by Tim Bryant
There was no long fuse burning. No time to reflect or get things right. I think Hoot saw the light right at the end though, because he squared up toward me and aimed to fire a third time. Bowlegs swung that big 30.06 around and lowered it on Hoot before I could say a word. Hoot took two shots to the chest and went down as smooth as his moonshine. I leaned over just in time for him to whisper something low into my good ear. Unfortunately, even it was ringing like the devil’s hammer on a church bell.
Alto and I wasted no time ransacking that damn house. Every drawer, every closet, every room, top to bottom and back up again. Not a damn thing to be found. What we did find was a place in the kitchen floor where an earlier, smaller furnace had once been located. It had been patched over and reinforced with two-by-fours and then concealed with a rug that had seen better days. I volunteered to go out back and try to get up into the crawl space, but Alto said no. Someone might see me out there and get wise. He’d found a hand saw in one of the storage closets. He was fairly certain it would do the trick.
Bowlegs was sprawled across the floor in the dining room, bleeding and vomiting by turns, and swearing on the soul of Hoot Castrie in between. Alto had inspected the wound and found the bullet went clean through. He washed it up with some of Hoot’s moonshine and bandaged it with strips of a bedsheet. Hoot was laid up against the stove, his head against the back wall and his legs sprawled in a near perfect right angle. Alto picked one of his arms up and took the saw to it.
“What you think, boss?” he said.
Gallows humor is one of those things you don’t really appreciate until you need it. There in that moment, it did its job, pushing some air back into the room. We discussed cutting him up into pieces and burying the pieces in the same hole we were pulling the money out of. Sometimes I think that would have been a more fitting end for Hoot. I toasted his memory and to him battling Pancho Villa in Mexico and the Spaniards in the Philippines and bankers far and wide.
It took only ten or fifteen minutes to cut through the kitchen floor. Half way through, I found a latch that swung open and brought the whole shebang down. What we discovered resting beneath it would have made Captain Lafitte himself rub his eyes in amazement.
“That a basement down there?” I said.
It certainly wasn’t just dirt.
“No, but looks like he’s dug himself out some kind of bunker,” Alto said.
We pulled the flooring away and shined a kerosene lamp down in it to get a better look. It turned out not to be a bunker either. What it was was a big hole in the ground, maybe six foot by four or so, and maybe three foot deep. Almost looked like a shallow grave. It was stacked up with heavy canvas bags, like the kind you might see in the Army or something, and I was more than a little worried with what I might see when I opened them up. Turned out not to be any dead thing, but at first, I wasn’t too sure what it was.
“That’s some old money,” Alto said. “Bank notes.”
He looked at it, stacks of sleeves of twenties, all nineteenth century bills. Odd looking things with etchings of people shooting at other people right there on them.
“Probably printed in Fort Worth.”
“Spendable?” I said.
He pulled a bag up through the hole in the floor and dumped it across the floor. A few of the sleeves bounced against Hoot’s boot and fell just short of a pool of blood.
“Damn right it is,” he said.
I looked back down into hole and counted six more bags. I could tell there were more underneath. I was just about to start dragging them up when I heard a knock at the front door. We both stopped and listened. A moment later, I heard the knob turn.
“Yoo hoo. Hoot? You here?”
Alto had his shotgun cocked and at his shoulder.
“That’s my sister, Starletta” I said.
Things had gotten out of control. Funny enough, there in that most out of control moments, I fell back on something Ruthie Nell told me years earlier.
“Things are not out of control, Dutch. They’re just out of your control. Maybe, just maybe, you don’t always have to control everything.”
I leaned back against the wall, closed my eyes and waited.
39
Stories happen. You may think you write them, but maybe, in the end, they write you. You can say you rode against Mexican banditos, but if you didn’t, your story will eventually be something different. You can say you’re a detective who solves every case and puts wrong things right, but, if you don’t, then your story might be a lie too.
I never rode with banditos. I never held up a bank. I never was the perfect son to my momma or the perfect man to Ruthie Nell. I was lucky to get out of that house in Cuneytown with my life, and I left a lot behind when I did get out. It made me see things different. I even saw some people different. Mostly momma. What she had left behind in the Mineral Wells Bank & Trust on that summer day in 1909 must have been substantial, and it was something she never got back.
As I sat there on the front porch of the house on Clear Fork, I thought about a promise I’d made to Victoria, that I would bring her with me. Now, I wasn’t sure I would ever see her again. Or Starletta. Or, as far as that goes, momma.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?” I said.
By her, I meant Starletta, of course. Momma didn’t chose to answer that one right off.
“I tried to make a new life,” she said. That’s all.
Maybe that’s what Hoot Castrie was trying to do too. I guess that kind of thing can get out of control. We thought seriously about cutting him up and hiding him in that same hole underneath his house. We might have done it, too, if Starletta hadn’t shown up when she did. When all was said and done and tallied up, Hoot had $114,000 tucked up under that old house of his. A good portion of it was traced back to the Mineral Wells bank job, but not all of it. Sheriff Muncey got to come in and help out with the investigation, and he helped clear up five or six other bank robberies from Stephenville to Cisco to Wichita Falls.
I think now that Hoot was probably so excited by his secret life, this life that he couldn’t tell anyone about, that he had to make up another one to match it. At least, that’s what I told Starletta, and she reluctantly agreed.
Starletta wanted to believe in Hoot real bad. She put some footwork into it and eventually came up with his Army records. Turned out, he really did see action in the Philippines. Maybe he should have stayed there.
The Parker County Sheriff’s Department decided there wasn’t enough evidence to bring Joseph Bowlegs— who, as it turned out, was really Joe Reed— to the grand jury. Starletta worried over it a little. She wasn’t happy with Alto or me for a while. She hated Joseph Bowlegs to her grave.
At this point, the story did write itself into a direction none of us would have predicted. Sheriff Muncey’s department must have been bored with their daily routine, because they were diligent in their investigations of Hoot Castrie. They eventually found enough reason to suspect Hoot of murdering Alvis Sr, and Muncey asked the Parker County coroner to dig him back up and take a second look. Muncey specifically asked to be present during the exam.
I went back out to the graveyard on the day Teevy brought him back up, and it seemed a good bit harder bringing him back to the surface than it had getting him down in there. I was surprised to see my friend Bennie Enders there, taking part in the investigation too.
“You don’t get an opportunity to be part of something like this very often,” he said.
Knowing Bennie, I also knew he would never completely trust the Parker County findings, if he weren’t there to see for himself. The investigation took the better part of an afternoon. They found a bullet fragment in Alvis’ arm, right beneath a nasty scar. The findings were inconclusive though, the scar too old.
Thankfully, Muncey also brought in Special Agent John Wesley from the FBI’s Dallas office. It was obvious Wesley thought he was in the middle of a bunch of yokels, and he had probably been assigned to it as a form of punishm
ent, but he did his job, poking around in Alvis’ insides and taking blood samples.
“Looks like poison,” he said, before packing up and leaving.
“What kind?” I said.
“Probably rat poison. Something he ate.”
I asked him if he knew someone named Rella who worked with the Dallas Sheriff’s Department.
“Yeah, I talk to Rella just about every week,” he said.
“You reckon Rella is short for Cinderella?” I said.
He said he’d never thought of it, but he reckoned it could be so.
More tests were done in Dallas, and it turned out not to be rat poison at all. Instead, poisoned honey. More mystery. Who made it? Did they intentionally poison it?
“I still got honey in my kitchen Hoot Castrie brought me,” Starletta said. “Ain’t no amount of it ever been poisoned.”
Special Agent Wesley took her up on that challenge, and she won. None of it was poisoned. Starletta maintained that Hoot would never have intentionally poisoned Alvis Sr. She swore they were working as a team. I had my doubts. I still do, but she may have been right. Hoot may have only turned on Alvis in the end, after they had stored up their treasure. I’ve even wondered if Alvis did all of it and, not having any better place, hid it under Hoot’s house without Hoot’s knowledge. Would that mean we killed an innocent man? Sometimes at night, I can’t stop thinking about it.
I took the basic, official story to the Fort Worth Press. It ran on page one of the Sunday edition, the same week the tests came back from Dallas. I’m sure that pissed off the Startlegram to no end, because they called on the following Monday, wanting quotes for their own story. I answered that I’d really like to tell them all to go to hell, but my lawyer had counseled me against talking to them. That put an extra spring in my step.
We returned $54,000 to the Mineral Wells Bank & Trust. It belonged to them, and they were glad to take it back. The FBI got to help out with that too. No one knew who the rest of the money belonged to, and so it went to Hoot Castrie. Starletta wound up dispersing it, and, because she believed Alvis Sr. and Hoot meant to share it, I got a nice big chunk.
“Little Alvis,” she said, because she had taken to calling me that, “I know you been through a lot. Maybe this will give you enough to start over and do better than our parents done.”
I knew right then I didn’t like having money. Didn’t like the way it made me feel. I couldn’t imagine storing it all up under your house like Hoot. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. Not worried that someone would come and take it, just worried that it was down there. I started making plans for getting rid of it. I thought for a while that I might be able to buy Ruthie Nell’s affections, but I eventually came to my senses. It was good money, but it wasn’t that good.
The Maime Guzman case came and went with some fanfare. It made the papers if only to warn against the dangers of sepsis. And to shine a light on kids who were willing to harm themselves just to prove their allegiance to someone they didn’t really know. Those kinds of people grow up to be adults who do the same thing. Those were, by and large, my clientele.
Maime Guzman should never have carved Elvis Presley’s name into her right arm. If she hadn’t, she would still be alive today, and I would have no damn clue who she was. I also wouldn’t know who Alice Muncey was or who Donnatella Silvestri was. I wouldn’t have been attacked by William Silvestri, and I would still have some knowledge of Hilly Driskell, but I wouldn’t know where he lived or who he was mooching off of.
I would still be the guy who shot the illegitimate son of Bat Masterson and Annie Ladue. Bret Masterson who sometimes called himself Dead John Modec was a small time hoodlum who thought big. He’d robbed some liquor stores and bars. Maybe a small bank here and there. Nothing he couldn’t have talked his way out of, if he hadn’t also had two murders on his head.
They say his momma Annie Ladue was a young concubine who spent some time with Bat while he was up in Dodge City. Some say it’s only speculation that Bat fathered Bret Masterson. Could have been Annie’s wishful thinking. Who knows.
Fathering kids isn’t the same as being a father. No speculation there. Lonnie Boy knew that much. Alvis Sr. knew that much. I’m happy I never had a kid. The streak of bad lies and bad luck ends right here.
40
Old mother Curridge sat on the front porch of the house most of the time we were there that day. The weather had warmed up just a little, and she said she needed to get out. Unless someone had died, a day out, to momma, meant a day on the porch as opposed to sitting at the kitchen table or in the easy-chair in the front room. The easy chair was reserved for radio listening. Momma had a television, but she never turned it on.
“There’s never anything worth bothering with,” she said.
“You might like Dragnet or the Wyatt Earp show,” I said.
I had seen one episode of Wyatt Earp, and I like Hugh O’Brien. I didn’t like the actor who played Bat Masterson, but I gave them credit for putting him in the show.
“What do I need to know about Wyatt Earp?” she said.
This line of reasoning might have borne out if she hadn’t listened to Whistler and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar like they were religious shows and she was finally trying for heaven. She had nothing but scorn for Queen For A Day, but she did listen to Let George Do It for a while. I thought that one had the added benefit of making her think my job was halfway respectable. Then I found out she liked it for Brooksie. I never did tell her most private detectives couldn’t afford secretaries.
“Is that Ruthie not your secretary no more?”
I knew the question was coming, and I knew that, depending on the answer I gave her, other more pointed ones would follow.
“No ma’am. She works for the newspaper now.”
I hoped that would suffice. For a brief moment, I thought it might.
“You probably don’t pay enough.”
She looked at Alice Muncey, who was sitting right across from her with a huge grin on her face.
“What’s he paying you?” Momma said.
Only she could make me feel like a john trolling Jacksboro Highway for ladies of the night.
“I told you Alice is a friend,” I said. “I don’t have to pay people to be my friend.”
Momma grinned back at Alice, but I’m not at all sure her grin meant the same thing as Alice’s. I had studied the whole situation. I very well might have asked Donnatella along with me. I wanted to spend more time with her. William was still hanging around too though, and that gave me some concern.
Ruthie Nell Parker was the girl I loved. I couldn’t help that no more than I could help the hum in my left ear and the hitch in my get-along. My heart hurt for Ruthie Nell. On the other hand, it enjoyed being around Alice. Alice was interested in my work, much like Ruthie had been at one point.
“You hear Dutch shot the son of Bat Masterson?” Alice said.
That should have been a big deal, but I wasn’t sure how momma felt about Bat.
“Was he asking for it?”
We all sat there for a minute. I wasn’t sure it was really my business to answer such a question. I guess Alice felt the same.
Of course, momma got out the buttermilk pie and cut two big pieces for Alice and me and a small one for herself. It was already halfway gone, and I was reasonably sure that was all her. While she was inside, I showed Alice where the cottonfield had been, where the cornfield had been, the trail back through the woods to the old barn.
“Was Lonnie Boy asking for it when he held up the Mineral Wells Bank & Trust?” I said.
Momma put her plate down and took a long drink of ice water. I got the feeling that her answer hadn’t been years in the making. No, it was fully formulated in the time it took to quench her thirst.
“That was a different lifetime, Alvis,” she said. “I wished you wouldn’t bring it up the way you do.”
It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment how similar our names were, Alice and me. Alvis and
Alice. Something about it didn’t set well with me. It even seemed reason enough for the relationship not to develop any further. I decided it was time to bring something else up too.
“I don’t think I’m gonna answer to Alvis Jr. anymore.”
I ate another piece of pie and waited for a response.
“Don’t seem like you ever do anyway,” Momma said.
“I like the name Alvis just fine, but I think of you as Dutch,” Alice said.
Momma muttered something under her breath. I took it to mean she didn’t think of me as Dutch. If so, she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.
“The name Alvis seems like a whole different lifetime,” I said.
I looked close at momma’s hand, clasping hard to her cane there. They didn’t look like they’d lived for different lifetimes. They still almost looked soft, in a hard kind of way.
“You’ve lived quite a story haven’t you, Mrs. Curridge?” Alice said.
It gave us all another run at things, and it kind of worked.
“Everybody does,” Momma said.
By now, I think we were all adjusting into our roles.
Later on that evening, after Alice and I walked back into the woods and tried being something a little more than what we were, I had a few Pearl Beers that momma kept in the icebox just for me.
“You ever love Alvis Sr, Momma?”
The words came popping out and surprised me a little. They must have stunned momma. She got up and walked inside the house, and I didn’t know if she was coming back out. I thought she might’ve come back with a shotgun, but she didn’t. She came to the screen door and looked out across what had once been a cottonfield to be proud of.
“I loved Alvis for what he done,” she said. “That’s all he ever asked of me. He give as much of himself as he could, and I done the same. He give you his name so you wouldn’t have no mark against you, and he give me Lizabeth. But when Lizabeth got taken away, there wasn’t no me and Alvis Sr. to speak of. He would’ve made a decent enough daddy. The world just took too much from him.”
