by J. Lee Butts
Boz moved his soothing hand up as though to shush our angry killer. “Don’t go and get yourself all riled up now, Dolphus,” he said.
“You go straight to a burning Hell, Tatum. Done made up my mind. Git riled up any damned time I feel the urge, by God. Ain’t lettin’ no man string me up to a crossbeam and watch me mess my pants in front of a bunch of whiskey-saturated Saturday afternoon gawkers. You boys is gonna have to kill me right here.”
And then, Sweet Merciful Jesus, before I could blink twice, that monstrous son of a bitch snatched up a double-bit ax from behind the doorframe, let out a screeching yelp that brought a branded panther to mind, took two steps, jumped, and flew at us like some kind of gigantic bird. Flapped his arms like he actually thought he could fly. Swear to God, his face turned into a skeletal mask that looked exactly like Death’s very own self. Lord have mercy, scared the burning, sulfurous hell out of me.
In mid-flight, he brought that ax down right in the middle of Sunset’s head. Poor beast’s skull split like a ripe melon. Blood sprayed in forty directions at the same instant. Splattered all over me, Boz, and everything within fifteen feet of where we sat them animals. Horse never made a sound. Dropped like a felled tree with Twiggens on top, clawing his way toward my stunned friend, who had gone and got tangled up in his stirrups.
All the screaming, jumping, and blood caused Grizz to crow-hop sideways. He humped up, bucked, and deposited me on the porch. Flimsy, near-rotten, rough-cut boards collapsed when I landed. Went through on my back and hit hard. Cloud of dust and splinters fell all over me. Then the poor crazed beast headed any place away from the brutally bloody action. Took some seconds to scramble out of the pile of busted-up timber and rusted nails.
Finally staggered to unsteady feet, just in time to see that Twiggens had Boz by the throat and held him in the air like a child’s corn-shuck doll. He rattled ole Boz, from head to foot, as easy as any whiskey slinger waves a wet bar rag at spilled booze on a busy Saturday night in Hell’s Half Acre.
Figured out right quick my shotgun was about as worthless as a nail without a hammer. Would’ve killed both of them had I fired. Pitched the sawed-off aside, and pulled two pistols about the time Boz fumbled around and managed to get a grip on his short-barreled belly gun. He brought it up between the two of them and pushed the muzzle against his attacker’s breastbone.
Barely heard the muffled blast from the Colt when it went off. Two shots knocked Twiggens backward and forced his fingers from around Boz’s neck. Both slugs came out of the big man’s back in separate wads of tissue, bone, and a vaporous cloud of bloody spray.
My friend’s brutal method had the desired effect. Ole Dolphus dropped to his knees, coughed, spit, and clawed at his throat like he had a fistful of cockleburs stuck somewhere behind raw tonsils and couldn’t cough them up.
He knee-walked a step or two, landed on his perforated back like an anvil dropped from Heaven. Stunned the hell out of me when he did a rubber ball and bounced right back up on wobbly legs like nothing had happened. Grabbed at the two holes in his chest, and let out a shriek that made my eyes water.
Then, I swear before Jesus, he bent over and puked gouts of blood, bone, and everything he’d eaten in a week. Straightened up, and shot a murderous glance my direction. Stumbled toward me with one arm out like a blind drunk searching for a hidden bottle of Old Spider Killer. Tripped over poor Sunset’s gore-drenched neck, fell, and hopped up again. A blood-saturated hand the size of a camp skillet covered holes in his chest that oozed and bubbled a crimson froth.
Have to admit, I found myself in something of a state of flabbergastedness. Hell, I’d never witnessed anything to match it. Stood like a tree rooted since the beginning of recorded time. Couldn’t believe a man as dead as the twice-shot Dolphus Twiggens could still suck air and move around. But by God he could, and headed for me with the look of death on an ashen skull of a face and murder in his flat black eyes.
Must have finally come back to myself when he was almost on top of me. Would wager I ripped off half a dozen shots fast as I could thumb them. Got him dead center with every single one of those bullets, but he kept coming. Dead man stumbled one final step, and fell on me like a downtown Dallas brick bank building. Damn near crushed the life out of me—right on the spot.
Not sure how long I laid there and tried to push that gushing three-hundred-pound corpse off. Couldn’t breathe worth a bucket of cold spit. Then, of a sudden, the weight rolled away, and Boz jerked me up by the collar. Helped me over to the porch and made me sit. Slapped me on the back till I thought my eyes would pop out. Had me bend over at the waist and take in as much air as I could. Got all my innards started back up again.
Then he stomped over to the corpse and went to talking to it. “Hope you like the way everything turned out, you crazy bastard. Just couldn’t go peaceable, could you? Just had to fight. Made up your feeble-assed mind not to get hung. Settled on gettin’ shot all to hell and gone. And on top of everything else, you killed my horse, you son of a bitch.”
For a few seconds I went to thinking as how maybe my friend and mentor had completely lost his mind. He finally did come back around to something like sanity. But that was only after he’d pulled his hip pistol and plugged ole Dolphus three more times. Said it was just to make sure, you know.
Suppose the worst part of the whole affair was the burying of that monster. Found some rusted shovels in the corral. Took both of us the better part of half a day to dig a hole big enough for his moose-sized corpse.
Had to run Grizz down. Looped a rope around Twiggens’s feet, and dragged him into the grave. Otherwise, we never would have got him underground.
Boz threw the last shovelful of dirt on the grave, ripped his hat off, held it over his heart. Thought, Jesus, is he going to offer up a prayer for ole Dolphus?
He got right thoughtful-looking and said, “Dear sweet God, please don’t let this son of a bitch get up again. I’m tired of shootin’ ’im. Amen.”
Took both of us a spell to get over the events of that fateful afternoon. Just nothing like blood, gore, and a near-death experience to send a man to his prayers at night. Had absolutely no doubt in my mind that I’d seen the true face of Death that day for real and awful. Had to mention it when I spoke with God that night.
’Course those feelings only stayed with me for about two months. That’s when me and Boz rode into a pissant-sized town named Salt Valley in search of a spot to lock Buster Caldwell up for a spell. Salt Valley’s where I truly saw Death for the very first time. Soul-stealing bastard crept up on me unawares, as it were. He’s snaky like that, you know. Get to you when you least expect it. I’ve never forgotten what he looks like, or the black-haired angel a benevolent God sent to save me from his icy clutches.
1
“WHO CARES ’BOUT DIRTY-LEGGED WHORES?”
BUSTER CALDWELL, A cowboy from down San Antone way, got liquored up over in Hell’s Half Acre one night, and decided he couldn’t live another second without the attentions of a ruby-lipped, fancy woman. Hoofed it over to Mattie Osborn’s parlor house on Rusk Street, and picked a cute little buck-toothed gal named Goldie Starr for the ride. Fellers called her Goldie ’cause one of them squirrel-like teeth of hers was as gold as could be and sparkled like a star in the night sky when she smiled.
Stories, rumors, and outright lies followed his deadly visit. Truth is, no one knows for sure exactly what happened after Buster closed the door to Goldie’s room. But about twenty minutes into their whoop-and-holler session, that horny brush popper went crazier than a feather mattress full of bedbugs. For reasons beyond all human understanding, he pulled a nine-inch bowie knife and damned nigh sawed that poor girl’s head clean off.
Folks swore you could hear little Goldie scream bloody murder a quarter of a mile away and above all the racket typical of a Saturday night in the Acre. Leastways till he sliced through her windpipe, that is. One man I talked with, who was waiting his turn out in the parlor, tried to help the murdere
d girl. He testified as how the only thing that kept the corpse’s head attached to its body was the neck bone.
Captain Wag Culpepper called me and my partner, Boz Tatum, into Company B’s headquarters tent the following morning, shook his stubby finger in our faces, and said, “It’s bad enough that every other cowpunchin’ leather pounder between here and the Rio Grande counts himself as a badman and looks to prove it at the first opportunity. Sons of bitches will fight each other with guns, knives, barrel staves, fence posts, and whiskey bottles at the drop of a palm-leaf sombrero. Now we’ve got a woman killer runnin’ loose. Poor workin’ girls have a miserable enough time makin’ a livin’ as it is. Women shouldn’t have to worry about being brutally cut into several different gruesome pieces by one of their idiot clients.”
Boz assumed a sagelike, chin-stroking pose, nodded, and said, “Absolutely, Cap’n. Damned right. Couldn’t agree more. Me and Lucius feel exactly the same way, by God. We’ll get ’im and see justice is done. Bring ole Buster back to hang. Cain’t have such ignorant brutality runnin’ amuck right here in town like this.”
Culpepper, furrowed lines of concern etched into a haggard face, heaved his bulk out of a dilapidated camp chair, and moved around to our side of a Civil War campaign table, dented and scarred by time and heavy use.
He clapped iron-fingered hands on my shoulder and Boz’s. “Know you boys won’t ever mention it to my wife, but Mattie Osborn’s an old friend. We go way back. All the way to the time before Fort Worth amounted to much more’n a bump in the west Texas wind. You’re the best men I’ve got. Never fail to do whatever’s necessary. Know you’ll bring Caldwell back, if you can, or kill him, if you have to. Whichever way it falls out, want you to find the murderin’ skunk, and make sure he don’t never kill another woman.”
’Course, we promised we would. Chased Caldwell through the briars and brambles all around Abilene. Running gun battle that covered every foot of five miles developed once we finally spotted him. Hunt ended when we cornered his sorry self in a stand of timber along a rugged, unnamed, snag-filled arroyo, a bit south of the Colorado River. Efforts at persuading the murdering skunk to consider surrender, with an abundance of hot lead and heated threats, failed. Buster wasn’t havin’ none of it.
He’d managed to hide behind an enormous fallen cottonwood lodged in the creek bank after his horse pulled up lame. Burrowed himself in like an Alabama tick and yelled, “You fellers best go on back to Fort Worth. Swear I’ll kill anyone what gets too close. ’Specially you law-bringin’ Ranger sons of bitches.”
Threw out a thick blanket and got comfortable. Laid on my back behind a sizable chunk of rock, and rolled myself a smoke. Pitched a shot or two over my shoulder every so often, just to give ole Buster something to think about. Boz did his best Comanche tiptoe to flank the murderin’ weasel.
Took a puff, blew a nice smoke ring toward heaven, and yelled back, “Might as well give it up, Buster. We don’t want to kill you, you son of a bitch, but we will if you force it.”
Dolphus Twiggens still occupied a blood-saturated spot in my mind, but from all I’d seen, Caldwell appeared less than half that horse killer’s size. And besides, he couldn’t shoot worth a sack full of horse apples.
Sounded mighty nervous when he yelped, “Ain’t afeard of you Ranger bastards. Don’t mean nothin’ to me. Kill your sorry asses as quick as any other man. Come on in here and git some, if’n you’ve got the cojones.”
Like a graveyard-haunting ghost, Boz had vanished into the thickets. I knew he’d be on Buster like ugly on an armadillo so fast the poor waddie wouldn’t know what happened. Tatum had all the most deadly qualities of a combination Comanche, rattlesnake, and panther once he got on a badman’s odiferous scent.
Figured it best to keep our quarry’s attention. Wanted to draw him back my direction when I said, “Not after you for killin’ men, Buster. You went and tried to cut that poor Goldie Starr’s head clean off in the Acre. Still call that murder here in Texas. Gotta take you back to Fort Worth. You’re gonna hang for that ’un.”
Sounded upset, red-faced, and slobbery when he hollered back, “Hell, she warn’t nothin’ more’n a dirty-legged whore, Ranger. Who cares ’bout dirty-legged whores? Probably done the world a favor when I kilt that diseased bitch.”
“Me and Boz Tatum care, Buster. State of Texas, Texas Rangers, and the good citizens of Fort Worth.”
“Horseshit. Cain’t believe anyone’d actually arrest and hang me for an act that borders on true community service. Way I’ve got it figured, a man should be on salary for such beneficial efforts on behalf of the public’s health and welfare.”
Sad to say it, but Buster’s brutal assessment of the demi-monde’s situation in the Acre amounted to a fairly accurate appraisal of how most of the drovers traveling north to the Kansas railheads felt on the subject. Abuse and death proved ever-present companions for those poor women desperate enough to enter a wickedly violent and degrading life. Facts of the time were undeniable that far too many of those who passed on unexpectedly went out by means similar to those credited to Caldwell. Sizable number died at the hand of some poor, drunken, south Texas cow chaser. Really sad way to live. And die.
Even worse, a good deal of the time, despondent unfortunates took their own lives—usually after years of mistreatment, alcoholism, opium addiction, and horrendously debilitating health problems. Sad and unpleasant to think on it, but none of that gave anyone the right to do what Buster’d done. I’ve always believed murder’s murder, no matter how you slice it. Last I heard, attempting to cut a woman’s head off still qualified.
And as Randall Bozworth Tatum always said, “Hanging is the perfect punishment for any man who’d abuse or viciously kill a woman. Got not one grain of sympathy for such animals. I’d ride a hundred miles to watch a woman killer drop through the trap and swing. Buy me an ear of flame-roasted corn on the cob and applaud when he hit the end of the rope and messed hisself. Yessir, as fine an afternoon’s entertainment as I could conjure up after a week of thinkin’ on the subject.”
Couldn’t have taken more’n a puff or three off my cigareet when I heard several quick shots and considerable pained screaming from Buster’s direction. Then Boz yelled out, “Come on in, Lucius. Done tamed this mad dog a bit. Don’t think he’s got any bite left.”
Hopped down the creek bank and slogged through knee-deep trash and snag-filled water to Caldwell’s muddy hidey-hole. With a still-smoking pistol in each hand, Boz stood over the poor stupid gomer and shook his head as I climbed up on a comfortable log and took a seat.
Wounded cowboy rolled around behind the dead tree in a deer wallow. Cowardly stink sprayer whimpered and cried like a little girl. With both hands, he clasped an oozing hole in his left side just above the waistband of his filthy trousers. Goodly amount of blood already saturated most of an equally nasty shirt’s tail, and some even soaked into his pistol belt.
“Aw, shut the hell up,” Boz snapped. “Big ole slug went in and came right out. Didn’t hit nuthin’ real important. If’n I’d of blasted through a piece of gut or somethin’, I could understand all this bawlin’ and carryin’ on. But Hell’s eternal fire, I didn’t do nothin’ ’cept punch a hole in that ’ere fleshy part just above your cartridge belt. Ain’t gettin’ no sympathy here. Whining skunks like you make me wanna heave up my spurs.” He holstered one pistol and set to reloading the other.
“Damn your back-shootin’ soul, it hurts like Hell’s own blazes,” Buster whimpered. “Look at this mess you went and done to me. I could, by God, bleed to death right here in this deer waller. Wound might well get all festerated. Might cause me to die from bad blood. Seen it happen out on the trail a number of times. Horrible way to go out—screamin’ and pukin’ and such. Jesus, help me. Sweet Jesus, come and help poor Buster.”
Boz grinned, holstered his reloaded pistol, and said, “Yeah, and you could get hit by lightning too, you woman-killin’ son of a bitch. Sizzle like a jackrabbit on a spit. And by
the way, callin’ on the Deity ain’t gonna help you none, for certain sure. Only thing between you and eternity is me and Lucius Dodge.”
“You boys gotta get me to a doc. Gotta do it quicklike.” Caldwell whimpered like a kicked dog, sounded panicky, and looked like a man about to pass out. And, hell, then he did. Fluttering eyes rolled up in his head. He flopped over on his side like a beached catfish, and went to puking all over hell and yonder.
“We could run him to Salt Valley,” I said. “Ain’t but maybe twenty-five, thirty miles from here as the crow flies. Heard tell as how they’s a fair enough pill roller in residence over that way. Throw this sack of manure in a cell, and get him patched up. Leave ’im there till we feel like takin’ ’im back to Fort Worth.”
Boz stared down at Caldwell, crinkled his nose, and shook his head in disgust. “Wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit if the worthless son of a bitch bled out right where he’s laying, Lucius. Muddy deer waller is a good ’nuff spot for his departure from this life, as far as I’m concerned. Be a better way and place to go out than he gave poor little Goldie Starr.” Hard to argue with such reasoning. Then again, we both knew we’d have to do something.
Continued to urge my partner in the right direction. He could be real hardheaded when he wanted. I said, “Don’t know about you, Boz, but I’d like to sleep in a bed for a night or two. We’ve been living on the ground so long I’m beginning to grow a crop of wildflowers between my toes. Know how much you love snoozin’ under an open sky, but I need a real bath, an actual meal cooked by someone other than you, and a bottle of giggle juice. We could rest up a few days, then drag ole Buster back to civilization for suitable trial and hanging.”
Took about five seconds, but Boz smiled and dropped his angry stance. He scratched a stubbly whisker-covered chin. “Well, could use a bath, shave, and I’m just as tired of my cooking as you are. Hell, let’s do ’er. We’ll put a travois together and drag his sorry little ass to Salt Valley.”
