Code of the West

by Aaron Latham

  “Well, what about t’others?”

  “They’ll still git twenty.”

  “That don’t hardly seem right.”

  “Okay, I’ll make it thirty. And I’ll pay you one ten. How’s that?”

  Too Short looked as if he were in pain. Goodnight sympathized because he recognized the expression as one he himself had worn most of the time since the strike began.

  “Well, it’s temptin’,” Too Short said at last. “Real temptin’, but I dunno, don’t hardly seem fair to pay some boys one thing and t’other boys somethin’ else. When we started this here union thing, we said we was all gonna be in it together. Sorta took a pledge. So I don’t reckon I can help you there. Sorry.”

  Goodnight was surprised at how angry he became. He had thought he had found a way out of this bedeviling problem, and his foreman had rejected it out of hand.

  “Well, at least, think on it,” Goodnight said.

  “Thinkin’ on it won’t make it right,” Too Short said. “Wisht I could, but I cain’t.”

  “But you yourself said they aren’t all worth fifty.”

  “Is that what I said?”

  “Good as.”

  Too Short shrugged.

  Goodnight felt his face filling with blood as if it were one giant bruise. He knew he was turning red. He clenched his fists and wanted to strike out at Too Short for being so unreasonable. He squinted angrily at the cowboy out of his partially closed eye.

  “You’re fired!” Goodnight said.

  “If that’s how you want it,” Too Short said in a maddeningly matter-of-fact voice.

  “Get off my property.”

  “I’m goin’.”

  Too Short turned and walked unhurriedly away. Goodnight stared angrily after him. He wanted to pick up a rock and throw it at this cowboy of many years’ service who didn’t seem to mind getting fired. Goodnight even picked out a rock in the front yard, but he left it alone. His anger at Too Short was already subsiding.

  Or rather Goodnight was transferring the rage from his fired foreman to himself. He realized that he had driven away yet another old friend. What was wrong with him? When would he be satisfied? When he was completely alone in his wonderful red canyon?

  Closing the front door, Goodnight returned to the empty living room and lay down on his back in the middle of the floor. He started hitting himself in the eye again.

  107

  The cowboy strike was almost a month old. Goodnight once again took attendance in his head. Yes, there was Hays of the Springer Ranch. And Cator of the Diamond K. And Evans of the Spade. Gunter of the T-Anchor. And a dozen or so others whom he knew less well. But so far Lee of the LS was missing. Goodnight devoutly hoped he wouldn’t come. He had seen and heard enough of Lee to last him forever. Just being on Lee’s side of this strike made him feel that he might very well be on the wrong side. He kept glancing at the door of the Exchange Hotel, then at his watch, then back at the door, then once more at his ever-so-slow minute hand. Since Revelie had given him the timepiece one Christmas, it now seemed to burn in his hand. The meeting of the Panhandle Cattlemen’s Association had been called for 8:00 P.M., and he intended for it to begin on time with—or preferably without—Will Lee.

  At 7:59 P.M., the boss of the LS walked through the hotel’s front door. Goodnight figured Lee must have been standing outside in the dark staring down at his watch, too. Goodnight thought: How childish of him. Well, how childish of them both.

  Goodnight banged an empty coffee cup on the long table to call the meeting to order. As he watched his fellow ranchers take their seats, he couldn’t get over feeling disappointed that Lee had shown up at the last instant. He rapped on the table again with his cup to call for silence. Then he cleared his throat. It always seemed to need clearing these days.

  “Well, you all know why we’re here,” Goodnight said. “You know what we’re up against. Any suggestions?”

  Sometimes he didn’t half-blame the cowboys for what they had done, not the ones exposed to the likes of Will Lee. He knew Lee had told his hands that if they didn’t work they wouldn’t eat. The son of a bitch had simply shut down his chuck wagon and invited his hands to starve. When hunger didn’t cause any change of heart, he ordered them off his land. With new cowboys drifting into this corner of Texas all the time, Lee had not had much trouble hiring a new lot of hands. Strikebreakers. Cowboy scabs. Goodnight was learning a whole new vocabulary against his will.

  Some of the other ranchers had been almost as bad and threatened worse. Goodnight knew that Jules Gunter had stockpiled buffalo guns—Human-cattle guns—out at the T-Anchor. He had even placed kegs of gunpowder in all his outlying buildings—blacksmith shop, barn, stables—so he could blow them up if strikers tried to take them over. Goodnight figured the strain must have driven Gunter a little crazy.

  Other ranchers had continued feeding their cowboys but wouldn’t let them touch ranch horseflesh, which left many of them afoot and more or less emasculated. Others had offered raises of $5, $10, $15, even as much as $20 per cowboy—but the hands had turned all offers down. They were holding out for the mystical $50 a month. Maybe the strain was getting to strikers, too, making them somewhat unrealistic.

  After his failure at negotiating a bargain with Too Short, Goodnight had withdrawn into his stone house and done very little except wait and see. He hadn’t cut his cowboys off the chuck line or denied them mounts. He felt guilty about being so passive, but he didn’t know what else to do. If he had had the backing of Loving and Revelie, maybe he could have done more. Somehow he just didn’t feel up to dominating events any longer.

  “We need more firepower,” Will Lee told the association. “Hire us some gunslingers. Stand up to these damn thievin’ hooligans.”

  Goodnight just shook his head. He seemed to feel some unseen presence in the room—the way he used to sense Becky there just beyond the limits of his vision—but this new illusive visitor frightened him. It had come to harm rather than help him. He turned his head quickly but saw nothing. Still he was sure that evil was there standing just behind him. Did it have a claw?

  “I dunno,” Goodnight said. “Might just be makin’ matters worse. Cure worse’n the disease.”

  “We gotta do somethin’, dammit,” said Lee. “Hell, they’re robbin’ us all blind. Plum blind.”

  Goodnight wondered if “blind” was aimed at him since he had just one working eye. The word rankled him, and yet he knew, much as he hated to admit it, that Lee had a point. Many of the striking cowboys had turned to rustling. At first, Goodnight had figured you couldn’t blame them much because they had to do something or starve. But the losses to rustlers had grown steadily and had become alarming. Goodnight had to confess that he was worried. There was even talk that some veteran outlaws had joined forces with the striking cowboys. His mind naturally ran to the Robbers’ Roost boys.

  “The point is,” Goodnight said, “I ain’t partial to bloodlettin’ if’n it can be helped.”

  “You’re losin’ your nerve,” said Lee. “I’m sorry to hafta say.”

  Goodnight suspected that Lee was interested in more than just this strike. He cared about more than hiring a bunch of trigger-happy killers. He was out to accomplish a power shift in the Texas Panhandle. Lee surely wanted to replace Goodnight as the leading rancher in these parts. The owner of the LS wanted to be the new king. Goodnight had never really wanted to dominate this corner of the country; rather he had accepted leadership as a kind of burden. But now that somebody wanted to take that burden away from him, he didn’t want to let it go. The crown was heavy but hard to give up.

  “Well, I ain’t losin’ my common sense,” Goodnight said. “Violence just makes more violence.” He paused wearily. “My whole adult life, I been tryin’ to bring some kinda order and some kinda justice to this here God’s country. And I ain’t about to chuck it all when things git a little tight. I’m warnin’ you.”

  “Stop,” said Lee. “You’re sceerin’ me to dea
th.”

  “Good, then maybe you’ll pipe down.”

  “Don’t count on it. I mean what I say. And I say we gotta build up our firepower. That’s all there is to it.”

  “That ain’t all there is to it. There’s lots more. Nobody knows how much more. Not me. Not even you.”

  “Then put it to a vote. That’s all I say. Less vote.”

  Goodnight just shook his head again. He didn’t know how to get rid of this saddle burr. He felt betrayed again but perhaps just out of habit.

  “Hold your horses,” said Goodnight. “Anybody else wanta say anythin’?”

  He looked up and down the table.

  “Well, I was just sorta wonderin’,” said the T-Anchor’s Gunter, “what Will’s got in mind exactly. Where we gonna find these here gunfighters for rent?”

  Goodnight smiled.

  “I’ve got a line on some boys,” Lee said. “They’re good and they’re willin’.”

  “You done talked to these boys?” asked Goodnight, trying to calm down, trying to stay in control of himself and the meeting.

  “Yeah, I done talked. What’s the matter with that? I ain’t gonna sit around and wait for this here problem to take ceere of itself.”

  “Where are these boys now?”

  “They’re some of ’em out at my place right now. You mind? That all right with you?”

  “No, it ain’t. It ain’t atall. You’re draggin’ us into a fight willy-nilly without even a ‘by your leave.’ Ain’t that so?”

  “What’s so is I ain’t waitin’ around for no do-nothin’s to lead the way. How’s that suit you?”

  “Let’s vote,” said Gunter. “This arguin’ ain’t gittin’ us nowhere.”

  “I second that there motion,” said Lee.

  “You cain’t second,” said Goodnight. “It’s your idea.”

  “Oh, come on,” Lee said. “All in favor raise your right hand.”

  Goodnight was amazed. Lee had stolen the meeting right out from under him. He cleared his throat to protest—

  “Motion carries,” announced Will Lee. “Good. We’re fixin’ to fight back and that’s all there is to it.”

  108

  Goodnight sat in the lobby of the Exchange Hotel staring at the bright glass chimney of a kerosene lamp. This source of light resembled a woman in its shape. Its hips contained the fuel while the flame burned in the middle of its breast. Its swelling glass bust shimmered gaily. Catching himself in the middle of this reverie, Goodnight had no trouble figuring out which woman he saw transformed into a lamp. He still missed her. He didn’t suppose he would ever stop missing her. He wondered if he shouldn’t just go to Boston and try to win her back. He shifted restlessly in his rocking chair.

  Dinner was over and the hotel’s lobby dining room was deserted except for Goodnight. He had been living in the hotel for weeks now. He had temporarily removed himself from the Home Ranch because he found it too depressing. The rock house was too big and too empty. The red canyon was too idle. The cowboys were still striking, so he wasn’t really needed on the spot to supervise work that wasn’t being done. Rather than sit on his front porch watching his ranch slowly decay, he had ridden into Tascosa to rock in a hotel lobby.

  Goodnight kept in touch with the Association’s band of “rangers” mostly by rumor. He had heard that they had lynched three cowboys supposedly caught in the act of rustling. All three were striking LS hands. Perhaps Goodnight should have been reluctant to criticize—to “throw the first stone,” as the Bible said—since he himself had been known to hang some outlaws. But that had been a long time ago. He had thought this country had progressed beyond that sort of vigilantism. Now this land of promise was backsliding into chaos and breaking his heart. Breaking it again.

  Goodnight had heard rumors about the strikers, too. Some said that the outlaw Gudanuf had thrown in his lot with the striking cowboys. There were also stories about a new outlaw leader, the most cold-blooded killer since Billy the Kid, a young gunfighter known simply as the New Kid. He seemed to be somebody worth worrying about. Several steers had been found shot dead with their eyes gouged out. Maybe Gudanuf was putting together a new collection. Or this new perversion could be the signature of the new badman. Goodnight wondered what sort of man would attack eyes. He took such an attack personally. Reaching up to touch the familiar patch, he found the glass eye, so he just touched the Dipper on his cheek.

  Deciding he was sleepy enough to justify a walk to his room, Goodnight wondered if he would dream about the Kid again tonight. He certainly hoped not. Nightmares about getting your one working eyeball punched out were as bad as—maybe worse than—dreaming your balls were cut off. Still, you couldn’t compromise with sleep. You either surrendered to it unconditionally or not at all. Ready or not, here came your nightmares. He got stiffly out of his rocker and headed down the hall to his rented room. For some reason, his left knee was stiff. He felt as if he were decaying right along with his poor ranch.

  Twisting the knob—he never bothered to lock his hotel door— Goodnight entered. He kept the door open to light his way to the kerosene lamp—another emblem of Revelie—beside his bed. Grasping the transparent bosom, he lifted the glass chimney, struck a match, and lit the wick. He replaced the bright bust and went back and closed the door.

  Getting undressed down to his red long johns, Goodnight lay down under a sheet and a patchwork quilt. He had stopped sleeping in the nude. Of course, he would have been happy to go back to his former habit if only that glass Revelie had been flesh and blood. Oh, hell, shut up and go to sleep. The long johns actually felt good on this cool March night. It would be spring tomorrow, according to the calendar anyway, but it was still winter tonight.

  Goodnight wasn’t surprised when he didn’t go right to sleep. He had been having trouble sleeping ever since Revelie was taken from him. His insomnia got worse when he came to town. There were fewer ghosts but more loud noises. Anyway, they sounded loud to him since he was accustomed to the peace of the red-canyon night. He heard every slow-footed horse that passed on Main Street. Worse still were the hell-raising cowboys partying the night away at the Cattle Exchange Saloon which was right next door to the Exchange Hotel. And several doors down was the Equity Saloon, which sounded almost as loud. These bars seemed to be filled with cowboys all night, hands who didn’t have to get up in the morning because they weren’t going to work anyway. Goodnight wondered how these unemployed cowpokes could afford so much partying. Then he called himself stupid for not remembering how they could pay for it.

  Goodnight wondered if Gudanuf was in town. He hadn’t seen him, but then he didn’t get around much lately. And what about the New Kid? The eye-gouger? Goodnight rubbed his eyes, the one that worked and the other one. He hated thinking about Gudanuf and the Kid when he was about to doze off. Why couldn’t he wool-gather about something more cheerful? But what? He had once been a gifted leader, but now he couldn’t even lead his own mind: it paid no attention to him and went wherever it wanted to go.

  “No! No! Not my eye! Don’t—”

  Jeering voices in the street woke him from his eye-gouging nightmare. It sounded like trouble, but he was glad for the trouble since it had awakened him from worse.

  Listening hard—not at all ready to go back to sleep—he heard challenging tones. He couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but he was pretty sure that striking cowboys were yelling at Association rangers, and vice versa. The voices got louder and he was able to distinguish a few swear words.

  Goodnight decided to get out of bed and go take a look. It was better than lying there under the covers waiting for some nightmare to dig his eyes out. (He wondered if the Kid had any glass eyeballs in his collection.) The floor was cold on the bottom of his feet. Holding his watch near the window where the moonlight would strike it full, he saw that it was a little after two o’clock in the morning. Getting dressed in the semidarkness, the first thing he put on was his hat and the last thing he put on was his gun.r />
  Moving quietly, not wanting to wake up the house, Goodnight left his room, crept down the dark hallway, and crossed the squeaking wooden floor of the dining-room lobby. He walked outside and felt a cool wind hit him. Chilled, he rubbed his upper arms with his hands.

  Looking around, he saw a group of rangers standing in the middle of Main Street. He knew them: Fred Chilton, Frank Valley, John Lang, and Ed King. But not well. Goodnight was somewhat surprised to see a young woman standing with the hired gunslingers. Her name was Sally Emory, and she looked almost beautiful in the flattering moonlight. She reminded him for an instant of his Revelie who wasn’t his anymore. Ed King had his arm around pretty Sally.

  The four rangers were shouting at the cowboys lounging on the front porch of the Equity Saloon. Goodnight didn’t know all of the cowhands, but he did recognize some: Louis Bousman, Charley and Tom Emory, Tim Oliver, the Catfish Kid, and Lem Woodruff. Lem was the tallest cowboy and appeared the maddest. It took Goodnight a moment to recall hearing that Sally was Lem’s girl. Well, evidently not any longer. Goodnight knew how that felt. He found himself on Lem’s side even though Lem was a striking cowboy—maybe even a rustler—while Ed was one ofhis rangers supposedly protectinghis interests.

  “Hidin’ behind a woman,” Lem Woodruff taunted. “Just like a damn ’Sociation scab.”

  “I ain’t hidin’ behind nothin’,” Ed King protested. “I ain’t scared of the likes of you.”

  “Then come on over here if’n you’re so brave.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Sally tried to hold her ranger back—and Goodnight silently prayed that she would succeed—but her new love shook her off and started walking toward Lem. He moved slowly, unhurriedly, his hand near his gun. Goodnight found himself thinking: No, stop, stop, stop. Ed King stopped.

  “This close enough?” asked the ranger.

  “Come up here on the porch,” Lem said. “I got somethin’ to tell you.”

  “No,” said Sally.