had been scraped away and lightly watered, for the evening’s dancing and foot-stomping. Some of the menfolk had collected pots, cans, and other noisemaking devices for a shivaree after the eating and celebrating.
