A Bad Day to Die: The Adventures of Lucius “By God” Dodge, Texas Ranger (Lucius Dodge Westerns Book 1)

by J. Lee Butts

  We headed for the Texas Star as people all around us hooted and jeered. I heard comments like, “Where you yeller bellies a-goin’?” and “’Bout time some of you badgewearin’ bastards showed up. We’re gonna need somethin’ like law around when we catch up with them Nightshades.”

  Waltzed into Nate Macray’s one-man liquor-pouring operation only to find things had busied up to the point where he’d been forced to press two new bartenders into service. Boz almost disappeared in a thick swirl of tobacco smoke as he forced his way through the crowd, leaned over, and asked where we could locate Hand.

  Macray pointed to Euless Whitecotton’s regular spot in the corner. Remember thinking later all we’d of had to do was give the place an eyeballing from the door, and we’d have easily spotted him. Hell, he was the only black man in the place. Maybe the whole town. Maybe the whole county. Leastways, I’d not seen any others till then.

  As we strolled toward the table, I spotted a darting glance from his direction, and a hand that moved to the grip of his pistol. Under his breath Boz said, “Remember, boys, show your badges, act like you know what you’re doin’, and be careful. Don’t want any problems with this cowboy.”

  Easy for me to understand Moses Hand’s discomfort at having three unknown men surround him, while he tried to indulge in a nice, quiet drink. But if we bothered him much, the case-hardened rancher didn’t show it as he twirled a full dipper of whiskey with his free hand and silently measured each of us for a coffin.

  Boz made an effort to put the man at his ease. “Afternoon. I’m Ranger Boz Tatum. Young feller on my right is Ranger Lucius Dodge. Old fart on my left, wearing the sheriff’s badge, goes by the name of Crow Foot Stickles. Burton Hickerson advises that you might be willing to help us out with a small problem.”

  Hand offered up a crooked smile. “And what problem might dat be, Mr. Tatum.” For a man not much bigger than a wrung-out dishrag, his voice was deep and dripped of the Old South—possibly the backwoods of Alabama, the delta country of Mississippi, or piney woods of Georgia.

  “You can see what’s happening from you chair. If we don’t put a damper to what’s going on here, like as not someone will certainly get strung up ’fore the sun comes out tomorrow. Ain’t that much of a ride out to Little Agnes Creek. Drunk as these men are, Jack Nightshade and his family won’t have any trouble making sure half of ’em end up as dead as those Baynes stage line boys.” No panic in Boz’s voice, but you could detect a degree of urgency.

  Moses Hand appeared nothing like his evocative name. Man was short, skinny as a bed slat, sickly-looking, and the color of a chewed razor strop. He stared at the three of us from behind black eyes laced with a series of yellowish-green cobwebs painted over the whites that encircled them. More than anything else, the man looked bone-tired. Gave me the impression he suffered from a nagging case of jaundice.

  His drooping eyelids slowly slid up and down as he sipped from the glass in his hand, then carefully lowered it to the tabletop. “Cain’t say as how it’d matter much to me one way or ’tother if’n some of these crackers hung a few of them Nightshades, and managed to get themselves killed in the effort. That misbegotten family of thieves had only been in these parts a short time when my cows started disappearin’.”

  “You sure the Nightshades did the borrowing?” I asked.

  He glanced at me, then went for another sip of his drink. Carefully lowered the glass to the same spot on the table. “Caught dat ’un named Arch takin’ some of ’em. Boy couldn’t have been more’n twelve or thirteen year old at the time. Switched his ass with a green cottonwood limb. Dragged him back home by the scruff of the neck. They wuz all livin’ in a broke-down wagon, at the time. Dat old man they called Titus messed around and went to callin’ me names. Made out like he might pull a pistol. Put the fear of God in him right on the spot. Tole him if’n any more of my cows disappeared, or if’n I caught his kids tryin’ to take anymore of ’em, wouldn’t be no talkin’ ’bout the problem. I’d come back and kill him before he could blow out a coal-oil lamp.”

  Crow Foot grinned and said, “Lose any more cows?”

  “No, sir. Not one. Ain’t had no trouble out’n dat bunch since. But I do believe they might be behind the killin’ of them stagecoach fellers. And if’n they ain’t behind it, they know who done it. Course, I suppose dat don’t give this bunch of drunks the right to lynch any of ’em. Have real personal feelin’s ’bout lynchin’. If’n I doan never see another’n, it’ll be way too soon.”

  Then, out of the clear blue, Crow Foot had an absolute stunning flash of brilliance. “How ’bout I make you my deputy. Don’t have to be permanent, less’n you want. You know, maybe you can work with me for a week, or so, while you think it over. Mr. Hickerson said if’n I found anyone able, as the town’s unofficial mayor, he’d have no objection to me hirin’ another man. Been needin’ one for a spell now.”

  Hand’s jaundice-rimmed eyes lit up like Fourth of July sparklers. “You’d do dat? You’d take on a black feller as deputy sheriff?”

  Crow Foot threw his head back and laughed. Then said, “Hell, yes. Ain’t got no personal prejudices along them lines. Long as you can use that pistol you’ve been fingerin’ ever since we ambled over. Wouldn’t make any difference to me if’n you had two heads. You cover my back, when the time comes. That’s all that matters, ’cause I’ll damn sure do the same for you.”

  Moses thought the offer over for about a minute. Rolled a smoke. As he fired up he said, “Does I gets a badge?” He grinned and shook his flaming match till the burned tip smoked.

  Crow Foot fished around in one of his vest pockets and came up with a six-pointed star, almost exactly like the one Burton Hickerson had pinned on my old friend. He leaned over, attached the shiny symbol of authority to Hand’s shirt, and said, “How’s that strike you, amigo?”

  Moses Hand stood, turned, and glanced at his reflection in a heavy mirror hanging on the wall. He smiled and showed a sterling set of pearly teeth. “Looks mighty fine, Sheriff. Mighty fine. I thinks we’s gonna do right well together. And bein’ as how I’s a deputy now, you can call me Mose—if’n you’d like.”

  Boz, who looked somewhat surprised by the turn of events, took a deep breath. “Well, now that we’ve settled on a new deputy, let’s us lawmen meander outside and see what’s what. Maybe get a handle on the hoi polloi ’fore anything awful manages to percolate up and bust wide open.”

  The four of us marched onto the boardwalk just in time to watch the various groups of noisy, future vigilantes form into a single angry mass that moved to the front of Hickerson’s store. Burton had their attention, and tried to talk reason. One man in the crowd seemed far and away the most vocal, and appeared on the verge of inflaming his neighbors to acts of violent retribution.

  I pulled at Hand’s sleeve. “Do you know the idiot out front arguing with Mr. Hickerson, Mose?”

  “That two-legged jackass be Judas Tierney. Man’s got a lip like a Gatlin’ gun. Owns a peckerwood-sized horse operation not far from the Nightshade place. He done went and lost several animals to ’em, over the past year or so. Leastways, dat’s the story he’ll tell you if you hold still long enough. But he ain’t got nerve enough to do anything ’bout the situation by hisself. Bet my last dollar, he’d love to stir everyone up enough to go chargin’ out to Little Agnes Creek and hang every damned one of them Nightshades, including the kids. Tell you somethin’, Mr. Dodge, you shut him up and this whole drunken shebang will fall apart like a paper hat in a rainstorm.”

  We eased around the noisy mob. Tried not to get them any more upset than they already were until we could snake our way to the front and challenge the whole bunch at the same time. Boz and I came at them from one side of Hickerson’s porch. Crow Foot and Mose slipped in from the other. Surprised the drunken herd when all four of us took positions behind Burton. Got real quite for a few seconds. Then Judas Tierney went right back to shooting off his whiskey-soaked mouth.

  He assumed the
mantle of a kind of crowd leader and cut loose like a man dead certain he had the support of his audience. “Well, looka here. The goddamned law finally showed its sorry face. We thought maybe you boys had done gone and skipped town. Typical behavior for your sort. Kinda thing we’ve come to expect from anyone ’round here wearin’ a tin star. Figured you Rangers was already back in Fort Worth by now, or camped out somewhere in the big cold and lonely with Charlie Fain.”

  Boz moved down the steps to a spot about six feet from our insolent antagonist. Cooler than iced water he said, “You boys need to calm down some. Maybe sober up. Put your weapons away and let us handle the problem. No need for this kind of reaction yet. Just drag yourselves on back home, take a nap, sleep off some of the tarantula juice you’ve had today.”

  Tierney sneered. Upended the bottle in his hand and took a deep drag. Glanced over his shoulder at the crowd for encouragement and yelped, “Damned if we will. We come here for justice. That clan of thieves, and their filthy-mouthed, mattress-backed women, are long overdue for a serious comeuppance.” Then he turned directly to the mob and shouted, “And, by God, we’re just the ones who can give ’em what fer. Ain’t we boys?”

  The raucous pack of drunks roared intoxicated approval, but fell silent and sucked back like waves on a stormy beach when Deputy Sheriff Moses Hand darted past Boz, and whacked Judas Tierney on the noggin with the barrel of his pistol. Ole Judas dropped like a condemned man falling through the trap on a well-greased gallows. Didn’t even twitch. Eyes rolled up in the back of his head like he was dead. Looked right surprised. Truth is, I thought maybe Hand might’ve cracked Tierney’s brainpan or something.

  Thank God it didn’t take long for the rest of us official lawman types to react to our new deputy’s impetuous act. Before the crowd could draw a second flabbergasted breath, they were staring into the open muzzles of eight cocked pistols.

  Mose stood over Tierney’s limp body, both weapons at the ready. “You boys go on home now. Party’s over. Ain’t gonna be no twisted-rope justice in Sweetwater today. Do like Ranger Tatum said. Hoof your way to the house, and sleep off this day’s tubful of firewater.”

  Don’t think the rowdy swarm would have got any quieter if death himself had walked right up in the middle of that pack of angry, confused dogs. One chucklebrain, whose head was evidently considerable bigger than his hat, must not have known Moses Hand as well as everyone else attending the spur-of-the-moment prayer meeting. He jumped right up in our runty black deputy’s face, and said the exact wrong thing for the situation at hand.

  “Yew gotta lotta got-damned nerve stickin’ out on you there, nigger. We ’ens jest might hafta string you up first, afore we go after them got-damned Nightshades. Fact is, if’n yew lawdogs doan put them pistols away, this jest might be yore last time to see the light of the Lord.”

  Audacious son of a bitch grinned in Hand’s face—kind of grin that left no doubt how he felt about our new friend. Then, the gutsy jerk went and spit on the black feller’s boots. Glanced back over his shoulder for the crowd’s approval, the same way Judas Tierney had. Not much doubt he expected the rest of the mob to follow his lead, and do as they pleased.

  Imagine the smart-mouthed yob’s surprise when ole Mose whacked him too. Laid the barrel of his pistol right between the big dumb bastard’s eyes. Dropped him like a hammered steer in a Chicago slaughterhouse. Boz followed suit with a rapid firing of four shots into the air over the mob’s heads.

  My God, but I wish you could have seen them scatter. Looked like red ants pouring out of a burning log. Bet it didn’t take twenty seconds for that street to clear, but we stuck around for a spell longer with our guns drawn anyhow. Just to make sure they didn’t come back, you know.

  We’d been primed for a return match, for two or three minutes, when Mose holstered his pistols. “They ain’t comin’ back. Them ole boys has done went and had enough excitement for one day. Be talkin’ ’bout this day’s happenings for years to come. Tell they granchilrin ’bout the time they fought the big gunfight in Sweetwater, and what heroes they wuz. How they buffaloed the lawmens and lynched that black bastard.” He flashed me a toothy smile, grabbed Judas Tierney by the collar, and said, “Think maybe you needs to sleep your’n off in one of Sheriff Crow Foot’s cells. Maybe learn you a lesson.”

  Flicked my pistol barrel toward the man I didn’t recognize. “What about this other one, Boz? Want to take him in for a spell in the cooler too?”

  Tatum finally put his guns away. He was the last one of us to uncoil. Glanced at the bloody-faced wretch and couldn’t help grinning. “Hell, yes. Lock both these morons up. Tomorrow we’ll fine ’em fifty dollars apiece for inciting to riot, and turn ’em loose.”

  Crow Foot jerked the stranger up by the nap of his neck, snatched the pistol out of his belt, and said, “March your sorry, smart-mouthed ass over to the jail, yay-hoo. Gonna git to spend the night mouthin’ off at cave crickets and cockroaches.”

  Most folks recognize their arrival at that point when it’s best to keep your opinions to yourself. Then again, there are always some who just can’t keep their mouths shut no matter what, and Hand’s pistol-whipped adversary was one of them. He held a blood-soaked bandanna over the gash between his eyes and yelped, “Damned if’n ya’ll gonna lock Frank Miller up in some two-bit, jerkwater Texas jail.”

  Crow Foot looked surprised, shocked, disbelieving. “My Sweet, Glorious God. Are you Frank Miller?”

  The bloody-faced feller brightened up. “That’s right. You heard of me?”

  Crow Foot grinned. “Hell, no, I ain’t never heard of Frank Miller, you dumb son of a bitch. Far as I’m concerned you’re nothing more’n a future occupant of a cell in my jail. But I’m right pleased to know your name, Frank.”

  We hustled those boys over to the sheriff’s office and threw them in the box. Slammed the barred door so hard everyone in town must have heard the metallic clang. Both of them whined and bellyached for hours. I thought the whole dance was over. But as events usually worked out during my first several years as a Ranger, I was mistaken.

  We’d just found ourselves a place to sit, and take a breather, when Boz said, “Damned dangerous trick you pulled out there, Mose. Scared about ten years worth of hell out of me when you bounced you pistol off ole Judas’s head. But when you walloped Miller too, I thought for damned sure we were all deader’n Santa Anna. Jesus H. Christ, next time you decide to pull a trick like that, let someone know what you’re about.”

  Mose yanked at his tobacco pouch and shook out an already rolled handmade cigarette. Took his time searching every pocket for a match and trying to light up. Around the coffin nail dangling from his lips he said, “No need to worry, Ranger Tatum. All dem boys needed was a dose of sure-handed guidance. Seen their type many a time afore. Just regular folks. Most of ’em are farmers, ranchers, storekeepers, and such. Their kind don’t really want no trouble.”

  I scratched a match to life, leaned down, and helped him get his tobacco lit. “They looked right serious to me, Mose. Don’t know as how I’d want such a crew out for a piece of my hide.”

  Hand pushed his hat to the back of his head. Sucked down a lung of silky blue smoke and blew a stream toward the ceiling. Then he said something that has stayed with me through all the years that have passed since. “You know, Mr. Dodge, as you go along in this life you gonna find dat they’s night riders, and then they’s mobs. Them night-ridin’ bastards is dangerous. Most times they cover their faces and do they evil from behind the safety of a mask. Secrecy makes them right audacious, sometimes. But a mob has a face. Usually forms up behind one or two men in the broad daylight. Do they business where everyone involved knows everyone else. Damned near impossible to stop masked night riders. But a mob is like a poisonous snake. Chop off the fanged head”—he waved dismissively toward our prisoners—“and what’s left cain’t do nothin’, but wiggle and squirm till death comes.”

  We sat, puffed, and mulled that one over for a spell. I’d bar
ely got relaxed when the jail’s back entry popped open. Nance Nightshade stood in the open doorway, fist on one hip, and motioned at me. “Could I speak with you a moment, Ranger Dodge?” She slapped a quirt against her leg and nervously shifted from foot to foot.

  Looked to Boz for guidance. He nodded. Said, “See what you can find out, Lucius. Could be we can put a cap on this whole situation right here, before anyone else has to die.”

  I hopped up, stepped outside, and pulled the door closed. Said, “What can I can I do for you, Miss Nightshade?”

  The jumpy girl grabbed the quirt at each end, and almost bent the thing double. “Took my life in my own hands by coming into town today. Given what I saw sneaking in, have to believe my unease isn’t misplaced. But I had to make sure you badge-toters understood that the Nightshade family didn’t have anything to do with murdering the Baynes Company’s stage driver, or his shotgun guard.”

  “Well, Miss Nightshade, your story might be difficult to sell in Sweetwater right now. Less than an hour ago, my badge-totin’ amigos and me broke up a mob that had blood in one eye and your family’s stretched necks in the other.”

  She stopped twisting the quirt, and placed a quaking hand on my arm. “That’s why I’m here. I’ll admit to a deep-seated dislike for you law-pushing types. My family’s brief meetings with you, and your friends, recently should be absolute proof of that fact. But I’m very concerned by what’s going on today. Jack, Arch, and my mother have armed the kids, boarded up the house, and they’re all primed for a fight I’m convinced isn’t necessary. Any red-eyed rope-swinging mob showing up on Little Agnes Creek’s gonna be damned sorry, but they just might kill some of the little ones when the shooting starts.” Don’t know why her obvious concern surprised me, but it did. I could see the turmoil in bloodshot eyes. They swam in liquid pools that were about to slosh over onto her cheeks.