Cherokee

by Giles Tippette

  The man hit the ground with his back to the door and the reins of the horse in his hand. As soon as he landed he turned around to face the horse, and as soon as he turned around he saw me. His jaw dropped. I put a finger to my lips with my left hand and stuck my revolver in his belly with my right. I took a quick glance in the car. Hays was slumped on the bale of hay, leaning back against the side of the car, his arms hanging down and his chin on his chest. He was either asleep or he’d been knocked out. If he hadn’t been knocked out he soon was going to be. As soon as I got my hands on him.

  I turned back to the fellow. He was a kind of young-looking man, maybe in his mid-twenties. He was wearing cattle-working gear, boots and jeans and a hat. He was sort of run-down, looking like he hadn’t been making much money lately. But if that was the case, he could always sell the fine-looking Colt .44-caliber revolver he was wearing at his side. I reached over with my left hand and eased it out of his holster. He was still staring at me with his hands raised and his eyes big and round. I pitched his revolver under the train. I didn’t figure it landing amongst all the rocks and iron was going to do its new, shiny finish one bit of good.

  I said, whispering, “Now I want you to get back up in that car. You understand me?” I prodded him with the barrel of my revolver in case he was hard of hearing. “Just nod your head.”

  He swallowed and nodded. He said, “Now?”

  I said, through gritted teeth, “Goddammit, keep your voice down. You better not wake that man up in there. Now get up in that car and lay flat on your belly until I get aboard. That’s all right. I’ll tend to the horse.”

  I waited until he’d climbed quietly into the car and gone flat on his belly before I followed him up into the car holding the horse’s reins. Hays slept on. I got up close to the man and said, “Now I want you to get up and take hold of the reins and go over there and wake that fellow up.”

  “What?” he said. “Hell, he’ll shoot me.”

  “No, but I damn well will if you don’t do exactly like I say. You try to make a break for that door—” I was interrupted by a loud snore from Hays. I waited until it had subsided. “You try anything and you can believe I’ll shoot you. Dead center. Now go over there and wake him up. When he’s awake you hold out the reins and say, ’Here’s your horse.’ You got that?”

  He gave me a kind of funny look, but he took the reins to Hays’s horse. He said, “Tell him here’s his horse?”

  “That’s right.”

  He got up to a kind of crouch and started toward Hays. Then he stopped. He looked back at me, looked at that big black eye in the barrel of my revolver. “Whata you gonna do with me?”

  “One thing at a time. Right now you’re a horse thief. Let’s see if you can do a little acting also.”

  He straightened up and took the few steps over to Hays. He said, in a kind of low voice, “Mister. Hey, mister.”

  I said, “You got to yell at him.”

  He looked at me and then came back to Hays. “Mister!”

  “Louder.”

  “Hey! MISTER!”

  Hays suddenly came bolt upright, shaking his head and looking around. He said, “Jus’ dozin’, Boss, jus’ dozin’.”

  He was still only half awake.

  But then the man held the reins in front of his eyes and said, “Here’s yore horse.”

  It got him. His eyes went wide and slowly traveled up the man’s arm to his face. He said, “By gawd what in the hell’s goin’ on in—”

  I said, “You awake, Hays?”

  He stared at me for a second and then blew out his breath. He said, “Whew! You nearly scairt me to death with that little prank.”

  I said, “It ain’t a prank.” I said to the man, “Now go tie the horse where you found him.”

  I followed him to the end of the car and made sure he secured the horse properly. He’d untied the stirrups and I directed him to do them back up. All the while Hays was watching us and trying to think of something to say. I paid him no mind.

  When the fellow was through with the horse I prodded him toward the other end of the car. It was empty back there. I said, “Just go back there and sit down and don’t say nothing.”

  He said, “What are you gonna do with me. Mister, I’m mighty sorry about this but, see, I was in kind of a tight.”

  I said, “I ain’t going to tell you again. Get back there and sit down and shut up.”

  Hays said, “Boss, I—”

  I looked at him and said, with plenty of force, “Shut up, Hays. And keep it shut. Was I you I wouldn’t even think, much less talk.”

  He swallowed and sat back on his bale of hay. I got up, still holding my revolver on the horse thief. The train was starting to move. I got a bottle of whiskey out of the saddlebags on my horse and sat down on the bale of hay I had pulled over next to the door. I pulled out the cork with my teeth, let it fall in my lap, and had a long pull out of the bottle. Neither Hays nor the horse thief asked if they could have a drink.

  We sat just like that, not a word out of either of them, until the train had pulled into the depot, taken on some new passengers, and then begun to pull out. One of the horses turned his head around and nickered as if to say, “When in hell we getting out of this little bitty barn that won’t hold still?” I guessed it was hard on horses riding on a train and not having the least idea what it was all about. Of course I guess they’d rather have walked to Oklahoma. The only thing I knew was dumber than a horse was Ray Hays.

  Once out of the station, the train commenced to pick up speed, gradually at first and then, gaining momentum, faster and faster. By the time we’d left the last of the raw-looking buildings of Austin behind we were rolling along pretty good. I calculated we were doing about thirty miles an hour, which is about as fast as a horse can run full out. Of course he couldn’t do that for very long, while a train could do it all day long and some into the night. And I knew we’d get to going even faster. Norris said there were some trains could run sixty miles an hour, a mile a minute, but I didn’t much think I cared to ride on one.

  As soon as we got into open country I shoved the bale of hay past where Hays was sitting and over toward the horses, placing it further away from the door. I motioned with my revolver. I said to the horse thief, “All right. Get up and come over here and stand in front of the door.”

  While he made his way forward, staggering a little what with the motion of the car, I sat down on the bale of hay and cocked my pistol. The man heard the sound and looked at me with the fear plain in his face. He had his hands about half raised, but he stopped short of the door. I motioned him further. “Get right in the door.”

  He took a couple of more steps forward until he was in the opening, but was careful not to get too near the edge. He swallowed. “What’re you gonna do? Shoot me in the door so I fall out?”

  I shook my head. “I ain’t going to shoot you. Not unless I have to.”

  He nodded his head toward Hays. “Then he gonna shoot me?”

  “He ain’t gonna shoot anybody. Unless he shoots himself in the foot.”

  The man said, his face still worried and uncertain, “Then what you gonna do with me?”

  I said casually, “Let you go. You can jump any time you’re a mind.”

  He looked outside, at the ground rushing by in a blur. His eyes got scared all over again. “Mister, I didn’t aim to steal yore horse. I climbed in this car to ketch me a ride north. I was hopin’ it was headed fer Fort Worth. I figured maybe I could get me a job in the stockyards there, maybe save enough money to buy me a good horse.”

  “I seen that new Colt you had. You could of swapped that for a horse.”

  He looked back the way we’d come, like he could spot his revolver laying back there in the yard between a couple of tracks. “Man needs a gun,” he said.

  “Needs a horse more. Where’d you get the Colt? Steal it?”

  He shook his head. “Nosir. I bought that second-hand off an old boy. Give him twenty-five dollars
and meant to hold on to it.”

  “Looked new to me.”

  “I kept it that way. Was practically new when I bought it.”

  “New Colt costs forty dollars. Buy a halfway decent horse for forty dollars.”

  “Mister,” he said, “I was never thinkin’ on stealin’ yore horse. But I got in here an’ I seen my chance and it just come on me in the spur of the moment to take the chance.”

  “I don’t see where it makes any difference whether you studied on it for a week. Stealing a horse is stealing a horse. I think I’m letting you off light.”

  He was looking mighty miserable. “I know I done wrong. See, I’ve had me a bad run of luck lately. Lost my job an’ then I lost my horse an’ saddle in a poker game. But hell, I do ranch work an’ you can’t walk out to no cattle ranch an’ ast to get on workin’ cattle when you’re afoot. They’d laugh you off the place.”

  Out of curiosity I said, jerking my head at Hays, “How come you didn’t ease his revolver out of the holster before you untied the horse? If he’d of come to and seen you with his horse he’d of shot the shit out of you.”

  “I studied on it. But the way he was sleepin’ he kind of had his elbow down over the butt of his pistol. I figured he might be a light sleeper and I’d wake him up if I tried to move his arm.”

  I looked over at Hays, who was staring at the floor. I said, “No, you wouldn’t have waked him up. You might could have exploded some dynamite under him and that would have done the trick, but nothing less.” I glanced by the thief at the countryside rushing by. We were really traveling. I calculated we were doing upwards of forty miles an hour. I said, “You want to jump on your own or you want me to give you the word?”

  He looked out and swallowed hard. He looked back at me. “Mister, I jump off this train at this speed it’s liable to break both my legs.”

  “That’s what would probably have happened to that horse if you’d of jumped him out that door on top of all those rocks and all that iron.”

  He looked down. “I know it. Fact of the business is, I was just studyin’ on that, thinkin’ ’bout gettin’ back in the car and tying that horse back up when you come out from under the train at me.”

  “Sure you were,” I said.

  He gave me a look. “Mister, I ain’t no horse thief. Not as a general thing. I admit I was thinking of stealing your horse, but that ain’t no reason to leave me layin’ beside a railroad track forty miles from nowhere with two broken legs.”

  I looked at him, thinking it over. “Well, I guess we could wait for the next town and then turn you into the sheriff. Course they hang horse thieves.”

  He looked miserable and didn’t say anything.

  I felt the train begin to slow, just a little at first, but then it slowed enough I could tell it wasn’t slowing for just a crossing but was coming into a town. I dug in my pocket and came out with a few bills. I didn’t want to expose my whole roll. I’d had enough of them kind of tricks. I held the money out to the man. It appeared to be about forty-five dollars. He stared at it. I said, “Come over here and get this. Then go back and sit in the door with your legs hanging out. It appears we’re coming into a town. When the train slows enough you jump. That money is to help you get a horse, not to buy another revolver. I don’t think you’re a horse thief, but I do think you’re a damn fool. Next man you try and steal a horse off of might not be so easygoing as I am.”

  He took a hesitant step or two toward me and stretched out his hand. I made him come closer by not moving. Finally he kind of snatched the money. “I am much obliged, mister. That was a mighty Christian thing to do.”

  “Well don’t count on no more acts of charity. Now get on over there and sit in the door. And I’d get off just as quick as I could before I come to my senses and remember you and that horse.”

  The train was slowing up at a rapid rate. Way up the line I heard the long sound of the steam whistle, waking the people up in whatever town we were arriving at. Just then the young man said, “Maybe someday I’ll get a chance to repay you.”

  Before I could answer he’d jumped. I stood up. He’d jumped onto a slope that led down from the tracks toward what appeared to be a creek. I got up in time to see him rolling over and over in the grass. I took a step to the door and looked back. He was getting up. I went back and sat down on the hay bale. Behind me Hays cleared his throat. I said, “Not a word, Hays. Not one damn word!”

  I waited until we’d come in and left the little town of Denton before I said anything. The train was back up to speed, the car rocking and swaying and the rails going by under us, going clickety-clack as the wheels ran over the rail joints. I said, still looking out the car door, “All right. We’re even. I done the wrong thing back at the hotel and liked to have lost some cash. You done the wrong thing here and like to have lost the gold and a horse. Half the gold I mean.”

  He said, “Just the horse.”

  I looked around at him. “What?”

  He cleared his throat again. “Just the horse. I would have just lost the horse.”

  “Hays, when you’re wrong you’re wrong and you ought to admit it. There was twelve thousand five hundred dollars in gold in each of them saddlebags. The man takes your horse he takes half the gold. He don’t know it until later because he thinks he’s just stealing a horse, but later on he finds out he’s rich.”

  Hays had a look on his face I couldn’t quite place. He looked hurt and determined and insulted and triumphant all at the same time. He said, “Gold wasn’t in the saddlebags no more.” He thumped the bale of hay he was setting on. “I got concernt when you left I might nod off, so I up an’ took the gold off’n the horses and put it under this here bale of hay I’m settin’ on.”

  “What?”

  He got up and raised the big bale until I could see the U.S. MINT sacks. He said, “Thar tha’ damn gold.” He let the bale fall back with a thump. Then he sat back down and gave me a look.

  Well, for a minute I didn’t know what to say. He figured he had me and he damn near did. I finally said, “Well, you almost got your horse stole. So we are even. Was I you I’d let the matter drop.”

  But he said, “When was the last time you hear’d ’bout somebody comin’ up in a stock car an’ makin’ off with a horse? They is lots easier places to steal a horse than outten a stock car.”

  “Ray, if I was you I would let the matter drop.”

  “That’s all right with me,” he said.

  I turned around and faced the car door. I heard him mutter, “Set some dynamite off under me might wake me up.”

  I looked around. “What?”

  “Nothin’,” he said.

  I turned back around and, in another moment, I heard him muttering something else. I turned around again and said, “Goddammit, Ray, now what are you mumbling about?”

  He gave me a stubborn look. “I was jest wishin’ folks would give me money every time I took it into my head to steal a horse. Wouldn’t ever have to work a day again. Just go around lookin’ like I was goin’ to steal a horse.”

  “All right, all right. You’ve made your point, dammit. Now get over and open up the pack and see if we’ve got anything left to eat. I’m about to starve to death. Ought to be some beef and cheese left.”

  He got off the bale and went over to the packhorse. “Notice you didn’t offer me no drink when you had one. Surprised you didn’t offer that horse thief one.”

  Just for plain out long-distance pouting Hays was a world’s champion. I figured I was in for a long ride.

  He didn’t say anything else until right before we got into Fort Worth. He’d got a bale of hay and pulled it over to the open door to watch the beginnings of the big city. I was a few feet behind him taking little bites off the bottle of whiskey every now and then. He said, “Man didn’t ast me if I wanted to go to Oklahoma. Jest said, ’Git on yore horse!’ ” He was still looking straight ahead, talking just loud enough for me to hear, but trying to act like he was talking to him
self. “Other man he ast if he wanted to jump or did he want a shove. Didn’t ast me! Ast me an’ I’d of tol’ him didn’t need to ast me. I’da jumped on my own. Yessir! Jumped off and walked home. Would have walked home barefoot. Course nobody ever asts me if I want to do sompthin’. They jest tells me I want to do it. Never ast me. Pretty soon they be tellin’ me what I want for breakfast.”

  Oh, he was in good form.

  We had good luck in Fort Worth. The agent in Austin had wired ahead for us, and the TP&O had everything set to switch our stock car onto the train that was leaving that night for Oklahoma City. Us and the car would be dropped off in Chickasha at six the next morning. The amazing part was that it only cost $40 to go to Chickasha, which was about twice as far as it was from Austin to Fort Worth, which had cost $68. I didn’t say nothing or ask any questions. For some time I’d been convinced there was probably a woman at the head of every railroad company. It was the only way I could explain or understand how they thought.

  The business got done so easy that it left plenty of time for me and Hays to walk downtown and have dinner in the dining room of the famous Cattleman’s Hotel. As near as I knew, every cowman who could get a shine on his boots and get his hat brushed had to take a meal at the Cattleman’s whether he owned one cow or ten thousand. It was a nice enough place, but I’d have never thought of bringing it up in conversation that I’d eaten there. Hays and I even got to poke a little fun at the waiter when he come over. It was advertised on the menu that they had a special on oysters, two dollars for a dozen. Since oysters were about as common as fleas where we were from, Hays asked the man if the two dollars was what you got if you was willing to eat a dozen of the slimy things. Of course the waiter didn’t think that was too funny. And he probably thought we looked like a couple of yahoos who’d been riding in a stock car all the way from Bastrop, Texas. But it didn’t make me any mind. We ate a steak dinner and then had some coffee, and I polished it off with a glass of brandy in a kind of left-handed salute to Wilson Young, who claimed the stuff was the only liquor a civilized man ought to drink. I’d always thought it would be best used for tanning hides, but I was about halfway wishing I had Wilson with me, especially sitting there with a saddlebag on the floor under my feet with the whole $25,000 in it. I’d decided to just put it in the one place, combine it, until we got back on the train. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Hays; in fact I dared not even look like I was thinking I didn’t trust him if I didn’t want him to start pouting again. But we’d swapped off carrying it from the depot down to the hotel, so it hadn’t been too much of a burden.