by Rilla Askew
Paused a minute at the doorway with Vergie’s nose stuck out there, just a-jingling and a-jangling to beat the band, hollered at John again over the banging and sooeys and gobbling, “I’m headed up yonder to the de-pot. Anybody comes looking for me, you tell ’em I’ll be back in a little bit.” Thinks about it a second, hollers as loud as he can holler, “YOU TELL THAT DADGUM MARSHAL WHEN HE GETS HERE I WAITED HALF THE MORNING, COULDN’T WAIT NO LONGER, BUT YOU TELL HIM TO STAY PUT, I’M GOING TO BE RIGHT BACK.”
He thought that might do some good. He figured if Fate Lodi was ever going to hear or believe it was J. G. Dayberry coming out the door and not John Lodi, he’d of done it by now, and Dad noised his way on out. Kept Vergie in between him and them turkey gobbles, which hadn’t let up a iota, and stopped in the daylight to get his eyes back. Peered up the street over Vergie’s back. Fate wasn’t a hundred yards away, there in the street in front of Tatum’s store, and Dad said he could see right off Lafayette Lodi was armed to the teeth and soused to the gills. That’s just how Dad put it. Said he had a Winchester in the saddle holster and another’n laying acrossed the horn. Had a pistol belt strapped on and a Colt stuck in each holster, one in the front of his britches, and one in his fist, waving it around. His other fist had aholt of a whiskey bottle, waving it around too, which goes to show how drunk he was, because you know that was a criminal offense. This was Indian Territory, people, liquor was strictly against the law anywhere inside these borders. These deputy U.S. marshals were liable to be on your tail in a minute with a warrant for introducing and selling liquor in the Territory, and we’re not talking about no piddling little offense neither, you were going to go see Judge Parker on that one, that was sure. Which is not to say folks didn’t drink plenty whiskey, run plenty of it and sell it—bootlegging and horsestealing was the two main ways some folks got their start in this country—but a fellow didn’t go prancing around on Main Street waving it around.
Dad said Fate didn’t appear to be worried about a deputy U.S. marshal showing up, nor shook up any about an old white nag creeping out the stable door in full harness and no wagon in sight either. Said he hardly appeared to notice excepting to crow louder, but said Fate’s horse was sure jumpy, but Dad kept on anyhow, a little bit and a little bit. That horse was a little old blue roan, nervous as a flinder, and every time Fate would throw back his head to gobble, it’d flinch and dance. He had it lashed to the rail in front of Tatum’s and he’d rare back to yodel and fall back against the saddle and that horse’d shy and buck and Lodi’d cuss awhile and take him a swig. He was making a pretty little scene for hisself and too drunk to care, I reckon, though folks was cleared off the street entirely. Dad said you couldn’t have roused a mouse. People ain’t blind to a powder keg when they see it, and Dad said that street was dead as Sunday morning. Wasn’t nobody visible about. Said he allowed there was plenty watching from somewheres but nobody aiming to mix in it, and Dad could see he was just on his own. Well, he kept on north, easing along a little, kept that old mare between him and Lodi, and my dad didn’t have a sign of a gun on him. Would you call that a brave man? Brave or plain stupid, that’s how my mama told it, but Dad said he did what he had to do. Said a man sees what he’s got to do, now, he’s just got to get up yonder and do it, can’t go wavering and misguessing about. So Dad eased along the street to where he was about even with Fate Lodi wallowing and carrying on. He stopped then. He had to do a little more studying on it, see, contemplate something or another to talk about.
In a little bit he says, “Morning, Fate.” Just as calm and friendly. Like they was just passing on the street in front of the bank. Now, my dad had a nodding acquaintance with Fate Lodi, or you might even call it speaking, and I guess about everybody in these parts did. Fate ran that mercantile store up at Waddy Crossing and folks around there traded with him for feed and drygoods and all, but the main thing he sold out of it was guns, and folks from all over this country would trade with him on that. They’d come about as far to buy a gun off Fate Lodi as they’d come to have his brother fix their singletree, and I don’t rightly know why unless it was just the amount he kept on hand and the kind and the price. He claimed to be a gunsmith but I don’t believe he ever made any guns that I knew anything about, but I do know he repaired them, freshened out barrels and re-set sights and what have you, but mostly he just sold ’em. A gun trader, that’s all there was to him. He wasn’t no gunsmith, the way John was. Nobody told me that. Didn’t anybody have to tell me that, I just knew it, and I was just a boy. But people all around would go to Big Waddy Crossing to buy guns off Fate Lodi, and I’ll allow my dad might have even, once in a while. So Dad had some acquaintance with the man, but they wasn’t what you’d call friendly, and then too, it was Dad’s own employee and friend Fate was trying to call out. But Dad proceeded to the best of his ability.
“Turned off kindly cool this morning, ain’t it?” he says.
Well, I guess Fate didn’t quite know what to make of it. Dad said he blinked a couple of times, held real still, stared out in the street at Vergie.
“Reckon it’ll get hot enough soon enough, don’t you reckon?” Dad says, friendly like, just passing the time of day, you know.
Fate stood as still as an old souse can stand still, is how Dad put it, and stared at Vergie’s face.
“I’m about to head up to the station yonder. Y’all come go with me,” Dad says, just lilting his voice up so nice and light. Thought he might persuade him with honey, I suppose, but you know there’s no persuading a drunk. The way Dad told it, he said Fate kindly grunted or something, like an old boar. Said Fate raised that pistol, or tried to, the muzzle dancing around yonder, said he couldn’t keep it steady for nothing, you know how wavery a old drunk is, but Dad said he didn’t believe Lodi could hit him by aiming for him but he might hit him by accident and Dad just ducked down a little tighter behind Vergie’s neck.
Said Fate hollered across to him, “You go to hell, horse!”
That was the first Dad knew Fate thought it was Vergie talking to him. Then my daddy understood he was in a pretty bad fix. Said he knew if he stepped out from behind Vergie, not only was that going to leave him without a ounce of protection but it was liable to startle Lodi so bad as to set him off sure enough. Said on the other hand, if Fate believed it was a horse trying to sweet-talk him, said he—meaning Dad—said he didn’t like to be standing anywhere near around it. Said he’d seen a old drunk wood-hauler one time nearly beat his wife to death with a piece of hickory trying to mash the crawling snakes off her, said he reckoned if Fate thought it was a talking horse, he was sure enough going to commence firing one or more of them many firearms, and then no telling what. So if Dad was unsettled before on how to proceed, now he was sure enough stumped. But you know, sometimes when you’re in it there’s not a thing in the world for it but to just go ahead on.
“Yessir,” Dad says, “reckon it’ll be hot as the dickens here before we kno—”
Blam. Blam. Blam.
Lodi fires off that gun.
Dad said them bullets went ever which way. They was one lodge in the wooden sign over the front door of the stable—I seen it myself, that very afternoon when I come in after the shooting was all over with—and that sign was eighty yards or more off to the right of where Lodi was standing and close back. Slug stayed in it till the building burnt down in Twenty-nine, I reckon; I don’t know that anybody ever climbed up there and dug it out. One of ’em went off some other direction, one zinged right over Dad’s head. It was about then that Dad said he thanked his lucky stars and fool tender heart he’d kept that old pitiful mare for me to ride around on even when she went rheumy in one eye and got hard of hearing, because that horse never batted a eyelash. But said that blue roan liked to pitched a fit, whinnied and snorted and jerked around yonder, said it sounded like a big old buck snorting fear, and if that’s not a sound that’ll chill you, but Dad said he just gulped him in a deep breath of air and went on.
“Good day f
or setting around the stove—”
Blam. That’s four, Dad thinks.
“—partaking of a little corn whiskey—”
Blam. Five.
“—provided a fella might know whereabouts to find him a little nip.”
Blam.
That’s six and the last one, and Dad nor Vergie neither one hadn’t been shot yet. Says to himself, says, Well, I can either get around before he pulls out another weapon, or else I can lay down and quit. You know my dad was nothing like a quitter, not ever, and he jumps around Vergie there, got his mind set to rassle Fate down, he thinks he can take him before he gets another gun loose, he’s so wavery drunk.
But, now, Dad’s got another think coming. The minute he jumps under and around that nag’s neck, Lodi’s got the pistol in his belt buckle pulled up nearly, and Dad just stops straight up. Goes, “Eeeeeasy now, easy,” smooth and softlike, how you’ll talk to a snaky horse. Puts his hands up where Lodi can see them, comes on, walking so slow maybe Fate can’t even see him coming, but I guess he did, or else just got too fed up trying to pull that pistol loose from his belt buckle, drunk as he was—it’s a wonder he didn’t blow his buckeyes off, you’ll pardon the expression—but all at once Lodi just quits messing with that pistol, turns around to reach for the butt of the rifle he’s got strapped to the saddle, or that’s what Dad thought. Dad paused then, sure enough. He’s out bare in the middle of the street, mind you, no horseflesh between him and Eternity nor nothing, he says, “Well, now, Mister Lodi, I don’t mean a thing in the world—”
Fate stands around to face him then, peers across the road, trying to focus his eyes, says almost like he regrets it, “Reckon I’m just going to have to shoot you.”
He’s got him a weapon in his hands now, sure enough, and it ain’t no Winchester rifle and it ain’t no Colt forty-four. Dad said he didn’t do a lot of speculating at the time on where the devil it come from, but later he reckoned it must’ve been stuck down in the saddleholster the other side toward the store, but however or wherever it come from, Fate Lodi was drawed down on my dad with the evilest-mouthed-looking weapon Dad said he’d ever eyeballed in his life. Said it was one of these old-time contraptions called a pepperbox, used to be popular back before Sam Colt learnt the world how to make a cylinder turn—a bulky old pistol with a whole bouquet of barrels on the end. They ain’t worth a damn for accuracy but some of them can fire all six or seven barrels at once. You don’t need aim with such blasting power as that. Can’t even a blind man miss a target at twenty yards with one of those things, and Dad is maybe twenty feet away from Fate Lodi and it don’t matter a bit in the world that the man is knee-walking drunk. Fate goes to draw down on him, Dad just goes to praying in his heart, says, Lord Almighty Sweet Jesus, help me, and if You ain’t going to help me, take care of my wife and children and make her see to it them boys gets trained up in the way they should go, Jesus’ name, Amen.
Dad gets him an idea then. He says—real calm, real easy and nice, hands up, just a-smiling—says, “Don’t mean to bother you, Mister Lodi, I sure don’t. I just thought you might want to come help me drink that quart of bonded Tennessee whiskey I got coming in on the noon train from Fort Smith.”
Well, you know my dad was not a drinking man, but he’d been around it enough to know that about the only thing interests a drunk better than a good fight is a good sup. Thought he might wet Fate’s whistle enough with the thought of that imported whiskey to get his mind off shooting him—now and again folks did get themselves some good bonded whiskey smuggled in over the border, but most the time they had to settle for this old popskull liquor these moonshiners around here used to make—and for a minute it did nearly look like it was going to work. Fate squints his eyes at him for a while, lets them gunbarrels droop down a little bit, and then he says, low and mean, “Go to hell.” He proceeds to lift the many-mouthed muzzle of that gun.
Dad said he didn’t know where in the world John Lodi come from, nor when, which by that he meant he didn’t know how John got out the livery door and between himself and Fate so quick. He pretty near just materialized in the dust of the street, that’s what Dad said. Said he must’ve been coming the whole time, from the second Dad stepped out from behind Vergie—this all happened in less than a half a minute, mind you, just takes long in the telling. Long in the living, for that matter—you know how facing death is—and that’s just what Dad said it looked like, said the barrels of that pepperbox looked like seven kinds of death coming. That’s how many barrels was in it, Dad said, he counted them, you can bet he did. But Dad said just the very single second Fate raised that gun, John was standing there between them, his back to Dad and his front to his brother. Said John said, “All right, Brother, give it here.”
And then it was quiet. Dad said you could hear Clara Belle Whit-ford’s chickens up the street scratching in the yard, said you could hear that roan breathing, and the morning bright and still. Dad said next thing he knew, John was walking away from him. Said he just took two steps forward and got aholt of that murderous gun. Another step, he turned and walked back down the street and in at the stable door. Dad said he thought then, Why, you so-and-so, if that’s all there is to it, why’d you let me make a fool of myself hiding behind that old broke-down horse? He was put out with John right in that moment, but of course that all changed later too. Said Fate was left standing there leaning back against that pony’s flank, turning the bottle up to take him a snort. Dad said the poor old fellow—those were just the words Dad used when he told it, and now, that’s the same poor old fellow was ready to loose seven barrels of gunshot upon him a minute ago, which goes to show two things: one, how tender a nature my dad had, and two, how pitiful old Fate Lodi finally looked when his brother took that gun away from him, don’t matter if he did have about eleven others strapped and tucked and wedged all around—but Dad says the poor old fellow turned bleary eyes upon him, all the meanness gone out of him now and nothing left but pure bafflement, like he didn’t know what in the world just happened. Dad said Fate turned around and took about six tries to get his foot in the stirrup, mounted that little blue roan and rode off back up Main Street toward the north.
Now, all this happened around ten o’clock of a Tuesday morning, and Dad said it wasn’t five hours before Fate Lodi come back. All right. Here’s where the real mystery comes in. Nobody seen him come.
Field Tatum
No, sir.
No, sir.
No, sir.
I can’t testify to that, sir, I didn’t see a bit of it. All I can tell is what I saw when I come out of my store.
Well, it was Mr. Lodi faceup in the street and a gun laying beside him. Just sort of cradled beside him, sir, kind of snugged up against his pantsleg, the barrel—or barrels, I mean—all pointed down at his boots.
Well, sir, it was unique-looking, I never saw another one like it. Might’ve been fifty caliber, say, four barrels to it. I didn’t take that good a look. I couldn’t tell you if it had been fired, sir, Mr. Moore might be able to tell you that.
Three. I heard two right close together, shotgun shots, or that’s what I thought then. Just immediately I thought it was a double-barreled shotgun fired one barrel and then the other right close together, but not both at once, just pow, pow. And then I heard the pistol.
Well, I’m pretty sure he was, Your Honor. I didn’t check him, but I don’t see how anybody could be alive in such a condition as that.
No, sir. I didn’t see John Lodi at all, not at that time.
Just right quick, I mean, quick as I could get there. I don’t believe he could have run back to the livery and got inside it in that amount of time. I really don’t see how.
I’d say not more than thirty seconds. I mean, it just went like this: blam, blam, and then pop, and the boy ran out the door, and here I came right behind him in time to catch him sprawling sliding headfirst in the road.
No, not Mr. Lodi, the boy Jack.
In my own words? Who else’s wor
ds am I going to tell it in?
What’s that? Said, yessir, my own words, sir, I’ll do the best I can.
Well, I was cutting up a side of beef at the time, Your Honor, in the back of my store. Tatum’s Mercantile. I been running that store going on eight years there on Main Street, Town of Cedar, Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory—got my permit papers up to date, signed by Chief Gardner himself, December the eleventh, Eighteen-ninety-fi—
All right, yes, sir. I will.
Well, so, I do some butcher work for a few folks in addition to what I cut up regular to sell in my store, so that’s what I was doing, I was working on a beef for my brother-in-law Willis Willowby, which means I was back behind the butcher counter pretty well in the back. I couldn’t see out the window at all, sir, from back there. I didn’t have an idea there was anything going on in the street. Now, I had Jack Slocum’s boy Jack—he works for me afternoons, sweeps up and stocks shelves and makes deliveries and that, and I let him run the register some when I’m too bloodied up butchering to wait on the ladies—but we were slow Tuesday afternoon so I had the boy Jack stacking tomato tins up near the register when the gunshots went off. Well, as soon as we heard it, the boy flinched and tried to jump and run out there, and I shouted, “Hold it, son!” because you don’t know if it’s a bank robbery or what. You don’t want to run into the big middle of something, and you don’t want your employees doing it either—Jack Slocum would have my hide. So I said, “Hold it, son!” and came out quick, but that boy had got to the door before me and he’d already run out. I got there just in time to watch him leap off the front steps and trip and roll right over Mr. Lodi’s body. He didn’t know he was there, couldn’t see him on account of how high the porch is and Mr. Lodi was of course flat on the ground. His horse—Mr. Lodi’s horse—was tethered to the post in front of my building, sort of jerking and prancing, I think more on account of that boy running out the door so quick than anything else. Well, that’s all I saw. The boy tripping over the body and sprawling facedown in the street with a mouthful of dust. When he twisted his neck around and got a good look at what he’d tripped over, now, I’m telling you what, he scrambled up pretty quick and lit out. I never saw that boy move so quick.
