The Desperado

by Clifton Adams

  “Now, what the hell?” Pappy said.

  I said, “Maybe we're so good he wants to hire us for mother trail drive.”

  Pappy grunted. Trail driving was work, and he had had enough of that to last him for a while. What money Pappy needed he could usually get over a poker table.

  But we went over anyway. Hagan was slicked and duded up in a fancy outfit that he had been saving for the end of the trail. He was just cinching up a big bay, the best horse in the remuda, when Pappy and I got there.

  “I want you boys to stay with the herd,” Hagan said without looking around. “It'll mean extra pay for a couple of days. I've got to ride into town on business.”

  Pappy said, “We don't need the extra pay. We just signed up as far as North Cottonwood.”

  The trail boss turned slowly, frowning. “I figured I done you boys a favor by hiring you on and getting you through Indian Territory. But if you figure it's too damn much to ask, staying over a couple of days...”

  Pappy glanced at me. Sure, Hagan had done us a favor, but we had earned our money on that trail drive. I could see Pappy's face grow longer. “Never let anyone do you a favor without paying for it,” he had said. “Never become obligated to anyone.”

  Pappy shrugged. “All right, Bass. I guess we can stay here a couple of days. What do you want us to do?”

  Hagan brightened. “Nothing special, just help my other riders take care of the herd till I get back.” He swung up on the bay, grinning quietly. As we watched him put his spurs to the bay and lope off to the north, an idea got stuck in my mind and I couldn't get it out.

  I said, “Something just occurred to me. Do you think Hagan would think enough of fifteen thousand dollars to try to get us arrested?”

  Pappy took a long time rolling one of his corn-shuck cigarettes. He held a match to it thoughtfully, handing the makings to me. At last he smiled that sad half-smile that I had come to expect. “I think I've said it before, son,” he said. “You learn fast.”

  But we stayed on with the herd, and, if Pappy was worried, it didn't show on that long face of his. We didn't mention Hagan again that day, but when night came we fell automatically into a routine that we had worked out, of one sleeping and one watching.

  Once Pappy said, “Money is a funny thing. The root of all evil, they say. Men steal for it, kill for it, lie for it...” He inhaled deeply on a cigarette. “Money,” he said again. “I never had much of it myself. I could have hooked up with the Bassett gang once when they was robbing the Confederate payrolls. If I'd done it, maybe I'd have been a rich man now.”

  He laughed abruptly, without humor. “My ma always taught me that it was a sin to steal. I never stole a dime in my life...”

  Pappy's voice trailed off. He didn't know how to say it, but I thought I knew what was going on in his mind. I had thought about it too, since I saw that reward poster with my name on it. Most men got something out of their crimes—maybe not much, when they stood on the gallows thinking about it, waiting for the floor to drop out from under them, but something. Men like me and Pappy, we didn't get anything. All the money we had was the thirty-odd dollars that Hagan had paid us for the trail job. All the satisfaction we had was that of knowing that we were faster with guns that most men, and that wasn't much of a satisfaction when you thought of what other men had. Security, homes, wives. Things that Pappy would never have. And—I had to face it now—things that I would never have if I didn't somehow fight my way out of the crazy whirl of killing that seemed to have no beginning and no end.

  The thought of that scared me. It made me sick all the way down to the bottom of my stomach when I thought of ending up the way Pappy was bound to end. Without Laurin. Without anything. Until now, I had been telling myself that there really wasn't anything to worry about, all I had to do was hold out until I could get a free trial in Texas. But now I wasn't sure. Paul Creyton, the policemen, the cavalryman, Buck Creyton—after each one I had told myself that there wouldn't be any more killing. I could still say it, but I couldn't believe the words anymore.

  “I never stole a dime in my life,” Pappy said again, as if just thinking about that particular clean part of his life made him feel better.

  I found myself hoping desperately that Bass Hagan would let well enough alone and just tend to his cattle business in Abilene. I thought bitterly: If they would just let us alone ... If Paul Creyton hadn't tried to steal my horse, if the bluebelly hadn't killed Pa ...

  But it was too late for tears. We couldn't change the past—nor the future either, for that matter. If Hagan had it in his head to try for the reward money, nothing would stop him. If it wasn't now, it would be later.

  Chapter 9

  THE NEXT MORNING was hot and hazy with dust from ten thousand stamping cattle scattering as far as you could see in any direction. There wasn't anything for Pappy and me to do. Hagan's regular riders were taking care of the herd and remuda, and guarding the wagons. I thought: It seems crazy as hell for Hagan to pay good money for riders he doesn't need. Unless, of course, he was figuring to get his money back, and some more with it. I watched Pappy plundering around in one of the supply wagons, and after a while he climbed down with a towel over his shoulder and a bar of soap in his hand.

  “I figure we might as well wash up,” he said with a thin grin, “as long as there doesn't seem to be any work for us to do.”

  I said, “Don't you think one of us better keep watch?” We still hadn't mentioned Hagan, but he was never far out of our minds.

  Pappy shrugged. “We can watch from the creek. Maybe we've just got a case of the jumps. Anyway, we need a bath. We can't ride into Abilene looking like a pair of saddle tramps.”

  Pappy was the careful one; if he thought it was all right, then it was all right. We went down to the remuda herd and cut out Red and Pappy's big black and got them saddled. The creek was only about a hundred yards back of our wagons, but a horseman never walks anywhere if he can ride.

  We left the horses down by the water, and I took my place under a rattling cottonwood while Pappy bathed first. Nothing happened that I could see. I had a clear view of the herd and wagons, and everything was going on as usual. Behind me, I could hear Pappy splashing around and grunting at the shock of cold water. After a while he climbed up the bank where I was, wearing his new serge pants and clean shirt. But he didn't look much different, with that scraggly crop of whiskers still on his face.

  “No sign of Hagan yet?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Go on and take your bath,” he said, handing me the wet bar of yellow lye soap. “I'll let you know if we've got company.”

  I peeled off my clothes and waded out knee deep in the bitter cold water. I didn't have a change of clothes. That was something else I forgot to bring from John's City, along with a slicker. Well, I had over thirty dollars in my pocket. That would buy me some clothes in Abilene —providing nobody got too set on keeping us out of Abilene.

  In the meantime, I washed the clothes I had, lathering them with the lye soap, then weighting them down to the bottom of the stream with a rock while I washed myself. I was grimy from top to bottom, not just my hands and feet and face, like it used to be on Saturday nights when Ma put the big wooden washtub in the kitchen and filled it for me and Pa. I scrubbed hard, using sand on my elbows and knees when the soap wouldn't do the job. I didn't feel naked until I got all the dirt off. After I had finished, I felt like I must have polluted the stream for ten miles down.

  After I had sloshed my clothes around to get the soap out, wrung them out and hung them on a bush to dry, I went downstream to take care of Red. He wasn't as dirty as I had been, but I rinsed off some caked mud on his legs and rubbed him down and he looked better.

  “You about finished down there, son?” Pappy called.

  “Sure,” I said. “I was just sprucing Red up a little.”

  “You better get your clothes on,” Pappy said with a mildness that still deceived me sometimes. “It looks like we're
going to have company, after all.”

  I stiffened in the cold water. Then I splashed over to the edge and went over to the bush where my clothes were. They weren't dry, but they weren't as wet as they had been the night of the rain—the night I had killed Buck Creyton. I put them on the way they were, stuffed my feet in my boots, and buckled on the .44's.

  As I went clawing my way up the bank, Pappy said, “Keep down, son. We don't want to tell them anything they don't already know.”

  I raised my head carefully over the edge of the bank, the way Pappy was doing. Sure enough, it was Hagan and four other men that I'd never seen before. All of them were heeled up with guns. Hagan was the only one not carrying a rifle in his saddle boot.

  “Who are they?” I said.

  “Jim Langly's men.”

  I shot Pappy a glance. Langly was the marshal of Abilene.

  I said, “I thought the marshal was a friend of yours.”

  Pappy smiled that smile of his, but this time it seemed sadder than usual. “That was a mistake I made,” he said quietly. “You never know who your friends are until you get a price on your head.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don't know,” Pappy said slowly. “I haven't decided yet.”

  We lay there for a long moment watching Hagan call one of the herders over. The man pointed toward the creek, evidently in answer to a question. The man went away, and Hagan called the four Langly men together and talked for a minute. Then the men fanned out, taking up positions inside the covered supply wagons.

  “Well, that's about as clear as a man could want it,” Pappy said.

  I felt myself tightening up. The rattle of the cotton-wood seemed louder than it had a few minutes before. Smells were sharper. Even my eyes were keener.

  “That bastard,” I said. “That lousy bastard.”

  “Hagan?”

  “Who else?”

  Pappy seemed to think it over carefully. “I guess we really can't blame Hagan much,” he said. “Fifteen thousand is a lot of money for a few minutes' work-especially if you don't have any idea how dangerous work like that can be.” He paused for a minute. “But Jim Langly... We've been good friends for years. This is a hell of a thing for Jim to do.”

  He still didn't sound mad, but more hurt than anything.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked again.

  After a long wait, Pappy said, “I think maybe we'll ride up the creek a way, and then make for Abilene and talk to Jim.”

  “You're not going to let Hagan get away with this, are you?” I was suddenly hot inside. I had forgotten that last night I had promised myself no more trouble.

  “We can't buck four saddle guns,” Pappy said.

  I knew he was right, but my hands ached to get at Hagan's throat. I wanted to see that pink face of his turn red, and then blue, and then purple. But I choked the feeling down and the effort left me empty. It always has to be somebody, I thought. Now it's Hagan, and Langly. Why can't they just let us alone?

  Slowly, Pappy began sliding down the bank. His eyes looked tired and very old.

  We went upstream as quietly as we could, scattering drinking cattle and horses, and once in a while coming upon a naked man lathering himself with soap. We rode for maybe a mile in the creek bed, until we were pretty sure that nobody in the Hagan camp could see us; then we pulled out in open country and headed north.

  Pappy rode stiffly in the saddle, not looking one way or the other. After a while the hurt look went out of his eyes, and a kind of smoky anger banked up like sullen thunderheads.

  We left North Cottonwood behind; and I wondered vaguely how long it would be before Hagan and his law-dogs would get tired of waiting in those covered wagons and send somebody down to the creek to see what had happened to us. Maybe they already had.

  I tried to keep my mind blank. I tried to push Hagan and Langly out of my brain, but they hung on and ate away at me like a rotting disease. As we rode, the morning got to be afternoon and a dazzling Kansas sun moved over to the west and beat at us like a blowtorch. Gradually the monotony of silent march lulled me into a stupor, and I found myself counting every thud as Red put a hoof down, and cussing Bass Hagan with every breath.

  Actually, it wasn't Hagan in particular that I was cursing, but mankind in general. The thousands of greedy, money-loving bastards like Hagan who were never satisfied to take care of their own business and let it go at that. They were like a flock of vultures feeding on other people's misery. They were like miserable coyotes sniffing around a sick cow, waiting until the animal was too weak to fight back and then pouncing and killing. I had enough hate for all the Hagans. The thousands of them. All the bastards who wouldn't let us alone, who insisted on getting themselves killed. And every time they insisted, it put a bigger price on our heads.

  I remember looking over at Pappy once and wondering if he had ever thought of it that way. Pappy, who had never stolen a dime in his life, who had never wanted to hurt anybody except when it was a matter of life or death for himself—I wondered if he felt trapped the way I did, if he could feel the net drawing a little tighter every time some damned fool forced him to kill. If Pappy ever felt that way, he had never talked about it. He wasn't much of a man with words. And then it occurred to me that maybe that was the reason he was the kind of man he was. Being unable to depend on words, maybe he had been forced to let his guns do the talking.

  Then, out of nowhere, Laurin came into my brain and cooled the heat of anger and helpless frustration, the way it happened so many times. When everything seemed lost, then Laurin would enter into my thoughts and everything was all right again. I'll be coming back, I promised. And I could almost see that hopeful, wide-eyed smile of hers. They can't keep me away from you, I said silently. You're the only important thing in my life. The only real thing. Everything's going to be all right. You'll see.

  I looked up suddenly and Pappy was giving me that curious look. I felt my face warm. I had been speaking my thoughts out loud.

  “Well?” I said.

  “Nothing, son,” Pappy said soberly. “Not a thing.”

  It was late in the afternoon when we finally sighted Abilene. The noise, the bawling of cattle, the shrill screams of locomotive whistles around the cattle pens, the fitful cloud of dust that surged over the place like a restless shroud gave you an idea of what the town was like long before you got close enough to be part of it. Over to the west we could see new herds coming up from North Cottonwood, heading for the dozen of giant cattle pens on the edge of town. Pappy and I circled the cattle pens, and the combined noise of prodded steers and locomotives and hoarsely shouting punchers was like something out of another world. It was worse than a trail drive. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I had never seen a train before, and I kept looking back long after we had passed the pens, watching the giant black engine with white steam spurting in all directions, and the punchers jabbing the frightened cattle with poles, forcing them through the loading gates and into the slatted cattle cars.

  Then we came into the town itself, which was mostly one long street—Texas Street, they called it—of saloons and barbershops and gambling parlors and dance halls. Some of the places were all four wrapped in one, with extra facilities upstairs for the fancy women who leaned out of the windows shouting at us as we rode by. The street was a mill of humanity and animals and wagons and hacks of every kind I ever saw, and a lot I had never seen before. Every man seemed to be cursing, and every jackass braying, every wagon squeaking, and every horse stomping. The whole place was a restless, surging pool of sound and excitement that got hold of you like a fever.

  So this was Pappy's town. I didn't know if I liked it or not, but I didn't think I did. I didn't think the town would ever quiet down long enough to let a person draw an easy breath and be a part of it.

  I couldn't help wondering what Pappy was going to do, now that he was here. Would he becrazy enough to walk up and kill the marshal of a town like this? I couldn't believ
e that Pappy would try a thing like that, not unless he knew he had some backing from somewhere. More backing than I would be able to give him.

  But his face didn't tell me anything. A few curious eyes watched us as we pushed our way up the street, but most of the men were too intent on their own personal brand of hell-raising to pay any attention to us. At last Pappy pulled his big black in at the hitching rack near the middle of the block. I pulled Red in, pushing to make room between a bay and a roan.

  We hitched and stepped up to the plank walk, but before we went into the bar that Pappy was headed for, I said, “Pappy, don't you think this is damn foolishness, trying to take the marshal of a place like this?”

  He looked at me flatly. “You don't have to go with me, son. This is just between Jim and me.”

  “I'm not trying to get out of anything,” I said. “It just looks crazy to me, that's all.”

  Some men had stopped on the plank walk to look at us. Perhaps they recognized Pappy, for they didn't loiter after Pappy had raked them with that flat gaze of his.