West of the Big River: The Sheriff

by Chuck Tyrell

  “Where in God’s country is Morgan, Texas?”

  “You’ll have to take a round-about way by train. Find a way from here to Fort Worth, then you get a Texas and Pacific train toward El Paso, Morgan’ll be on that line.”

  Took me nearly two weeks to make Morgan, it being one of those way-out towns. Like at Clinton, the marshal was at the station when the Texas & Pacific train pulled in. He stood tall in the harsh Texas sunlight, dressed in a black sack suit, buttoned at the top. Couldn’t see a badge or gun, but I figured they were there somewhere.

  “Sheriff Owens?”

  “Your town’s a helluva long ways from nowhere. Yes. I’m C.P. Owens.”

  “Received your telegram, Sheriff. Grant Swingle’s in our jail.”

  “Much obliged, Marshal. Been chasing that boy since he left Arizona.”

  “We can walk to the jail. It’s a bit off the main drag, but not too far.”

  Indeed the jail at Morgan, Texas, stood apart. The town clustered around the railway station with corrals on the northwest corner, a saloon or two to the east of the corrals, and several businesses south of the tracks. There was even a couple of churches. The jailhouse was of sandstone, a single small cabin-looking affair with one cell.

  “Looks like you don’t have room for many wrongdoers in Morgan,” I said.

  “Got our share. Betimes, men sleep off their likker on the floor in there.”

  “C.P.? Is that you, C.P.?” The voice came from the jail. “’Bout time you came for me. I been stuck in this rock vault for nigh on ta two weeks.”

  “We’ll start for Holbrook in the morning,” I said to Kid Swingle. “You walked away from the stage with a bunch of gold double eagles. Go easier on you if the lion’s share of that loot was to get back to the army.”

  The Kid smiled big and wide, showing all his teeth. His light blue eyes had a sparkle to them. “Why C.P., I never heard of no loot. How much is it I oughta have?”

  “Ten thou or so in gold coins.”

  The Kid laughed out loud. “Do I look like a man with that kind of money?”

  To be truthful, he didn’t. But then, a man don’t always look like what he is. I turned to go.

  “Hey, C.P.”

  I stopped, but didn’t turn.

  “Why not let it go? No one hurt. Government money missing, they say, but don’t the government just take away from us’ns anyway? An’ what does the army do but hold dances and plays and stuff for officers? Men don’t get a living wage and have fatigue duty six days a week or more.”

  I didn’t answer. A little farther on, I turned and said, “Tomorrow morning, Kid. That’s when we start for Holbrook.”

  2

  Kid Swingle was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when the Marshal and I got him from the jail. “C.P., I’m awful rank. Smell like a two-year-old skunk. Be nice to have a bath before we go. Don’t need a shave.”

  “Where’s the loot, Kid?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about, C.P.”

  “He didn’t have but six dollars and fifty-three cents on him,” the Marshal said. “We went to his room at Brightly’s place, but there was nothing in his carpet bag but an extra shirt and a pair of long handles. We got ‘em over to the office.”

  “OK. You get a bath, Kid. I don’t want to ride all the way to Arizona upside a skunk.” I figured I could get Kid a talking and he’d let slip what he’d done with all that money, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

  Out in the light of day, Kid Swingle didn’t look more’n maybe thirteen years old. I know I say that a lot, but it’s true. He had a little fuzz on his cheeks, freckles on his face, red hair in an unruly mop, and that never-ending toothsome smile.

  After we got to the office, the Marshal gave me directions to a barber what had baths as well, so I herded the Kid down the street in that direction.

  Back in Holbrook, a man never seen many women just walkin’ the street. Here in Morgan, there was women all over the main part of town, most of them wearing bustles and toting parasols. Ever one of them eyed the manacles on the Kid’s wrists and looked at me like I was some kind of brute that beat up on little kids. The Kid thought it was funny.

  “Hey, C.P., whyn’t you take these here cuffs off me and I’ll promise not to run away.”

  “Kid, I trust you about as far as I can throw an ox by the tail.”

  He laughed, but there was something in his eyes that made me want to be extra careful.

  The barber was finishing up a customer’s face with a straight razor. He didn’t even look up when we walked in. “With you in a minute, gents,” he said. “Just have a seat.”

  We did, and with Kid Swingle sitting right next to me, I got a good whiff of what he meant when he said him and a two-year-old skunk was closer than cousins.

  The barber took a steaming towel to his customer’s face, and then dumped some mint water on his hands and slapped it on. “There ya go, Ed,” he said, and whipped off the sheet lookin’ affair he’d had covering the man.

  “Thank ya, Bart,” the man called Ed said. “Always gives a man a boost to get a close shave in the morning.” He paid Bart the barber two bits and left with little more than a glance at the Kid and me.

  “What’ll it be, gents?”

  “The Kid says he needs a bath, and after sitting next to him, I have to agree.”

  “Baths are ten cents cold, two bits hot.”

  “Hot,” the Kid said.

  “Hot,” I said. I’d pay from the Kid’s money, which the Marshal had given me when we left his office.

  “Out back. Take your hot water from the heater. Soap ‘n towel in the cubicle.”

  “Wow, cubicle,” the Kid said. “High falutin’. Let’s go.” He headed for the back door.

  Two cubicles and a hot water heater that ran on coal. Good setup as setups go. The Kid held his arms out at me with a question in his eyes.

  “Not a chance,” I said.

  “Can’t get outta my shirt or my long johns with my hands cuffed,” he said.

  “Oh. Yeah.” I unlocked one cuff so the Kid could undress. I drew my Remington and sat on a bench. “Don’t try anything,” I said. “You wouldn’t be the first outlaw I shot for resisting arrest.” I thumbed the hammer back and kept my attention on the Kid.

  He bathed and came out smelling like a rose. Well, not exactly like a rose, but flowery. I reckon it was that new-fangled soap he’d used. Even though he dressed in clean long johns and a fresh shirt, the Kid looked dissatisfied.

  “What?”

  “C.P. I really do need a new pair of pants. Canvas ones’d be good.”

  “Train’s leaving directly.”

  “A couple of minutes, C.P.”

  “We’ll ask the barber if there’s a general store between here and the station. We’ll see.”

  “Socks’d be good, too.”

  Luckily, there was a store on the way, so we arrived at the Morgan station with the Kid shining like a new penny with both hands in manacles, of course. The train had a head of steam up and chuffed out of the station almost before we got all the way up the steps to the passenger car.

  “Bo-o-oard. Bo-o-oard. All the way to Sierra Bianca and beyond. All the way. Bo-o-oard.”

  There wasn’t nobody on the platform, but the conductor hollered anyway. Made no matter that the cars were clacking into motion as the locomotive chugged ahead, laboriously pulling car after car until the whole train moved west on the Texas & Pacific tracks.

  The Kid caused no problem. Meek as a lamb. I shoulda known he had something more than his arm up his sleeve.

  As we sat facing each other, the Kid, not like usual, didn’t have much to say. But a kid like him can’t shut up for long. “You know I ain’t done nothing wrong, don’t you, C.P.?”

  “I know that Carl Waite said it was you what held up his mail stage. The judge believed him, too, and that’s why I’ve got a warrant for your arrest. Any time you make off with U.S. government money, they ain’t gonna quit un
til your behind is in Yuma Prison and you’ve got a few years and some time in the Snake Den to consider the gravity of your crimes.”

  He pouted and pulled the brim of his floppy hat down over his eyes. I reckon he figured I wasn’t gonna be no soft touch, just because he looked so young and innocent. He let out a sigh, like I’d done him wrong, or something, but I didn’t take the bait. We stayed that way, him with the floppy hat down over his face, me watching the country rush by the window at about thirty miles an hour.

  The Kid looked like he was sleeping, but he kept moving his hands, like the cuffs were bothering him. Then he said, “C.P., these shackles is awful tight. Would you mind loosening them a notch?”

  A lawman doesn’t always have his good sense alive and well. That was one of those times. I dug out the key and loosened the cuffs one notch each. Didn’t notice at the time that the Kid kept both hands doubled up into fists.

  “That better?”

  “Thank you, C.P. Lots better.” The Kid settled back, the floppy hat down over his eyes. He went to sleep. At least that’s what I thought.

  There are times when a man needs to stand next to a pole and relieve himself. I’m not a drinker, of spirits that is, so the urge don’t hit me so often as some, but the urge came some miles east of a little town called Tonah in West Texas. The Kid was asleep and shackled, so I took myself to the washroom to bleed the lizard and slap a little water on my face. I wasn’t gone more than five minutes, all told. But when I got back, the Kid’s manacles, still locked, were right there on his seat, and he was gone. The window was open. Naturally, I jerked the bell rope, and the train screeched to a halt some miles down the line. We went back and forth, looking, but never found hide nor hair of Kid Swingle. I couldn’t figure no way he could get away without help, and said so. Some took that to mean I was passing the buck. That ain’t it. I just couldn’t think of any other way.

  In the end, I figure he climbed onto the undercarriage of a car, maybe even the car we was in, and rode to the end of the line in Sierra Bianca. Then he could’ve hitched a ride in a boxcar, or something, on to Arizona. I say that because not long after, the Kid was found dangling from a telegraph pole in Clifton, Arizona, which is out of my jurisdiction. Seems he’d taken the wrong man’s horse. In the end, his thieving ways caught up with him.

  3

  Now, I consider myself as smart as most ordinary men, but like I said, I only got about three years of schooling. You know, the kind where you sit at a desk and some schoolmarm drills you in alphabet and handwriting and history and so on. Three years ain’t enough to pick up much, so I’m not apt to write a lot. Whenever I put pen to paper, people can tell I’ve got no schooling. It’s just that I never had the chance.

  Red McNeil was a smart ass. He liked to make fun of me, and rightfully so, I reckon, him being educated and all. It all started, as far as I was concerned, with Red trying to rob A&B Schuster’s general store in Holbrook. It was early June as I recollect. Red went into Schuster’s late, about an hour before midnight, when Adolf Schuster—the “A” of A&B—was just getting ready to close the store for the day.

  Well, Red McNeil come busting in, a six-shooter in each hand. He shoved one into Adolf’s soft middle and told him to open the safe, or get ready to meet St. Peter.

  Thing was, Ben Schuster—the “B” of A&B—was in the back room getting ready for bed. He could hear what Red McNeil said, plain as day, so he lit out the back door, looking for help.

  “Fellas, there’s a gun sharp robbing our store. He’s got a gun in Adolf’s gizzard. We need to help him,” says Ben when he got to the saloon.

  Two patrons volunteered and looked for their weapons while Ben got a double-barreled shotgun from the barbershop next door, and three men, armed and dangerous, went in the front door to face down the robber.

  “We gotcha!” Ben hollered. “You’d better throw them six-guns down and put your hands up.”

  Red just laughed. He stuck one pistol into his waistband and grabbed Adolf, whose portly shape was plenty of protection for Red. He sidled toward the back door, and when he got there, he pushed Adolf away and dodged out the door just as Ben touched off one barrel of the 10-guage he’d borrowed. Most of the pellets chewed into the doorjamb, and Red just kept on going.

  Next morning, the Schusters took a good look at the shot-gunned doorjamb and saw that there were bits of cloth in some of the pellet holes, so they figured the robber’d been grazed at least.

  I’ve been saying “Red” all this time because that smart ass never even tried to cover up his face or throw people off with some kind of disguise. Adolf knew him. “I tried to talk Red outta robbing us, but he just laughed. ‘No jail can hold me,’ Red said. ‘You open up that safe and save yourself getting hurt.’”

  Thing was, Red McNeil never hurt no one, even though he stole stuff right and left, mostly horses.

  At the time he tried to rob the Schusters, Red had already escaped jail twice, once in Phoenix and once in Florence. But that was none of my business as it happened outside Apache County. Red was supposed to have rode for the Hashknife Outfit for a while, but I never came across him. So when the court put out a warrant for his arrest, I didn’t know him by sight and could only hit up them who did know him. Chances were they’d be able to tell me where he was.

  Like I said, Red McNeil was a smart ass. He left a poem pinned to a box elder tree just west of Horsehead Crossing on the Little Colorado. I still remember what it said.

  I am king of the outlaws / I am perfection at robbing a store / I have a stake left me by Wells Fargo / And before long, I will have more.

  On trains I have made a good haul / Stages are the things that I hate / My losses are always small / My profits exceedingly great.

  I will say a few words for my friends / You see I have quite a few / And although we are at dagger’s ends / I would like to say, “How’d ya do.”

  There are McKinney and Larsen, / Who say that robbers have no honor / I think in a test of manhood / They’d have to stand back in the corner.

  They are my kind friends, the Schusters, / For whom I carry so much lead / In the future to kill this young rooster / They will have to aim at his head.

  Commodore Owens says he would like to kill me / To me that sounds like fun / ‘Tis strange he would thus try to kill me / The red headed son-of-a-gun.

  He handles the six shooter mighty neat / And kills a jack-rabbit every pop / But should he and I happen to meet / There’ll be a regular old Arkansas hop.

  My friends, I have to leave you / My war horse is sniffing the breeze / I wish I could stay here to see you / Make yourselves at home, if you please.

  I will not say very much more, / My space is growing small / You’re always welcome to my share / What’s that? “Much obliged.” Not at all.

  Yours in luck,

  R.W. McNeil

  Damn his eyes.

  People laughed behind my back. I know they did. All because of Red McNeil. That made it all the more important that I catch him.

  I’d been over to Heber and rode northeast toward Holbrook. I’d gotten out of the pine trees that line the rim country and was crossing Hashknife range when I come across a young cowboy.

  “Evening,” says I.

  “Sheriff Owens,” he said. “I see you are a long way from St. Johns.”

  “Don’t spend much time there,” says I. “Too many owlhoots out and around.”

  “You don’t say?” He sounded like an educated man by the way he spoke. “Who might you be expecting to arrest in this area?”

  “Arrest? No one, lest I run across that robber Red McNeil. You seen him lately?”

  “Who did you say?”

  “Red McNeil. Know him?”

  The cowboy grinned. “Can’t say that I do.”

  “Someone around’ll know him,” I said.

  “Say. I’m headed for the Hashknife line camp on Sherlon’s Fork. Those men may know something about . . . Who was it you were looking for?”

/>   “Red McNeil.”

  “Oh yes. Red McNeil. What do you say?”

  “Might as well. Lead on.”

  There were six men, a dutch oven full of beef and beans and a pot of coffee at the line camp. Naturally they asked us to light and set.

  “I’m looking for a robber named Red McNeil,” I said after having a bait of beans and a cup of coffee. “Heard he rode for the Hashknife. Any a you men seen him lately?”

  They looked kinda surprised and looked back and forth from me to the cowboy I’d rode in with.

  “Red McNeil? Don’t recollect seeing much of him lately,” one of the Hashknifers said. The other men kinda mumbled and murmured the same thing.

  “Well, if it’s all right with you cowboys, I’ll spend the night here and get off to Holbrook in the morning.”

  “Fine, Sheriff. Pick any soft spot you see around that’s not already got soogans on it.”

  I got my bedroll from behind my saddle, took the tack off my horse and picketed him, and rolled my soogans out.

  “Looks like you’ve got quite a big ground cloth,” the young cowboy said. “All I got is one measly blanket and a worn out slicker. Would you mind if I shared your ground cloth for the night?”

  I’m not one to be chintzy with them what’s worse off than me, so I said, “You’re welcome. And you can use my saddle blanket to cover you if you should get cold.”

  “I’ll do that, Sheriff. Are you sure you’re in the right business?”

  “Being sheriff? That’s what I was elected to do, son. I’ll give ‘er my best shot.”

  While me and the cowboy were talking, the Hashknife bunch was sitting awful still around the fire, staring into their coffee cups when they weren’t sipping from them. Once in a while one would shake his head, as if he couldn’t believe what was going on. I spread my tarp full out and laid my soogans on one half. The young cowboy could have the other half. We retired at the same time, but the cowboy was asleep long before I dropped off.

  I woke at dawn as usual, but the young cowboy had risen and rode away without waking me, to which I paid little mind. The Hashknife men invited me to breakfast of bacon and saleratus biscuits, which I gladly accepted.