Code of the West

by Aaron Latham

  Up ahead, the three buckboards bearing the coffins came to a halt, but the rest of the procession continued to move forward. The cowboys and rangers were pressed ever closer together as they all tried to get close enough to the graves to see the burials. As the boxes were being unloaded, Goodnight felt cheated because he still didn’t know which one held Black Dub. He kept looking from one to the other trying to guess. He knew it didn’t really make any difference, and yet it did. He didn’t want to get all misty-eyed staring at the wrong coffin.

  Goodnight was so withdrawn into his own thoughts—about Black Dub, about the coffins, about Loving—that he didn’t notice the first signs of trouble. He was roused out of his reveries by shouting. Then he saw pushing and shoving at the very edge of the graves, as if cowboys and rangers were trying to bury each other alive. He found himself wishing that Black Dub were there to flash his star and break it up with his incredible strength.

  His disgust turned to anger when the shoving and pushing reached one of the coffins being borne aloft on the shoulders of six pallbearers. The grey weathered wood, which looked as if it had already been buried for years, swayed back and forth precariously. The pallbearers staggered, trying to keep their balance, their struggle made more difficult by their heavy load. The coffin bounced about above the mob like an old grey rowboat trying to ride out a violent flood. Could it stay afloat? It was sinking. No, it bobbed up again. It capsized. No, it righted itself again. Then it sank beneath the “waves” and didn’t come up. Goodnight heard a crash and wood splintering.

  Anger turned to a fury that burned his stomach. They were trampling on the body of his friend (if it was his friend). He reached automatically for his gun—now he was glad he had brought it along—pointed it up at heaven and pulled the trigger. He hoisted himself up to a standing position—damn, his leg hurt—and fired again. And he still wasn’t even sure whose casket had fallen.

  “Git back!” Goodnight shouted. “Git outa the way! Move back!”

  He saw dozens of curious faces turned in his direction, but nobody moved. They seemed to be paralyzed.

  “Move!” he screamed. “Go! Git outa there!”

  If he weren’t crippled, he would have jumped down off this buggy and waded into the middle of them. He would damn well make them move. He fired into the air once again.

  Looking around, trying to decide what to do next, Goodnight saw Loving reach out and grasp the buggy whip. When he cracked it over his head, it sounded like a gunshot.

  “You heard him,” Loving raised his voice. “Move! Git moving!”

  Then he rode forward into the mob, flailing about him with the whip as he advanced. His blows convinced the crowd to part. Cowboys and rangers started running to get out of the way.

  “Hurry!” he shouted. “Git the hell outa here!”

  Goodnight had never heard Loving actually yell. He had never seen him so excited or angry.

  As the unruly sea parted, Goodnight caught a glimpse of the broken coffin, but he still couldn’t identify the body. Urging the buggy forward, he got a better look. It was Black Dub. He was wearing a brand-new black suit just like the one that Goodnight wore. Then he saw something much colder, much more disturbing: a masked cowboy kicking the body. He looked like the same masked boy who had stopped the buggy: Claw.

  In spite of the pain in his leg, Goodnight scrambled down from the buggy. He was too upset to mess with his crutches. He tried to walk on his bad leg, but it hurt too much, so he started hopping on his good leg toward Black Dub. But the masked boy saw him coming and melted into the mob. When he reached the busted box, Goodnight stood over it, looking around at the cowboys and rangers, hating them all, daring them to do any more harm to Black Dub.

  Loving dismounted and stood with him.

  “Okay, now, bow your heads!” Goodnight shouted. “Show some respect!” He fired in the air again. “I mean it. Bow your damn heads. And take off your damn hats.”

  Glaring at the surrounding men, Goodnight saw a couple of hats removed, then a few more, then lots more. And heads started bowing.

  “That’s better,” Goodnight said. “Now somebody find a hammer and fix up this here box.”

  He figured there had to be a hammer in one of the many wagons now cluttering up Boot Hill. He was right. Soon Henry Kimball came running, waving a blacksmith’s hammer. Well, that wasn’t exactly what he had had in mind, but it ought to work anyway. The blacksmith went to work binding up the coffin. Goodnight watched him closely to make sure the job was being done right.

  Looking around, Goodnight saw that there was one cowboy who hadn’t removed his hat: it was the same masked boy who had kicked the body. He was standing there at the front of the mob: Claw.

  Now, Goodnight was sure who had killed Black Dub. Anyway, he thought he was sure. Pretty sure. Well, sure enough to pursue the matter to some sort of conclusion. He couldn’t let Black Dub’s murderer go unpunished. Black Dub had brought law and justice to this part of the country. It would be too cruel, too unfair, if the law failed to punish his killer. Goodnight vowed it wouldn’t happen.

  112

  Goodnight sat at a large round table in the Exchange Saloon holding a council of war. Loving sat at his right hand. The others around the table were Will Lee and the rangers hired by the Association. Goodnight didn’t really feel comfortable with the rangers, but he told himself that he needed firepower and he didn’t know where else to get it. He couldn’t very well recruit townspeople to make war on the striking cowboys’ camp: they would either turn and run or get slaughtered. What other choice did he have?

  The brass star on his chest still seemed out of place. He believed in law and justice, but he had never intended to be a lawman. Yet here he sat, the duly sworn sheriff of Tascosa, because nobody else wanted the job. Not now. Not under these circumstances. And he was bound and determined that acts of murder should not be forgotten or forgiven. If nobody else would bring in the killers, then he would.

  “I dunno,” said Loving. “I’m not sure them boys’re gonna hand over those fellas just ’cause we ask ’em to.”

  “I never figured they would,” said Goodnight.

  “And if’n they don’t, chargin’ into Strike Town, well, I’m not sure that’d be much fun.”

  The striking cowboys, along with their outlaw allies, had set up a large camp on the north bank of the Canadian River about seven miles west of town. Some of the women who normally worked at the Equity and the Exchange saloons were now living and working in Strike Town. The camp had grown and grown until it was almost a rival town. Most of the inhabitants slept in the open under the vast plains sky with their heads on their saddles, but more and more tents were being put up. Even a few shacks had been nailed together with wood that might come in handy for more coffins if Goodnight decided to go charging in after the guilty parties. Well, he was aware of the dangers, but he wasn’t just going to drop this matter of murder. He had recruited Black Dub to be sheriff of Tascosa, so he bore some responsibility for what had happened to him, and even more responsibility for punishing those who had done it.

  “You don’t hafta come,” Goodnight said.

  “I know I don’t hafta,” said Loving. “That ain’t the point.” He paused. “The point is that some a our good friends’re in that there damn camp. Too Short’s in there, for God’s sake. You don’t wanta git in no damn gunfight with him. How’d you feel if’n you killt Too Short?”

  “I ain’t gonna fight Too Short.”

  “You don’t know that. You cain’t never tell what’s gonna happen oncet the shootin’ starts.”

  “I’ve gotta do somethin’. I ain’t gonna just let this thing go. I cain’t.”

  “I know. I don’t like what happened no more’n you do. But maybe we oughta just not rush into nothin’ right away. Give it some time. This strike thing cain’t last forever. You kin do your arrestin’ when it’s all over with.”

  “They’d be gone clear outa the country by then.”

  “M
ebbe. Mebbe not.”

  “I ain’t takin’ that chance.”

  “Could be you’d be takin’ a chance on somethin’ a good deal worse. You’re thinkin’ ’bout Black Dub, but there ain’t much we kin do for him no more, way I see it. I’m thinkin’ about Too Short and maybe Flytrap and who knows who all else. Maybe I’m even thinkin’ a you. Stranger things’ve happened.”

  “I know, I know.”

  Goodnight hated to argue with Loving like this. Now that he was back, Goodnight almost seemed to be trying to drive him away again. Well, maybe it would be for the best if he did succeed in driving him off. At least, Loving wouldn’t end up getting killed charging into Strike Town with guns blazing.

  “Let’s sleep on it,” Loving said.

  “That’d just be puttin’ off,” Goodnight said.

  “That’s the idea. There’s always gonna be plenty a time to die. Ain’t no reason to rush it.”

  Goodnight felt frustrated and irritated. Why couldn’t Loving just get out of his life and leave him alone? But was he sure he wanted him to? Could he stand to lose him again? Besides, he had never been any good at saying no to Loving, and he didn’t seem to be any better at it now, not even after all that had happened.

  “Okay, we’ll sleep on it,” Goodnight said.

  As he was getting up from the table, ready for that night’s sleep, Goodnight felt Will Lee tugging at his elbow.

  “Less burn ’em out,” said Lee. “Less burn ’em good.”

  113

  Goodnight couldn’t believe that he was beginning his career in law enforcement by rustling. He had carefully planned a sneak attack not upon Strike Town itself but upon the strikers’ remuda. He reasoned that if he stole the new town’s horses, then he would be in a position to bargain for the surrender of the wanted men. He would trade horseflesh for murderers. Anyway, he hoped the striking cowboys and their allies would agree to such a swap. But first he had to steal the horses.

  Only about half of the some three hundred cowboys owned their own—or maybe had stolen their own—mounts. The rest had ridden ranch-owned horses back when they were working and so were afoot now. They were as forlorn as sailors marooned on shore. Anyhow, Goodnight figured swabbies were forlorn on dry land. What did he know? But he was sure cowboys were forlorn without horses to ride. So he would steal the camp’s last 150 mounts—maybe more, maybe fewer—and see how theyall liked being stranded on the ground. He suspected that taking the horses would cripple the cowboys’ very identity. With nothing to ride, they would be no better than farmers. They might just as well call their little settlement Clodhopper Town. Well, he needed some kind of lever—didn’t he?—to pry those killers out of Strike Town.

  Sheriff Goodnight and his gang of thieves approached the remuda at around three in the morning. It wasn’t a big gang, just Goodnight, Loving, and three Association rangers who seemed the most sympathetic. Lefty Smith was a left-handed gunslinger, Johnny Johnson a potbellied sometime killer, and Reb Brenner a grey-bearded veteran of the Civil War. Goodnight had chosen them because they didn’t seem quite as bloodthirsty as the rest of the rangers. And yet he still wasn’t sure how far he could trust even them to keep their firearms cold in their holsters.

  “I don’t want no shootin’,” Goodnight told them firmly once again. “Shootin’s just gonna wake up the whole damn camp, and I don’t like them odds. They only outnumber us I’d say sixty, maybe seventy, to one. So we just slip in quiet, grab them ponies, and git the hell outa there. Understand? I ain’t just talkin’ ’cause I gotta purdy voice.”

  “He means it,” said Loving. “His voice ain’t all that purdy.”

  As they approached the horses, the Goodnight gang was armed with dirty socks full of dirt, which were supposed to serve as clubs. Someplace he had heard that the nicest, safest way to knock folks out was with an earth-weighted sock. He didn’t want any skulls crushed.

  The rangers’ sock-saps looked misshapen because none of them turned out to have any socks without holes in them. So they had tied knots to keep the sand from running out. Goodnight was afraid those socks were probably so rotten that they would just explode like sand bombs on impact.

  “I feel silly,” said Reb.

  “Then go on home,” said Goodnight.

  “Aw, hell, I was just jawin’.”

  “We’re supposed to be sneakin’ up on somebody, so just keep your jawin’ to yourself. Okay? That goes for the rest of you, too.”

  Lecturing his gang, Goodnight felt more like a schoolmarm than a dangerous leader of thieves. He smiled in the dense darkness. He had chosen a night when the moon would be a black face in a black sky.

  Glimpsing movement up ahead, Goodnight held up his hand and all the riders stopped. He couldn’t yet see anything that looked like a horse, but he was sure the remuda lay less than half a mile up ahead. Then beyond the remuda would be Strike Town itself.

  “You know what to do,” Goodnight said in a low voice. He knew they knew, but he couldn’t resist telling them again anyway. “Wait here till you see two matches light up side by side, right? Then come ridin’ in real quiet like. Now don’t go gittin’ impatient, you hear?”

  Then Goodnight and Loving dismounted. They handed over their reins to the rangers and started out on foot. Goodnight’s gunshot wound, now a little over two weeks old, still hurt him, but he was able to walk—or rather creep—on it. He wished he had on quiet moccasins instead of noisy boots. He tried to walk carefully, keeping the disturbance to a minimum, but it seemed to him that his feet were making a terrible racket. Meanwhile, Loving wasn’t making any sound at all. How did he do it? Goodnight found himself both admiring and envious all over again. He redoubled his efforts to be quiet, but he still sounded like a cautious freight train. He wanted to blame his injury, but actually he didn’t figure it had much to do with it. He just wasn’t as graceful as Loving and never would be.

  Goodnight had been watching the remuda from hiding for the past several nights and so knew that a single cowboy was assigned to guard the horses every night. On a ranch, three cowpokes would have shared this duty, taking shifts, but Strike Town was different. They were in a state of rebellion against the ranches and so were determined not to act like a ranch. Maybe they figured they had nothing to fear from thieves since they had already formed alliances with the outlaws. Anyhow, people said they were allies. Occasionally, the remuda’s single guard would mount up and ride around the makeshift corral—a single strand of barbed wire held up by rather flimsy posts—but most of the time he was content to laze beside a small campfire. If all went well, he wouldn’t be hard to find, for that fire would light the way for the ambushers.

  Goodnight, who liked operating aboveboard, was distressed at how sneaky he felt. He was glad it was so dark nobody could see him— which was of course the idea anyway. Foolish thoughts. He was pretty sure Loving wasn’t wasting any mental energy doing this kind of crazy thinking.

  As he drew nearer the weak glow of the fire, Goodnight began to make out the features of tonight’s watchman. He realized he didn’t know the man and was glad. This keeper of the horses was a young cowboy, probably only in his teens. His elders had obviously wanted to get their sleep and so had assigned this youngster to watch the herd. But he was sleepy, too. His head was bowed and he appeared to be dozing. Now Goodnight felt even worse about his plan, which called for creeping up on this sleeping teenager and beating him senseless. Some hero he was turning out to be. Some brave defender of law and order.

  Goodnight started worrying that Loving was getting too far ahead of him. He tried to speed up, but then he made more noise, so he slowed back down again. Then he saw that Loving had stopped to wait for him. He was relieved and irritated at the same time. Who asked him to wait? Just as Goodnight was about to catch up, Loving started out again. Well, if he was going to wait, why didn’t he wait? Did he enjoy keeping his lead? Foolish thoughts. Crazy thinking.

  Loving stopped again. Waited again. This time Goodnight caugh
t up. They nodded silently to each other. As they rested for a moment, Goodnight realized he could hear his heart beating. He stared at Loving’s chest to see if it too was heaving, but of course he saw nothing. Well, it was dark.

  Goodnight pointed at the watchman and they moved off once again. This time, they advanced side by side. Well, that was good. Soon the new sheriff was close enough to hear the boy breathing. His breaths came slowly and regularly. He was almost snoring.

  Raising his dirt club—and feeling like a very poor sport—Goodnight advanced the last few feet and brought his weapon down hard on the back of the boy’s sweat-stained hat. The sock exploded, throwing dirt in the sheriff ’s eye. He was not only stunned but also embarrassed. It occurred to him that if Revelie had still been around his socks would have been in a better state. The blow—instead of knocking the poor kid out—only succeeded in waking him up. Startled, the boy turned his head and stared at Goodnight. It evidently took him a moment to figure out he wasn’t dreaming. Then he opened his mouth to scream.

  At that moment, Loving hit him a crushing blow on the back of the head with the butt of his revolver. Well, so much for the great sock caper. The teenager crumpled and fell too close to the fire. Goodnight pulled him back so he wouldn’t get burned—or cooked.