A Thousand Falling Crows (5 page)

MAY 31, 1934

Sonny watched a car come up the road, leaving a trail of dust behind it a mile long. It was a clear, spring day, and he had been sitting on the front porch, relaxing, drinking a cup of coffee, and reading the newspaper. He'd laid the newspaper out carefully on the floor of the porch in front of him and anchored it down with baseball-sized rocks on each corner. He leaned down to read it, finding another one-armed solution to an everyday problem.

He stood up when he recognized the car. Surprised, since he wasn't expecting a visit.

The car, a year-old Plymouth sedan, was covered with dust and belonged to Sonny's only son, Jesse. The car came to a quick stop a few feet from the house.

“What're you doing up this way?” Sonny said, ambling down the steps, steadying himself the best he could. His balance was never going to be the same. He was still trying to find a way to compensate for that loss.

“Come to see how you're gettin' along, that's all, Pa,” Jesse said. He was alone, dressed for work, wearing a white Stetson and the Texas Ranger Cinco badge. “Why didn't you call me? Us? Bethel and the kids would've come up and tended to you while you healed.” There was an edge of anger in Jesse's voice, but that had always been there, so Sonny didn't see any reason to acknowledge it.

“I didn't want to bother you-all. It's a long drive and I can fend for myself.”

“I can see that,” Jesse said, looking past Sonny into the house through the open screen door. Unwashed dishes were piled up in the sink, newspapers scattered on the coffee table, and unopened mail was littered across the kitchen table. All the furniture was dusty, and a pile of dirty clothes was building just outside the bedroom door.

“I wasn't expecting any company,” Sonny said.

“Well, it makes no difference now. I‘m glad to see you up and about.” Jesse stuck out his right hand for a shake, and Sonny stared at it, then offered his left hand, and shook it weakly.

“I‘ve got some things to learn yet,” he said.

“You heard about Bonnie and Clyde?” Jesse said, withdrawing his hand, as he headed to the chair next to the one Sonny had been sitting in.

Jesse favored his mother, was a little shorter and rounder than most of the Burtons, but there was no mistaking his heritage—his facial profile was the spitting image of Sonny and Sonny's father.

Sonny nodded. “I heard.”

“Frank Hamer told me to send you his regards. He was sad to hear they had to take your arm.”

“Were you there?” Sonny sat down, steadying himself as he did.

“No, I wish I had been.”

“It was some shoot-out according to the newspapers.”

“There were six of them that ambushed 'em,” Jesse said. “Hamer put his manhunter skills to use, and since Clyde was such a creature of habit, always skirtin' the state line, it was an easy task in the end. They caught them unawares.”

“There'll just be more.”

“What?”

“Somebody else'll take their place. Bonnie and Clyde aren't the end of the line. Just the start. Somebody's going to come along and want to try and outdo them.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just the way it is. Just the way it's always been. When I was boy . . .”

“. . . I know, I know, your daddy went after John Wesley Hardin and the likes of bad men like King Fisher. I‘ve heard those stories a million times.”

“So you wouldn't forget them.”

Jesse stared at Sonny, started to say something, then restrained himself. Instead, he dug into his pants pocket and offered something to Sonny.

Sonny held out his hand, and Jesse dropped a shell casing into it.

“A souvenir,” Jesse said.

“From the shooting?”

Jesse nodded. “Hamer thought you'd like to have it. He knows you would've liked to have been there, taken a shot or two yourself. He did it for you as much as the rest of the fellas those two killed.”

Sonny handed the casing back to Jesse. “You take it. I‘ve got enough to remember when it comes to Bonnie and Clyde.”

“You sure?”

“Sure as it's daytime. Now, what are you really doing up here? I know you didn't drive all this way to bring me some present from Frank Hamer.”

“No, I didn't,” Jesse said. “I‘ll be around for a while. They transferred me up here for a little while. Remember that no-name girl they found on the farm-to-market road just outside of Wellington last year? There's been another girl found, just like the first. Another no-name, beaten, terrible things done to her, then dumped on the side of the road.”

“Sounds like an animal's on the loose.”

“Seems that way. County asked for help from us.”

“I haven't heard anything about this one.”

“They're trying to keep it quiet. Don't want to get everyone afraid.”

“They should be afraid.”

Jesse exhaled heavily and tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “I know the area better than anyone else they've got, so it was an easy choice for the captain to send me up here.”

“You need a place to stay?”

Jesse shook his head and stood up. “I rented a room at the boarding house in town. I don't think I‘ll be around that long. Besides, I‘ll be driving back and forth to home every chance I get. I know you're not used to someone coming and going.”

“There's room here.”

“I don't think I can stay here, Pa, if it's all the same to you.”

Sonny slumped his shoulders. “I‘m not going to twist your arm.”

“What's in the box?” Jesse said, pointing to a slim cardboard box about twice the length of a bread box and half again as narrow. He seemed to be looking for a way to change the subject.

Sonny glanced over at the box. The top had been slit open, cutting through the postage stamps. He was sure he could use it for something else. “My arm.” He scooted the box closer with his right foot, reached inside, and pulled out a wooden arm with a metal hook attached to the end of it. “They call it a prehensor prosthetic. Sounds fancy doesn't it, like something special? The kids'll think I‘m a monster.”

“You gonna wear it?”

“Maybe. When hell freezes over.”

CHAPTER 7

JUNE 26, 1934

The only sound in the house was the radio. It was a faceless voice that rambled on night and day but never answered back when it was spoken to. The box still confounded Sonny. The little boy in him, the one who grew up under the tutelage of a Ranger legend, in a world without electricity or the thought of such a thing, still believed the radio was magic. Problem was, that little boy was buried too deep—even deeper these days—to have a say in things, especially about things such as magic.

Sonny stood at the front door, his eyes focused on his truck. There was no moisture to witness, no morning dew to offer sustenance to the dying grasses and clovers that blanketed the ground all the way to the road. Everything was brown, offering no sign of division in the ownership of the land. Fences blended in with the eye, or fell away completely on the flat ground, offering an infinite and democratic view of the struggle to stay alive, brought on by the summer sun. Everything was touched and tainted by the heat, the constant glare, the unrelenting oppressiveness of the long days. He should have been used to it by now, and maybe he was, but the loss of his arm had made him forget the most basic semblance of things. Like how to walk standing up straight, or wipe his ass, or fix his own goddamned breakfast. Lucky thing was Sonny didn't have to learn how to breathe all over again because, as things were, he might've just chosen not to take on such a task. It would've been easier. Less painful to just stop and give up the effort.

The blazing red sun arched upward into the clear sky like a torch intent on setting fire to any cloud that dared to materialize or to interfere with the coming heat. There wasn't even any birdsong to offer hope in the morning. If the early bird had been out for the worm, it had already hightailed it home in search of a patch of shade and a long nap.

Nothing living stirred within Sonny's view, and, if it weren't for the constant voice blaring over the radio, he might've had to consider that sometime during the night the world had come to an end and he'd woken up alone, the last man standing, stuck in the grips of a hell that looked pretty much like his own world.

“Lou Gehrig continued his continuous at-bat cycle,” the sportscaster droned over the radio, breaking Sonny out of his miserable thoughts. “At this rate, the Iron Horse will surpass fifteen hundred consecutive appearances by September, certainly assuring him MVP status for the season. The Yankees pounded the Chicago White Sox eleven to two, with rookie pitcher Johnny Broaca on the mound. Broaca, a Yale graduate, fanned five times, setting an all-time Major League record. Stay tuned for the morning weather and other news of the day, after this brief message from Burma Shave.”

Sonny turned his attention away from the truck then, from the outside world, certain that he wasn't alone in it, and made his way to the radio. He knew what the weather was going to be. He didn't need a damn weatherman to tell him what to expect for the rest of the day. Misery. Just more misery to add to the rest of the days ahead of him.

He turned off the radio with a quick twist and stood in the center of the kitchen, unsure of what to do next.

Baseball mattered little to him, and with Bonnie and Clyde dead and buried there was no need to know the news. The financial markets, the politics, the unrelenting heat, and the accusations and blame for the current state of economic affairs were of no interest to him. It was all just like the weather: misery heaped on misery. It was like a fiery cloud had blanketed every man, woman, and child with ashes of hopelessness. A Depression. No matter how sunny the sky was one day to the next, the oppressive gray mood of the nation wasn't going to go away any time soon.

Sweat beaded on Sonny's forehead. His dirty white T-shirt clung to his chest, damp from a night of tossing and turning. His scar had itched without relenting. Touching it only made the nightmare real; calling it a stump was almost unbearable. Looking at it in the mirror was worse. He didn't fear infection. Just the slow death brought on by it. He couldn't imagine lying in his own filth, the clock ticking away, the radio blabbering on, waiting for Jesse to happen by if he lost the ability to get to the telephone and call for help—or to his Colt .45 so he could put an end to his own suffering.

The telephone was another modern convenience that was just a reminder of his loneliness. The telephone sat on the wall, useless and silent, unable to offer anything but a way out. It never rang. No one had reason to talk to him. At least the radio brought music into the house from time to time.

Loneliness had never entered his mind; an empty bed was not a consideration of loss. He had grown accustomed to sleeping alone since Martha had died. He hadn't felt the need, or desire, to replace one woman with another. The thought of it was too much trouble. Love and physical need were best left to the young. He'd had his work as a Texas Ranger to occupy his mind and tire his body—at least until that fateful day when he saw Bonnie and Clyde walking out of the Ritz Theater like they owned the world.

Now, he had neither: no wife or job to wear him down. All he had was time. Silence and time.

Even awake, standing in wait of the day, Sonny just wished for sleep. Deep, restful sleep that wasn't filled with screams and visions of bloody, lifeless arms not attached to anything, just floating away from him. Out of reach.

Sonny had forgone breakfast, at least for the time being, and made his way to the water pump outside the house. The thought of a cold bath was the only thing that propelled him to step one foot in front of the other.

The muscles in his left arm were still not accustomed to carrying the entire load of his existence. The arm ached, and tightness came to it easily with every new task he introduced it to. There was no other choice of mobility—other than to wear the monstrous contraption that sat unpacked on the dining room table. That was not a solution as far as Sonny was concerned. How could it help him be whole? It was another impossible thought.

Pain shot up and down Sonny's left arm as he began to pump the water into the pail. Thankfully, it didn't take long until the water began to spew from the faucet.

In times of a hard drought, water was liquid gold. The difference between life and death. The well was deep and had never run dry. Of course, when times warranted, Sonny was frugal with the water. He knew the value of it. And just like all of the other modern miracles that had made his life easier, he knew that without them, at his age and in his condition, he would be lost.

He had not seen Jesse in a week, since he had first stopped by to tell him the news, to tell him that he was his local replacement in the Rangers. Sonny could tell it pained Jesse, irked him to no end to be called back home to take up where his father had left off.