Michener, James A. (152 page)

at those boys, the two good men at point. I wanted this to be the best drive I ever made, and now you force that no-good boy of yours upon me.' He sank down on his haunches and threw pebbles at his horse's left hoof, and apparently this was a signal of some kind, for the animal moved close and nudged him

'I'll take him,' he said, rising and shaking her hand. 'And I'll bring him back to you, for better or worse.'

It was a curious trip. Traveling slowly at fiftf.ln miles a day, it took the herd four days to reach the Red River, and in this trial period Floyd Rusk learned a lot about herding cattle: 'Son, the new man always rides drag, back here in the dust. That's why cowhands wear bandannas, and since you got none, I'm going to give you mine. Gift from an old cowhand to a new one.' Poteet had smiled when he said this, but Floyd had not smiled back, nor had he said thank you, but that night when the hands gathered at the chuck wagon, he asked: 'How long do I ride in the dust?' and Poteet said: 'All the way to Dodge. Your second trip, you get a better deal.'

Floyd could not mask his anger, and so livid did he become that his rage showed beneath the dust that caked his face, so Poteet said: 'Same rules for everybody. If you don't like 'em, son, you can always drop out. But make up your mind before we cross the Red River, because gettin' back home from the other side will not be easy.'

Floyd had gritted his teeth and accepted the challenge, and although he was almost grotesquely fat, he did know how to handle a horse, so he did not disgrace himself. In fact, at the fording of the Red he handled himself rather well, remaining on the Texas side and pushing the steers into the water with some skill.

'You know how to ride,' Poteet said with genuine approval, but this did not soften Floyd's attitude, and during the entire crossing of the former Indian Territory he proved to be the surly, unpleasant fellow that Poteet had expected. He was by no means useless, for he knew what cattle were, but he was a decided damper on other young men, and by the time the herd reached the Kansas border, they had pretty well dismissed him.

Poteet did not. In his long years on the range he had watched boys even less promising than Floyd Rusk discover themselves, sometimes through being knocked clear to hell by some fed-up cowboy, sometimes in the thrill of showing that they could ride as well as any of the old hands, often with the mere passage of a year and the rousting about with reasonably clean, straightforward men. Poteet hoped this would happen with Floyd, and he directed

his two point men to look after the boy, but when young Rusk repulsed all their good efforts, they told Poteet: To hell with him. Herd him into Dodge like the rest of the cattle and ship him home.'

Poteet did not try to argue, for he knew that with three thousand cattle behind them, more than half Longhorns, they had no time to bother with a surly, overweight brat, but he himself could not dismiss his responsibility so easily. If Emma's son could be saved, he would try, and one day when he saw the boy gorging himself at the chuck wagon as they crossed into Kansas, he took him aside and said quietly: 'Son, I really wouldn't eat so much. When you want to find yourself a wife, you know, pretty women don't cotton to young men who are too—'

'I don't want to look like my stupid father.'

Poteet drew back his right fist and was going to lay the boy flat when he realized how wrong this would be. Allowing his fist to drop, he said very quietly: 'Son, if you ever again speak of your father or your mother like that in my presence, so help me God, I will give you a thrashing you'll never forget.'

'You wouldn't dare.'

Poteet stepped forward and said, with no anger: 'Son, you don't know it, and maybe there's no way of telling you, but you are in the midst of a great battle. For your soul. For your immortal soul. I think you're going to lose. I think you're going to be a miserable human being for the rest of your life. But for the remainder of this trip, do your best to act like a man.'

He stalked away, profoundly shaken by this ugly experience, for he was frightened by what he might have done. His fist had been inches from that fat, flabby face. His trigger finger had been twitching when the boy scorned his father, for it was obvious that Floyd rejected his mother, too: Dear God, what a burden. He was not sure whether it was he bearing the burden on this last trip to Dodge City, or the older Rusks, who would have to deal with Floyd back in Larkin County.

So now the entire group had turned away from this pathetic boy; even the Mexican cook was unable to hide his disgust at the way Floyd gorged his food. He rode at the right-rear drag, dust in his face, and grumbled constantly about this experience which could have been so rewarding, this conquering of the range which so many boys his age would have given years of their lives to have shared.

As the herd reached the south bank of the Arkansas River, the men could see on the opposite side the low buildings of Dodge City, and their eyes began to sparkle, for citizens of the town

themselves had proclaimed it The Wickedest Little City in the West.' Here were the famed dance halls, the sheriff's office once occupied by Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, the 'entertainment parlor' once run by Luke Short. What was more important to the stability of the town, well-funded agents like ). L. Mitchener bought the Longhorns and shipped them east.

As the hands prepared to herd their cattle across the toll bridge leading into town, the older men went to Poteet and said: 'Dodge can be a tough town for a young fellow. What'll we do with that miserable skunk Floyd till we head back to Texas?'

'I'll speak to him,' Poteet said, and that evening he assembled the first-timers and talked to them as if he were their father: 'Lads, when you cross the toll bridge tomorrow you enter a new world. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe runs through the town. You can see its water tower. North of the railroad the town fathers have cleaned things up. No more gunfights. No more roaring into saloons on horseback. On that far side of the tracks . . churches, schools, newspapers.'

'Tell 'em what's south,' a point man interrupted.

'On this side of the tracks, it's like the old days. Saloons, dance halls, gambling. You stay north, the better element will protect you. You move south, you're on your own.' He said this directly to Floyd, then added: 'I suppose you'll head south. If you do, don't get killed. I want to take you young fellows back to your mothers.'

When the meeting ended, Floyd asked one of the point men: 'Will Luke Short be in town? He's from Texas and he's killed a lot of men.'

'They ran Luke out years back. And you act up, they'll run you out too.'

During the approach to Dodge, Floyd had spent hours speculating on what he would do when he reached town. Girls figured in his plans, and the firing of his hidden pistol, and a gallop down Front Street, and a hot bath and good food. A thousand lads coming north from Texas to the railheads had entertained similar dreams, but few had come with such addled visions as those which attended Floyd Rusk, for he envisioned himself as a reincarnation of Wyatt Earp and Luke Short, though what this might entail he could not have explained.

As soon as the Longhorns, the last batch to enter Kansas from Texas, had been led to the Mitchener corrals at the railhead, Floyd collected part of his pay and headed to the ramshackle area south of the tracks, and with unerring instinct, found his way to the toughest of all the saloons, The Lady Gay, once owned by Jim Masterson. He was startled when he saw his first dance-hall girls,

for they were enticing beyond his hopes, and when he heard the coarse remarks made about them by the cowhands, he became confused and thought the men were somehow casting public aspersions on his mother. When two rowdy men from another outfit that had started in Del Rio referred to the girls as 'soiled lilies' and 'spattered doves,' he became infuriated and ordered them to shut up.

The men looked at this fat, grotesque boy and unquestionably one of them made a motion as if to push him aside. Anticipating this, Floyd whipped out his gun and shot them dead.

Before the gunsmoke had cleared, Poteet's two point men leaped into action, rushed Floyd out of the saloon, and hid him in a ravine south of the river, for they knew that Poteet, always a man of rectitude, would refuse to cover up for one of his cowboys who had committed murder.

When Floyd was safely hidden, the two men rode north of the tracks to where Poteet had rooms in a respectable hotel, and told him: 'Fat Floyd killed two Del Rio cowboys.'

Poteet tensed his jaw, then asked: 'You turn him in to the sheriff 7 '

'No, we hid him in a gully. We'll pick him up when we ride south.'

'But why 7 If he murdered someone 7 '

'Mr. Poteet, we give you our word, don't we, Charley? It wasn't cut-and-dried. It looked maybe like they might be goin' for their guns.'

'Where did that boy get a gun 7 '

'He practiced a lot when you weren't around.'

Suddenly all the fire went out of Poteet. He slumped forward with his hands over his face: 'Oh my God, that poor woman. To have borne such a miserable son-of-a-bitch.' Looking up, he asked the point men: 'Must we take him back to Texas?' Without waiting for an answer, he rose as if nothing worried him and snapped: 'We'll dig him out as soon as we sell the herd. Keep him in the ravine till we go south.'

When Floyd was dragged before Poteet, the range boss tried to make him realize the gravity of what had happened: 'Son, on the day a young feller kills his first man, he's in terrible trouble, because it came so easy—a flick of the finger—he may be tempted to do it again. Most gunmen start at your age, killing somebody. Billy the Kid, and he's dead now. John Wesley Hardin killed his first man at fifteen . . .'

His words had the opposite effect to what he intended: 'They'll never hang John Wesley, never.'

'Son, are you listening to me? Hardin is in jail for twenty-five years. Do you realize that if my point men hadn't stepped in to protect you, the people back there would have hanged you?'

'No one will ever hang me.'

Only Poteet's promise to Emma that he would bring her son back home prevented him from thrashing the boy and taking him back to the sheriff in Dodge. Out of respect for Emma, he would tolerate the odious boy, but he would no longer bother with him The two point men, however, having saved his life, felt a different kind of responsibility, and late one afternoon on the way home they whispered to Poteet: 'We think there'd better be a trial,' and the trail boss agreed.

Just before evening meal, one of the point men rode up to the chuck wagon, where Floyd was first in line, as always: 'Floyd, you're under arrest.'

'What for?' in a whining voice.

'We know you shot them two men in Dodge unjustified.'

'They drew on me.'

'We know what a miserable coward you are, what a skunk, and we're goin' to try you correct, right now.'

Floyd trembled as two other cowhands lashed his wrists and tied his ankles together, and he was terrified when the solemn trial began, with Poteet as judge.

'What charge do you bring against this man?'

'That in Dodge City he willfully gunned down two Texas cowboys.'

'Without provocation?'

'None.'

Floyd tried to raise his hands: 'They were comin' at me.'

'Were they coming at him?' Judge Poteet asked.

'They were not. He done it disgraceful.'

Poteet asked for a vote on Floyd's guilt, and it was unanimous.

'Floyd Rusk,' the judge said solemnly. 'You have been a disgrace on this trail north. You have responded to nothing. You surrendered the respect of your comrades, and in my presence you scorned your father. It is not surprising that in Dodge you murdered two men, and now, by God, you shall hang.'

'Oh, no!' the boy cried, for he had certainly not intended to murder anyone in the saloon, and now he pleaded desperately for his life.

The cowboys were obdurate. Perching him sideways on a big roan, they led him to the branches of an oak tree, from which they had suspended a rope. When it was tied about his neck, Poteet stood near and said: 'Floyd Rusk, on the trail north you proved

yourself to be a young man without a single saving grace. As a murderer, you deserve to die. Tom, when I drop my hand, whip the horse.'

In terror, the fat boy watched the fatal hand, felt the man slap the horse, and felt the rope tighten about his neck as the beast galloped off. But he also felt R. ). Poteet catch him as he fell, and then he fainted.

'Emma,' Poteet reported to his friend, 'It was my last trail. Your check is bigger than ever before.'

'And Floyd?'

'He's no good, Emma. If he continues the way he's headed, you'll be attending his hanging.' He stood aside as she wept, and did not try to console her: 'You've got to hear it sooner or later, but in Dodge City your son murdered two men. Shot them dead with a revolver he got somewheres.'

'Oh my God!'

'My point men spirited him out of town. Saved his life. So on the trail south they held a trial, to show your boy what such actions meant.' He told her about the mock hanging and explained how this sometimes knocked sense into would-be gunmen, but when Emma asked: 'How did Floyd take it?' he had to reply: 'When he came to and realized the trick we'd played on him, he spat in my face and shouted: "Go to hell, you stupid son-of-a-bitch."

Emma covered her face, and when her sobbing ended, Poteet said quietly: 'He's alive, Emma, because I promised you I'd bring him back. If he was my son, he'd already be dead.'

When he handed over the last check he would ever bring to the Larkin Ranch, he said with haunting sadness: 'I'd wanted this last drive to be the best of all. An honorable farewell to the great range that you and I knew so well.' When he tried to look across the plains, his view was cut by fences. 'Sometimes things just peter'out, like the dripping of a faucet. No parades. No cannon salutes. Just the closing down of all we cherished.'

He said goodbye to this gallant woman with whom he felt so strong an affinity, then turned his horse toward San Antonio. The open range would see him and his breed no more.