Desperado Run (An Indian Territory Western Book 2)

by Patrick E. Andrews

“Yes, sir.”

  “There’s many things in the scriptures that you could have gleaned during your time here,” Hamilton continued.

  Ben wondered if the scriptures offered any advice on how a youngster could protect himself from assault by older, larger prisoners, or how to bribe a guard for better food and a warmer cell, or a hundred other things a convict needed to know in order to survive the ordeal of his sentence.

  But he said nothing.

  “You’ll be back here, Benjamin Cullen,” Hamilton said with a satisfied grin that showed no humor. “And when you do, I strongly advise you to ally yourself closely with the prison chapel.”

  “I gotta go, sir.”

  Hamilton stood up. “You won’t go until I dismiss you!”

  Ben smiled at him.

  “I want you to fully realize that you’re a sinner! A damned-to-hell unforgiven sinner who’ll burn for eternity,” Hamilton said. “You and your kind are like cancers on mankind that must be cut away if you will not be cured.”

  Ben continued grinning. He had no reason to fear the chaplain. While prisoners up for parole or pardon had to act subservient and humble before the clergyman, others, like Ben, whose sentences were completed could not be affected by any recommendations one way or the other from Hamilton.

  “If you won’t accept God’s will, then Satan will take your soul—”

  “Just a minute,” Ben said finally speaking. “If I’m bad and that pleases the devil, why in the world would he want to punish me?” This was not an original thought of Ben’s. He was echoing one of Harmon Gilray’s preachments. “You’d think he’d be pleased as punch with fellers like me.”

  Hamilton sputtered and could not speak.

  “Listen, preacher man,” Ben said leaning forward defiantly. “My sentence is up August third, 1891. I’m walking outta here a free man, and there ain’t nothing you can do about it. I ain’t one of them poor bastards up for parole that’s got to listen to your shit and bow and scrape to keep you happy. So piss up a rope, you sonofabitch, I’m gone!”

  Ben was returned to his cell and immediately summoned out again. He thought perhaps Hamilton had reported his insubordination and he’d have to spend some time in solitary. But this time the captain of the guards informed Ben he had been removed from all work details and would be moved to a different building where trustees and short-timers were housed.

  The new routine made the final month unbearably slow. Ben was locked in his cell and only let out for meals, a two-hour exercise period in the yard, and once a week for a bath. Again he turned to his imagination and began living the coming days of freedom in his mind as he hoped they would be.

  On the final day, Ben went through almost a direct reverse of the admitting procedure. Again he stripped—this time out of the striped prison uniform bearing the number 2139—and he was sprayed with the fire hose. He was marched into the supply room where he turned in his bedding and was given a dusty cardboard box. Upon opening it he found his original clothing. The same suit he had worn to the dance that fateful night ten years previously. No longer a sixteen-year-old boy, Ben found the clothing too small. This was no problem because the state of Kansas provided him with a cheap set of clothing and a shapeless wool army campaign hat that had been dyed a shade of green.

  Then he received his earnings from the mine. One hundred dollars in cash for ten years of work except for the time he’d spent lollying around with Harmon Gilray and the boys. But actually he had spent most of his salary buying better work assignments, food, and other benefits put up on the prison market by the guards.

  Ben stuck the money in the pockets of the baggy suit, slapped the hat on his head and, on August 3, 1891, stepped out the front gate of the prison a free man.

  A guard escorted him to the train station in Leavenworth where he purchased a one-way ticket to Newton, Kansas. Although there was a five-hour wait, Ben had the blue-uniformed official with him right up to the point he stepped up on the train.

  Ben, suddenly feeling very frightened and alone, virtually crouched in his seat and watched the wide expanse of the Kansas countryside sweep by his window. He gave his fellow passengers furtive glances now and then until a young woman boarded the train during a stopover in Emporia.

  She walked down the aisle with her eyes demurely cast downward as she took a seat in front of Ben. He could see her delicate neck and narrow shoulders, and her hair seemed so soft and delicate to the young man who had been locked up with other males for the previous ten years. There was also a scent about her that caused his heart to beat faster.

  A strange longing overtook him. He’d fought down the normal sexual urges that had plagued him in prison. Sex with another man was repugnant and reminded him of the assaults he’d endured. Yet he desired to have some sort of physical relationship with the young woman he now studied so intently. Having her touch him would be heavenly, he thought, even if it were a caress on the face and look into his eyes.

  Then he roughly pushed the soft thoughts from his mind. Harmon Gilray would never have approved of them. But looking at the girl did bring him one startling revelation: he could no longer recall what Maybelle Beardsley looked like.

  They arrived in Newton early the next morning and Ben was suddenly standing outside alone for the first time in this strange world. People seemed to scurry aimlessly about. There were no groups marching to chow halls or work details or bathhouses. No one seemed to have any purpose at all in the senseless activity that went on around him. They came and went, passed by from left to right and right to left, some came at him obliquely while others whisked past him and suddenly turned off into other directions. No one shouted orders or blew whistles to keep things orderly in this hurly-burly of confusion.

  Ben was hungry, and suddenly he felt the helplessness of the institutionalized who have to make decisions about things that had been merely part of a former routine. No guard would come along and shove him into a line and take him to the proper place to eat. He had to find it himself.

  Ben hadn’t read a word in the ten years he’d been in prison. His reading skills, while never particularly high, had sunk to near illiteracy. The lettering on signs and buildings only added to his perplexity. Finally he passed a building in which several men sat at a low counter eating. Ben summoned his courage and walked in and took a seat.

  “What’ll it be?” a man in a greasy apron asked him.

  Ben panicked for a moment. He had to choose some sort of food, but his mind whirled with the effort.

  “Hey, you want something or don’t you? I ain’t got all day,” the man asked.

  “Gimme some salt pork and beans,” Ben said.

  “Hell, I ain’t got salt pork,” the man said laughing. “You like that stuff?”

  “Yes,” Ben said lamely.

  “Why don’t you have something I got. Like bacon and eggs?”

  “Sure,” Ben said secretly glad for the suggestion. “I’d like some bacon and eggs.”

  “How many eggs?” the man asked.

  “Uh—gimme two eggs,” Ben said.

  “How do you like ’em?”

  “I like ’em just fine,” Ben replied.

  The cook, exasperated, shook his head. “Looky here now, feller, I’m busy as hell. How do you want them eggs? Scrambled? Fried?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How do you want them goddamned eggs?”

  “Fry ’em,” Ben said.

  “Want some coffee too?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “I’d surely like a cup o’ coffee, mister.”

  The cook slapped the meal together quickly and pushed the greasy mess—laid on a dirty plate—in front of Ben. It seemed like a feast of the gods to the ex-convict. “That looks mighty good,” Ben said.

  The cook, surprised, smiled. “Here’s your coffee. Piping hot.”

  Ben took a sip and sighed in contentment. “That’s right good coffee too.”

  “Well, I’m glad you like it,” the cook said. He wasn’t used to
compliments. “Say, I got an extry piece o’ bacon in the skillet. Want it?”

  “No, thanks,” Ben said suspiciously.

  “No charge, feller, I’d have to toss it out anyhow.” Ben was used to gifts being offered for sexual favors. He shook his head again as he wolfed down the food. “Sure you don’t want it?”

  Ben, suddenly angry and defensive, finished off the bacon and eggs. He stood up. “How much I owe you?”

  “Fifteen cents.”

  Ben pulled some change out of his pocket and laid it on the counter. “Take it out of there.” He watched as the man pulled several of the coins from the pile, then he put the remainder back in his pocket.

  “Sure you don’t want the bacon, pard?”

  Ben’s temper boiled over. “You listen to me, you sonofabitch! I’m a man, see? You try any o’ your shit on me and I’ll cut you three ways—wide, deep, and continuously!”

  The cook jumped back in alarm. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he shouted. “Get outta here, you hear? Get outta here!”

  Ben, glad the man knew he was no gal-boy, grinned viciously at him before abruptly exiting the little cafe.

  Ben spent the following two hours simply walking around Newton and looking the town over. The encounter in the cafe made him feel surer of himself now that he had established a reputation in the area. Still displaying the convict’s perspective, Ben felt the word of his willingness to fight would pass around quickly making most, if not all, the locals leave him in peace.

  Finally he began seeking directions to the Gilray farm. Nobody could help him until he wandered into a barbershop. A farmer getting a haircut offered him a ride out to the place. Ben, feeling secure now, accepted and sat down to wait for the man.

  The barber looked closely at Ben. “You want a trim, feller?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You been having a friend cut your hair?”

  Ben, now acutely aware of how his hair must look since being permitted to let it grow out from the prison scalpings, ran his fingers through it. “Yeah. I ain’t particular.”

  “I reckon you ain’t,” the barber said with a smile. He went back to snipping at the farmer’s hair and finally finished.

  “Put it on my tab, Harry,” the customer said. He got his hat from the rack and motioned to Ben. “Let’s go. I gotta pick up my woman and kids, then we’ll head on out that-a way.” As they stepped outside, the farmer offered his hand. “Elliot Frawley.”

  Ben shook hands. “Ben Cullen.”

  “Just outta prison, are you?”

  “No,” Ben lied.

  “It’s all right, Cullen,” Frawley said. “I done time in Texas. Ol’ Harmon Gilray wanted me to team up with him, but I had my family. I can’t take no more o’ that owlhoot trail.”

  Ben, suddenly feeling very close and friendly, nodded. “I knowed Harmon up there in the penitentiary. I’m riding with him as soon as I can find him.”

  “That’s what I figgered,” Frawley said. He sighed. “Well, it’s your choice, I reckon. Ever’ man decides his own way to go. It just ain’t worth it to me. You ain’t got a sweetheart or wife or nothing?”

  “Nope,” Ben answered.

  “Any family?”

  “I had a ma, but she died,” Ben said. “The county clerk at home wrote the warden and he told me.”

  “Maybe the choice is best for you,” Frawley said. They walked down the street to a heavy farm wagon. A large, square-jawed woman wearing a calico bonnet looked down at them. She smiled. “Who you got there, Elliot?”

  “Ben Cullen,” Frawley said to his wife. “A friend of the Gilray’s. Gonna give him a lift out to their place. Ben, this is my wife, Martha.”

  “Howdy,” Ben said.

  Mrs. Frawley nodded and scooted over to make room for him on the seat. “You going to work for the Gilrays?”

  “I reckon.”

  “Nice folks.”

  “I don’t know ’em,” Ben said settling down. “I’m a friend of Harmon’s.”

  “Oh.” That was all Martha Frawley said.

  Like most families on the frontier, the Frawleys were taciturn. Even the kids in the back of the wagon sat quietly as they rolled slowly along the country road. Ben sat there being acutely aware of the woman’s presence. Although she was far from being attractive even to him, her closeness and femininity stirred longings in him that he had felt with the younger girl on the train.

  Ben, the sexual urges agitating, was glad when the wagon finally stopped. Frawley pointed up a side road. “That-a way. Maybe two miles.”

  “Thanks,” Ben said hopping to the ground. Then, without another word or gesture, he walked away from the wagon toward the farm.

  Chapter Seven

  The storm had washed the sky clean. Cloudless and a deep blue, it stretched from horizon to horizon with a sparkling clarity to match the sweet, washed smell of the air.

  No breezes stirred the stillness of the scene. As was common with prairie thunder squalls, the violent attack had been followed by a placid aftermath. The only sounds were those of meadowlarks, mockingbirds, and a few flitting scissor tails that sang as they went about the business of tending their nests and feeding.

  Ben Cullen lay face down in a bed of crushed bluebonnet flowers that had been knocked flat by the temporary river that raged over them the previous evening. His clothing was still wet and his damp hair was plastered to his skull. The first stirrings of consciousness caused him to roll over on his back in a reflex to breathe easier. His eyelids flickered against the brightness of the sun that radiated brightly on the scene.

  Suddenly his eyes opened and Ben sat up violently.

  The effort made him dizzy and he coughed so hard that he vomited up the muddy water he had swallowed during the flash flood. Ben struggled to his feet while every nerve and sensibility of his being tried to scream at him through his mental fog that he was a pursued man and in imminent danger. More dizziness followed and he staggered backward to sit down hard on the ground again.

  It took him ten minutes of concentrated effort, but he finally regained a wakeful state. This time he stood up slowly, letting the waves of nausea and vertigo subside slowly before he attempted to move. He checked himself over carefully. He obviously was not injured—there were no pain, cuts, or other signs of wounds—but his pistol was gone from the holster, both boots were missing, and his hat had also disappeared.

  He walked around the immediate area searching for his horse and other gear, but could find nothing. He walked up and down the ravine for more than a mile on each side, but the search was useless. He had to accept the fact that he had lost everything. The only weapon he possessed was the faithful knife stuck snugly in the sheath he carried on his back.

  Ben’s choice of actions was severely limited. He could either sit there and wait for a posse to eventually come along and find him, or he could move along on foot and hope for some wild luck to get him out of the predicament he was now in.

  Ben decided to walk.

  He went back into the ravine and climbed up on the north side. After a brief determination of which way Wichita might be, he began the trek.

  His socks didn’t last long. Already worn with holes in them, it didn’t take much time for the rugged terrain to finish the destruction. Ben finally pulled off the remnants and stuck them under a piece of sod he loosened in the ground. As with all men used to being hunted, he wanted to leave no evidence of his passing—not even a worn-out pair of boot stockings—if he could help it.

  There were plenty of stickers on the ground, and he had to walk slowly and carefully to avoid getting them stuck in the soles of his feet. More stops were necessary as he sat down to pull out the thorny hunks of vegetation before being able to continue. Although things were bad for him, he realized that he was lucky in a strange way. If a situation like this had happened to some unfortunate traveler twenty years previously, he would have been caught by a wandering band of Kiowas or Comanches. The Indians would have pas
sed the rest of the lazy summer day by treating their victim to a slow, roasting death.

  The law was bad enough, but the worst Ben could expect from them would be a quick bullet through the head or a few moments of strangling at the end of a rope thrown over the nearest tree branch.

  The morning passed and the afternoon came on with an even hotter sun. The moist earth, baked by the rays, emitted an invisible steam of high humidity. Thirst wasn’t too much of a problem, but it couldn’t always be slaked in a particularly tasty way because he’d lost his canteen. Ben crossed a few creeks, but most of the water he had to drink was taken from tepid puddles left over from the heavy rain. Still, it helped him to survive and provided the liquid his body required from so much perspiring.

  The late afternoon dissolved into early evening as Ben kept up his slow, persistent pace to whatever the fates had in store for him. His feet were swollen by then and his face and hands were badly sunburned. He’d put his kerchief over his head and kept it wet with soakings in the water he found, so he was far from sunstroke.

  He spotted a smudge on the horizon. His eyes, tired from the long day in the hot sun, could not be completely trusted, so he would have to avoid whatever the thing was, or make a careful investigation. Not wanting to miss any opportunities to improve his situation, no matter how slim, he decided to check out the unknown thing.

  He approached cautiously. Gradually the object of his attention grew plainer in his vision until he recognized it for what it was—an isolated farm.

  Ben situated himself on a knoll a half mile from it and studied the setup. There was a house—surprisingly made of lumber rather than sod—and a large barn. The farmyard held a plow and a couple of other smaller agricultural vehicles. That meant there was a horse or mule available there. Even if the animal wasn’t particularly swift, it would still be better than no mount.

  Then the damned dog started barking.

  Whoever was inside would be alerted by then. Ben decided to bluff it out. Playing the role of an innocent traveler badly inconvenienced by the storm seemed a good idea. Particularly since the place was isolated enough that there would have been no news of any fugitives out of Hobart.