Cherokee (14 page)

I got to the window just in time to see the man fall the few feet to the slanting, porch roof, roll down that, and then fall to the street. Because of the overhang of the verandah roof I couldn't see how he'd landed in the street. I stood there staring as Ray shut the window and then, still panting, went over, sat down on my bed, and took a big gulp of the whiskey I'd just fixed for myself. He swallowed it down, still panting, and said slowly, “Too much wa—water.”

I went over, picked up the bottle of whiskey, and poured him out a straight shot. He had it down before I could upright another glass and pour myself one. I gave myself a drink and then poured another one for him. Then I crossed the room and sat on the side of his bed. He was still sitting there trying to get his breath, his elbows propped on his knees, his hands and his head hanging down. I could see his knuckles were skinned and bruised. I lit a cigarillo and waited for him to come back to himself.

When he got ready he was good and ready. He jumped that last drink down his throat and then started at a run. “Justa, I know how it musta looked to you, but I swear that man wasn't after what's under the bed. I swear I never said a word to nary a soul about what we're packin'. Fact of the business is I never said nothin' to nobody 'cept the woman, an' that was jest to ast her how much. See, I wuz really tryin' to git back quick's I could, 'cept I had to have seconds with 'nother one I seen I hadn't seen when I walked in the place, and I—”

I kept trying to interrupt him, trying to let him know that I understood what had happened. But he had to keep on going with the head of steam he had up. He went ahead and told me what I'd already figured out, that the robber had followed him up from the lobby and put the gun in his back just before he got to the door, and he'd of warned me if he could've thought of any way to do it without gettin' himself shot, but that he already knowed the man was after the cash on account of he'd said somethin' 'bout did I always carry as big a wad as—

I yelled, “RAY!”

He stopped and looked up at me, startled. “Huh?”

“I already had it figured out.”

But he said, “I kept tryin' to give you looks, let you know he was after your roll so's you wouldn't say anything about what was under the bed. I mean, I was tryin'—”

I said, “Hays, you beat all. Do you reckon I'd of taken him by the hand and led him over to the bed and got down and pulled out the saddlebags for him so he wouldn't have to stoop over?”

He said, looking a little hurt, “Well, I didn't know what you wuz likely to think, not after them instructions you give me 'fore I left. I jest figured I was through if he got the notion was something other than yore roll. Hell, I could have made that up outten my salary in about a year.”

“Ray, now listen to me. Are you listening to me? Look here at me.”

“Yeah?”

“It was my fault.”

He looked a little puzzled. “What?”

“I knew this was a rough town and I shouldn't have been flashing that roll down there in the lobby, either when we were getting the room or when I paid for my supper. There were plenty of hardcases sitting around and I should have had better sense. Maybe I was thinking about the gold. Maybe I was thinking who'd be interested in the five or six hundred dollars I had in my pocket when I was worrying about a hell of a lot more than that.”

“Now let me git this straight. You be sayin' that this was yore fault?”

I sighed and looked away. I knew what was coming. I had just given Hays enough ammunition to use on me for the balance of the year. I figured to never hear the end of it. But I said, “Yes, Hays, it was my fault.”

He looked at me blankly for a moment and then said, “Well, I'll be damned. I never thought I'd hear them words come out of yore mouth.”

I gestured at his hands. “You better soak them fists of yours or you won't be able to hold a knife and fork by breakfast.”

“You ain't blamin' me fer that fella bustin' in the room like he done, comin' in here with the you-know-what, even if he didn't know about it?”

“Now, listen, Hays, I have already said I'm to blame. Do not keep on with this or I'll bring up a few things in the past that were your fault. Now look here, go on down to the desk and make that clerk get you some salt out of the kitchen. He won't want to, but you tell him if he don't that I'm coming out to talk to him. Go on now.”

He got up. He glanced toward the window. He said, “Wonder if that old boy comin' out the window will fetch the law?”

I got up and raised the window and leaned out as far as I could. As near as I could tell it was business as usual. Hadn't been five minutes since the man had tumbled into the street, and so far, he hadn't drawn so much as a crowd of one. I said, “I reckon they got so many drunks laying around one more don't draw no notice.” I turned away, shutting the window. I looked at Hays curiously. He was up and putting on his hat. “Ray, you were well on your way to beating that old boy to death. I never knowed you to have such a temper.”

“Wasn't my temper was poundin' that man. Was yours. I could just picture the hell I was fixing to catch from you and I reckon I took it out on him.”

“You moved pretty quick jamming that door against his gun arm. Especially considering you couldn't see around the end of the door.”

“Uh, uh,” he said. “I could see his revolver an' his wrist. I knowed what I was doin'.”

“Yeah, considerin' that gun wasn't pointing at you.”

He sighed in that way he had. “I might have knowed it. Might have knowed it. Should have knowed I wadn't gonna get off scot-free. Now I'm bein' blamed 'cause I didn't let him run off with your money.” He sighed again. “I should have knowed.”

I had to laugh a little. “Hays, go get the salt. You done a good job. I'm serious. I'm going to prove it to you by not cutting your wages like I'd been planning on.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it and closed it and went out the door.

I smiled. Hays always made me smile. There was something about him that struck my funny bone. I glanced over and saw the blood on the floor. But there was nothing funny about the way he'd hit the robber. I'd seen Ray in gun fights and knew he could hold his own, but I'd never seen him use his fists. He could hit a hell of a lot harder than I'd thought.

I locked the door and then got my revolver and waited. I didn't want a repetition of what had just happened. Next time we threw somebody into the street it might not go unnoticed. Pretty soon there came a knock at the door. It was a kind of a dull thump. I went over to the door. I said, “Ray?”

He said, “Yeah. Open the door, will ya?”

I turned the key and then twisted the knob. Ray came in carrying a big saltshaker. I said, “Just the one of you this time?”

He ignored it. “Boy, my hands are
already
sore. I had to knock on the damn door with my head.”

I said drily, “You should have used that on that feller. Then your hands wouldn't have got hurt.”

He give me a sour look. I took the saltshaker out of his hands, unscrewed the top, and then dumped the biggest part of the salt into the big washbasin that was sitting on a stand with a pitcher and some fresh towels and other things. I poured the basin about half full of water out of the pitcher, and then kind of stirred it around and took it over and set it on Ray's bed. I said, “Sit down there and stick your hands in that water. It works better when it's hot, but there ain't much we can do about that this time of night.”

He put his hands in the brine and said, “Awwh!” and immediately took them out. “That stings like all get out.”

“Ray, put your hands in there. We've got to get to sleep sometime tonight. Just soak your hands for half an hour.”

“How am I gonna have a drink if I got both hands in here?”

“Well, the answer to that is that you're not going to have a drink. Now sit there and soak your hands and don't say anything. I need to think.”

“I ain't goin' out again without a weapon. I was a damn fool to do it tonight.”

“That ain't not saying anything. That's talking.”

“Course I don't know what I could have done even if I had had a gun. Ol' boy jest come up behind me, and next thing I know he's proddin' me in the small of the back.”

“You're soaking, but you're still talking.”

“Wasn't as if he come at me from the front where a pistol would have done me some good. Never gave me no chancet.”

I ignored him and poured myself a drink.

“You gonna drink in front of me when I got both hands in this brine an' can't have one? It's still burnin' like sin in case you be interested.”

I continued to ignore him.

“Well, you see any way I could have avoided lettin' happen what happened?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“What?”

“Stayed in the room.”

 

Next morning we got away in pretty good style other than the usual trouble I had with railroad people. It seemed as if when you asked them for something that wasn't right down on their list in block letters, it just threw them completely off track. I had to explain to the crew that was handling the freight cars that, yes, a stock car got hay and water even if there was just three horses going in it, and yes, since I'd paid for the whole damn car it was my car and they couldn't put any other stock in it even if I didn't have but three animals. And yes, we were going to ride in there with the horses and it was legal because we had tickets that said so, and if they wouldn't bust up all the bales of hay we could sit on a couple of them until it came time to feed them to the horses.

But we'd finally gotten rolling, pulling out of Bastrop no more than fifteen minutes late. Some day I vowed to find out why railroads went to all the trouble to print up timetables since they didn't seem to pay the slightest bit of attention to them.

But finally the town was behind us, and Ray said something about he could now relax from worrying about the sheriff coming looking for him for throwing the man out the window. He said, “That ain't generally like me, you know. I've had to use a gun, but I don't generally just cold-bloodedly fling a body out a second-story window.”

“You didn't seem so cold-blooded to me. In fact you appeared a touch hot under the collar.”

I didn't know about Ray, but I hadn't slept so well. Seemed like, after the little scuffle, I was more conscious than ever of the gold in the saddlebags under the bed. So I'd just more or less dozed, listening for every sound and coming full awake if anything sounded the least suspicious. Hays yawned about the same time I did. He said, “Boy, I didn't sleep so good last night.”

“Hands hurt you?”

He looked down at his knuckles. They were skinned up and red-looking, but they hadn't swollen much. He said, “Naw. Reckon it was that damned gold.”

“Yeah.” We were rolling through open countryside now. The land was starting to get more woody and broken. “Well, we can't nod off now. Ain't more than an hour till Austin and I don't like the idea of us both being asleep while we're going through there. There's about a thirty-minute layover, according to the clerk at the depot, and I imagine this train will get shunted off to a siding or do a lot of backing and starting and stopping before we get lined out for Fort Worth.”

We were both wearing leather jackets. Mine was my sheepskin-lined one that reached halfway down my thighs. Ray had on a big one that was lined with what looked like an Indian blanket. We were both huddled up pretty good. It was getting colder and colder and, as the train picked up speed, that wind just came whistling through the car. Ray said, “Hell, I'm about halfway too cold to sleep.”

“You get a couple of drinks in you and drag out your sleeping blankets, you'll sleep. I'll bet on it. We ought to have a good three or four hours on the run from Austin to Fort Worth.”

“I can stay awake. Besides, I ain't seen Austin in a long time. I used to work for a cattle outfit had a ranch not all that far out of town. Of course that was a long time ago. Used to have me a right pretty girl I was courtin' then.”

“What happened to her?”

He shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me. I was mighty young and on the move. I reckon she figured she could do better.”

“You ever think about that, Ray? Finding the right woman? Settling down and getting married?”

He shrugged again. “I dunno. Man don't get much chance to meet the right kind of girl in a cowhand's life.”

“You ain't a cowhand.”

He made a motion with his hand. “Well, you know what I mean. Far as I can remember, that girl in Austin was the last nice girl I was ever around much. I mean in a courtin' fashion.”

“I never cared for Austin. Still don't.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged. “Don't know. Capital of the state and all that and I just never cared for it. Something kind of made up about it. Don't seem real.”

By the time we started getting into Austin Ray Hays was doing a pretty good job of nodding off and then jerking back up awake. But I had the sliding door open and had a bale of hay pulled up, and was sitting and looking out at Austin as it rolled by. I hadn't been there in a while, but it still had that kind of temporary look about it as if everybody in the place was all fixed up to move on at the drop of a hat or the sound of a cannon. Which was just about right. Houston had been the first capital of Texas, back in 1836 when it had won its independence from Mexico and become a republic. But Houston was on the very east coast, and it was a hell of a trip for most folks to go to the coast to transact business that involved the government. So the powers that be decided they needed a more central location for the seat of government, and they sent out a bunch of surveyors and whatnot and decided, based on the then-settled parts of the country, on a spot that was just about in the middle of everywhere. So right then and there, right on the bald-ass prairie, right there without so much as a house in sight, they drove a stake and said that this was the site of the new capital.

Which seemed to me like a kind of haphazard way to set about establishing a city, let alone a capital. As far as I knew, most towns had a reason for being. Either they were a port or on a river, or at a railhead or on the border or in the middle of a big bunch of cattle country or some other such thing. I had never heard of somebody just driving a stake in the ground and saying, “Well, let's unpack. Here she be.”

Of course the whole plan of the capital being in the center of the settled areas as they were then was a good idea. It meant nobody had to go any further to see the government about some business than anybody else. The only problem with the plan was that the forefathers hadn't figured on Texas continuing to go west and north and southwest the way it did in the next fifty years. Now the capital was one hundred fifty miles from the coast, but it was near four hundred miles from the New Mexico border in far west Texas.

And watching it as we slowly rolled into the depot and switching yards, it still appeared to me to not quite know what it was except the place where the capital was located. Of course it was a big city of about twenty thousand souls, but a good many of them were transients, and I wasn't just talking about the legislators and the governor and his wife. Of course Austin grew up around the capital. It just being there created a town overnight, drawing mercantiles and hotels and saloons and grocery stores and churches and blacksmiths and every other kind of business you could name. But they always seemed to be changing. Seemed like nothing ever stayed the same, nothing was ever in the same place as it was when you last were there.

The train shuddered and jerked as we come slowly to a stop. I looked back over at Ray. The jerk had jolted him off his bale of hay and he was sitting on the car floor looking around, still about half asleep, trying to figure out where he was.

I said, “We're in Austin, Ray. Short of the depot. I figure they'll be switching around and adding some more freight cars before we pull in to pick up the passengers.”

“Yeah,” he said. He got up, kind of groggily, and sat back down on the bale of hay and leaned back against the slats of the car.

I leaned out the door and looked up the tracks. The depot appeared to be no more than a few hundred yards away. I figured to have plenty of time to walk up there while the train was switching around and getting itself made up. I said to Ray, “Hays, I'm gonna walk up to the depot and ask about what train we can get out of Fort Worth on into Oklahoma. You hear me?”

“Yeah,” he said. But his eyes were closed and he had his hands in his lap.

“Ray, goddammit! I'm going to get out of the car! Now wake up and stay awake!”

That roused him. He sat up, blinking his eyes. He said, “What? What?”

I told him again what I was going to do. “Now, damnit, you stay awake. You hear me? I'll be gone maybe fifteen minutes. See to the horses.”

We'd left the horses saddled with the stirrups tied over the seats of the saddles so they wouldn't swing around and bother them when the train motion got rough. And of course, we'd slipped the bits out of their mouths so they could eat hay. They didn't seem to be minding the ride too much, though they hadn't had but an hour of it.

Ray was rubbing his eyes. He said, “I'm fine. I'm fine. Go right ahead.”

When the train made a stop at a junction switch I jumped down. Just to be on the safe side I slid the door to. There was something wrong with the lock so that it wouldn't shut tight, but I didn't figure that mattered. I set off up the tracks.

The depot was just running awash with folks, most of them carrying little bundles of their clothes or carpetbags, with here and there some gentry with leather luggage and a hired hand to carry it for them. I finally got up to the window, and the ticket agent was good enough to look up the change for me even though it didn't have nothing to do with his line. It turned out there was a train that very night at eight
P.M.
that left Fort Worth on its way to Oklahoma City. En route it passed through Chickasha, and I knew that Anadarko wasn't but a good horseback ride from Chickasha. The agent said the line out of Fort Worth was the TP&O, and that we ought to be in there in plenty of time to get our car hooked on to the eight o'clock train. He told me he'd tell the conductor of our train to spot our car, when they unhooked us, so as to make an easy connection with the TP&O line. He said sometimes the brakemen and the conductors could get kind of ornery if they was carrying a grudge for some reason or another against another line, and would sometimes try and hide a whole string of freight cars.

I left the depot and started back up the tracks toward our train. It was good luck and a good break and no mistake. The way things had been going, I'd fully expected to get to Fort Worth and then get to sit for a couple of days before we found any kind of train going anywhere near where we wanted to go. Or at least where we thought we wanted to go. For all I knew we'd get to Anadarko and I'd find out I'd wanted to go to Ohio or Georgia or some other such place the whole time.

There were several other trains in the yard being made up, but I'd marked ours carefully and now I stepped along, trying not to trip, over the rails and between the ties and switches and all the other clutter that you find in a railroad yard. It appeared our train hadn't moved, and I headed about catercorner toward where our car ought to be. I had counted it to be the seventeenth car from the caboose, but walking along, when I counted again, the seventeenth car had its door open. Either the train had indeed moved and the door had slid back, not being latched good, or else Hays had gotten out. Only I didn't see him anywhere. I quickened my pace. Maybe he'd opened the door just to see out. I couldn't for the life of me figure he'd get out of the car and wander off with all that gold in there for any reason under the sun. If he'd had to head for the bushes I knew he'd of waited for me or bust first.

When I got near our car I got up next to the train and went slipping along. I had no reason to expect trouble, but when there's $25,000 involved, you don't take nothing for granted. I got to the end of my car and peeked in between the slats. It was a little darker inside, but I could clearly see a man I didn't know up by the horses at the end of the car. I couldn't see Hays because of the angle and the horses in between.

I watched the man while he untied the bridle of a horse and then slipped the bits in. It was, I noticed, Hays's horse. But I figured the man had just picked the horse that was the easiest to get to. When he had the horse properly bridled he took the reins and turned the horse around and started for the open door. I hunkered down and crept along just under the car so the man couldn't see me. When I got to the bottom of the door I drew my revolver. Looking up over the edge of the floor of the car, I could see the man get to the door and jump down. What he was going to do was to jump the horse out of the car, which, for the horse, was a pretty risky matter, especially in a railroad yard with tracks and ties and switches running all over the place. Normally you used a wooden ramp to load and unload a horse out of a stock car. But what the hell, if the horse made it the man had him a fine animal. If it didn't he'd just steal one somewhere else. Only this one happened to be carrying $12,500 in gold in its saddlebags.

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.