Sam Bass (12 page)

Our decision made, we headed north. When we neared Dallas Sam said, “I'm going to town and visit Maude. Want to come?”

“No, I'd better go on and check on Seab.”

“There's lots of pretty girls there. You ain't had a woman in a long time, Frank, and Maude has lots of friends.”

“Next time.”

Sam touched his hatbrim and rode away toward Dallas. It was the first time I had been alone in four months, and I was glad to have the chance. It had been a good winter for rain, and the countryside was bright in the new green of spring. The sky was cloudless and the sun warm, and everyone, it seemed, had found work to do outdoors. Women were washing clothes and yelling at children. Men were mending or building fence, and a few had already begun their spring plowing, trudging the rows behind their patient mules. It was still cool, and a great day for that kind of work. I envied them. I stopped at midday at a farm just south of Lewisville and was given fried chicken for dinner and held a little girl, the youngest child of seven, on my knee while I had my final cup of coffee and speculated with her father about when the first herds would pass through on their drive north. I could feel the sap running in me, and regretted that I had declined Sam's invitation.

But I was getting close to Denton now, so I left the road and struck out across the open prairie, aiming in a general way toward Cove Hollow. I was in no hurry, but my horse felt the juice of spring, too, and I let him have his head. He moved at a long-striding, lazy gallop for a while, then, receiving no restraining signal from me, broke into a run. The cool breeze roared in my ears, and I could feel my blood pumping through me. The bright grass passed under my horse's hooves in a blur. God, it all felt good after the long winter in the creek bottoms. When we reached Hickory Creek we stopped and drank and rested, then continued at a slower but still brisk pace. If horses could sing, I believe mine would have that day.

Seab was enjoying the spring, too. He was stretched on a blanket on the limestone ledge in front of our cabin, soaking in the sun. He sat up when I started my horse up the slope. “Where's Sam?” he asked.

“He got the itch. He went whoring.”

He watched us plunge up the slope, then asked, “What's the plan?”

He looked fit as a fiddle, which made me very proud.

On the night of March 18 Sam and Seab and I rode into Hutchins and tied up at the station platform. We had passed the train on our way into town, so we already were masked, and our guns were drawn. Only the agent and a nigger porter were in the station, and they threw up their hands when we entered. “All right, keep them up and move out to the platform,” Sam ordered.

As soon as the train stopped, I leapt to the engine. The engineer and the fireman raised their hands, too, and I recognized them. “Is this Number 4?” I asked. The engineer nodded, and I said, “You probably remember me, then.”

“I sure do, son,” he said.

I herded them down the steps, and as my foot touched the platform a face appeared around the front of the engine. I swung my gun to it and said, “Join us.” Two men crept slowly around the engine and climbed the platform steps.

“Riding free on the cowcatcher,” Sam said. “The railroad don't like that, boys.”

The men, shabbily dressed, grinned weakly and took off their caps and held them against their chests, as they no doubt did when asking for handouts. We moved them and our other hostages down the platform until they were opposite the express car door, which was open and lighted. A man holding a bag appeared at the mail car door, just behind the express car, and shouted, “What's the matter?”

“We want money, and there's no use kicking!” Sam called back.

The man stepped back and slammed the door and yelled, “Robbers on the platform!” The light went out in the express car, and its door slammed, too. Sam cursed and ran into the station and returned with two axes. He handed one to Seab, and they attacked the door. Soon its splintered parts fell away, and Sam and Barnes were facing the muzzle of a pistol. The express agent was backed against the far wall, taking aim. The station agent yelled, “Don't shoot! You'll kill us!” The man lowered his gun, and Seab and Sam jumped into the car while I held our prisoners under my gun. In less than a minute they came out carrying two cloth sacks and ran to the mail car. Sam banged on the door with his pistol butt. “We've got you! Come out or it'll go hard for you!” The mail clerk made up his mind quickly and opened the door.

While my companions were ransacking the mail, a burst of gunfire issued from the rear of the train. One of the tramps groaned and fell. I fired two blind shots into the darkness, then a shotgun boomed, and the station agent grabbed his face. Sam and Seab backed out of the mail car, and we retreated slowly toward our horses, laying down heavy fire toward the muzzle flashes. We mounted and lit out toward the west. A few miles out of Hutchins we swung north toward the Hickory bottoms. It wasn't until then that we slowed and Sam asked, “Any casualties?”

“Not on our side,” I said.

Our haul was disappointing. Three hundred and eighty-four dollars from the express car and a hundred and thirteen from the mail. One sixty-five apiece. “It's a good thing old Spotswood ain't along,” Barnes said.

Barnes ran into the cabin, grabbed his rifle and said, “Riders!” Sam and I grabbed our rifles, too, and we bellied down behind the rocks on the slope. “They're coming slow and quiet,” Barnes said. “Two of them.”

At last my eye caught the sun glinting on something, then I saw a black hat and part of a face. “Here they come!” I whispered.

They emerged into the clearing. Sam screamed, “Freeze!”

The riders showed no signs of panic. They turned their horses slowly until they faced us, and one called, “You ain't going to kill me, are you, Sam?”

It was Henry Underwood. I could name fifty people I would rather have seen, but I was relieved that the face was a friendly, although ugly, one. Henry's companion rivalled Henry himself in ugliness. A big, florid, pig-eyed man with a flat nose and pockmarked jowls, he dismounted and watched, his mouth hanging open stupidly, while Sam and I shook hands with Henry and introduced him to Barnes. “This here's Arkansas Johnson,” Henry said. “Him and me's rode all the way from Nebraska together. And spent a long spell together before that.”

I took their horses, and Sam threw his arm around Henry's shoulders and walked him toward the cabin. Barnes glanced at me skeptically, then followed with Johnson. The horses had been ridden hard and looked as if they hadn't eaten in days. Their noses never left the grain while I rubbed them down.

When I entered the cabin Underwood was bragging loudly of his escape from the jail in Nebraska. “Your money done it, Sam,” he said. “I give part of it to a man that was getting out, and he proved true to his word. He got me a file and some saw blades, and Arkansas's wife fetched them to us in a bucket of butter.”

Seab Barnes showed little interest in Henry's narrative, but the silent Arkansas Johnson made not the slightest move without Seab noticing it. When Henry paused for breath, Seab pointed at the new man and said, “Tell us about yourself.”

Johnson turned his pig eyes to Barnes and gazed stolidly at him. “Ain't nothing to tell,” he mumbled.

“Where in Arkansas are you from?” Seab asked.

“I ain't. Missouri.”

“Ever know a man named Tom Spotswood?” “No.”

“What was you in jail for?”

Again Johnson lapsed into silence, regarding Barnes with a vacant stare, as if he couldn't remember. Then he said, “Stole some lumber. I got to piss.” He got up and slouched outside.

“I don't like him,” Seab said.

“I don't, either,” I said.

“Come on!” Henry whined. “Me and him's rode a long way together.”

“I don't like him, either,” Sam said. “He's white trash, and this here's a high-class outfit. We ain't got no use for trash, Henry.”

“Aw, Sam,” Henry pleaded, “I couldn't have made it without him. I promised him.”

“Promised what?”

“Why, that he'd get rich!”

Sam smiled. “Well, all right,” he said. “I'll try him once. Then we'll see.”

So we had two hogs in our sty that night.

Two days later, on a Sunday afternoon, another rider came up the creek. “We don't have to go looking for no trains,” Sam said. “This place is a railroad station.”

It was Jim Murphy, looking for me. “You got visitors at my place,” he said.

“Who?”

“Ben Key. Your sister. Dr. Ross.”

“What do they want?”

He shrugged. “They want to see you.”

I rode down the creek with Jim. “I'd listen to them if I was you, Frank,” he said.

Dr. Ross's hack was standing in front of the house, and my visitors were in the tiny parlor, drinking coffee. They rose when

I went in, and my sister hugged me. Jim went outside. Through the window I saw him walking toward the barn. My sister held a small handkerchief, and she twisted it into a small roll and wove it in and out among her fingers. Ben and Dr. Ross shifted in their chairs. Their feet were noisy on the bare floor. I was glad to see them, but felt embarrassed. Finally Dr. Ross said, “We want you to come back, Frank.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “We want you to come home with us.”

“I can't,” I said.

Tears welled into my sister's eyes. She unrolled her handkerchief and daubed them away.

“Dad Egan's looking for you,” Ben said, “but who he really wants is Sam. He's getting hell from the railroads, and he thinks Sam is some kind of traitor. But come home now, and I think he'll leave you alone.”

“Did Spotswood say something?”

“No, but he might when he's tried. Everybody knows he was hanging out with you and Sam.”

“That doesn't have to mean anything,” I said. “We have a right to our friends.”

“That's my point,” Ben said. “If you come home before the trial, I don't think your name will ever come up. Dad won't try to prove anything on you.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Yes. He likes you, Frank.”

“He used to like Sam, too.”

“He thinks Sam betrayed him,” Ben said.

A breeze blew the curtains into the room, and the sun shining through them made patterns like maps on my sister's gray skirt. Dr. Ross was slouching in his chair, stroking his beard, not fidgeting anymore. “I cured a man,” I told him.

His eyes narrowed. “What was wrong with him?”

“Fever.”

“What did you do?”

“Gave him laudanum and quinine. A little calomel.”

He smiled. “Did you enjoy it?” “Yes. And I have a black coat now.” Dr. Ross laughed.

“Come with us, Frank,” Ben said. His high forehead was furrowed. I had never noticed he was getting bald. “The shop ain't the same without you. Nothing's the same without you.

Ain't that right, doc?” “I won't go back to the shop,” I said. “Well, do something else, then!” Ben said. “But come back!” “I'll have to think about it,” I said. “Come with us
now,”
my sister said.

“Let him think about it,” Dr. Ross said. “I'm sure Frank will do what's best.” He slapped his knees and stood up. “I brought you something.” He pulled a small book from his coat pocket and gave it to me. It was
The Odyssey
. “It's about a man who traveled to many places and had many adventures, but he finally came home. You'll remember him from another book you read once.”

“Thank you.” I shook hands with him and Ben. I grasped my sister's hands and pulled them away from her face and lifted her gently from the chair and kissed her on the cheek. “Don't worry,” I said.

I was deeply moved by their care for me, and by the time I reached our cabin I had decided to return to Denton.

“What did they want?” Sam asked me.

“I've got to talk to you,” I said. “In private.”

We walked down the slope and sat down on the grass. “They want me to go home,” I said, “and I'm going.”

Sam stared in disbelief and hurt.

“We're getting nowhere,” I said. “I'm getting no closer to what I really want.”

“You'll go to prison,” he said.

“I think I could get off if I leave now, even if they tried me.” “No, you'll go to prison.”

“It's no good,” I said. “We're not making much money, and we're getting in a lot of trouble. I think we should all quit now.”

Sam picked at the short green grass with his fingers. “I can't, Frank,” he said. “Even if I beat everything here, they'd get me for that Nebraska job. And I need you. I don't even have Joel anymore. I can do without Johnson, and I can do without Underwood. I can even do without Barnes. But I can't do without you, pard. You and me's friends, ain't we? Brothers, almost. We been together too long. Without you and Joel, I'd be too alone to stand it, no matter who else was with me.”

I looked at the ground. Why was I embarrassed? I felt awful.

“I know it ain't gone good, Frank. Maybe I just don't have Joel's brain. But all we need is one break, one big haul. Then you can go off to Kentucky and become a doctor. Hell, maybe I'll go with you. They race a lot of horses there.” I said nothing.

“I got plans for a big haul,” he said. “We're going to hit the Texas and Pacific at Eagle Ford. It ought to be a rich train. Then we'll go to Kentucky or somewhere. Deal?”

I figured he was making it up as he went. I shook my head. “I'm not going. To Eagle Ford, I mean.”

“Frank! We got five men now! It'll be a cinch!”

“My head isn't in it, Sam. I wouldn't be any good to you. I just don't feel like going.”

“All right, pard. I'll deal you out of this one. But stay here till we get back, and we'll talk some more. You can do that, can't you, Frank?”