Sam Bass (20 page)

“Not unless he turns this way,” Sam replied.

The man was tall and cradled a rifle in the crook of his elbow. I guessed from his bearing that he was a Ranger. He stood gazing at the opposite bank, then glanced upstream, then turned and disappeared. Sam sighed, and I lowered the rifle.

We stood in that muddy depression until full dark, and then stood some more. But sometime during the endless night Sam whispered, “Let's go,” and climbed onto Jenny and slipped quietly back into the water.

Jim Murphy

It was a hot afternoon, but cool in the shade. I was sitting in my rocking chair on the porch of my Cove Hollow place, and I seen them coming while they was still some ways off. When I first seen them they was so far away I couldn't tell they was only three. Then they dipped below a little rise, and I didn't see them at all for a while. When they topped the rise I seen they was only three, and I wondered why. They was coming real lazy, at a walk, and the tails of their horses was switching. It was only the fifteenth of June, but the flies was already bad. I knowed who they was. I mean, I knowed who one of them was, as soon as they topped that rise. I'd recognize the gait of that mare even if she was on the moon. When I seen they was only three, I stood up and squinted at them coming, trying to see who wasn't there. I felt fluttery in my belly, and the closer they come, the worser the flutter got. I seen that Arkansas and Henry wasn't there. Jackson and Barnes, they was there. And Sam, of course, on that mare.

They was a mess. Their clothes was tore and covered with dry mud. Their horses was covered with mud, too, and all their rigging. Their faces was all scratched up, like they'd been in a fight with a wildcat or a woman. They pulled up by the fence and just set there, slumping in their saddles, looking at me. They looked older than I remembered them, and I never seen nobody tireder. They was a bunch of hard cases, all right.

“Well, look what the cat drug in,” Sam said. His voice was thin and weak, like somebody that had been sick a long time.

“You're the ones the cat drug in,” I said. “I ain't never seen a sorrier looking bunch.”

They got down and tied their horses to the fence. They come up on the porch and flopped down against the wall. “Well, old fellow, how do you like the Tyler jail?” Sam asked.

“Not at all.”

“How'd you get out?”

“Jumped bail.”

“And your daddy?”

“Him, too. We just hopped a train to Dallas and then hired us a buckboard and come home.”

“Well, they'll be after you,” Sam said.

“Not for a while. It's you they want.”

Jackson and Barnes wasn't saying nothing. They'd took off their hats and laid their heads against the wall. Their eyes was closed. I thought they was asleep.

“Is Sarah Underwood still at your daddy's place?” Sam asked.

“I don't know. I left him in Denton.”

He peered off into the sun and didn't say nothing else, so I said, “How about a drink of whiskey?”

“Fine,” he said, still looking off in the distance. So I went in the house and got the jug and four glasses and brung them out. Barnes opened his eyes and said, “We don't need no glasses.”

“Well, it's Sunday,” I said. “We might as well do it polite.” While I was pouring the whiskey I asked, kind of casual, “Where's old Henry, anyways?”

“Don't know,” Sam said. “He left us.”

“I ain't seen him,” I said.

Jackson opened his eyes and picked up the glass I'd set beside him and took a pull. We all was drinking for a while, not saying nothing, then I said, “Where's Arkansas?”

“Dead,” Sam said. “Salt Creek, two days ago. The day Henry left.”

“Who done it?”

“Rangers.”

“Bastards,” I said.

“That's the truth,” Barnes said.

Sam said, “So we need a good man, Jim. Why don't you come with us now? We have lots of fun and plenty of money in our camp.”

I could tell how much fun they'd been having, but I said, “I been thinking on that. But I been thinking on going back to Tyler and facing the music, too. They ain't got nothing on me.”

Sam laughed a bitter little laugh. “The hell they ain't! You're a friend of mine, and that's all they care about. The best thing for you is to come with us and make some money.”

“You the ones that cleaned me out?” I asked.

“Yeah, I owe you,” Sam said. “We lost all your horses but that one Seab's riding. Can you wait?”

So I could tell how much money they'd been making, too. “No hurry,” I said.

“How long you been back?” Jackson asked.

“About two weeks. I camped down on Hickory for a long time, figuring I'd run into you.”

“Surprised you didn't,” Jackson said. “We been in and out of there.”

“You been other places, too. I read in the paper you was way over in Stephens County.” “Yeah, we been everywhere.”

“The papers has been raising hell with June Peak,” I said. “They say it's time for you and him to fight.”

They got a laugh out of that, and we passed the jug around again. “It may have been Peak that jumped us at Salt Creek,” Sam said.

“Bad?” I asked.

“They just got lucky,” Sam said. “You coming with us, Jim?”

I rocked for some time and stayed quiet like I was thinking. Then I said, “I promised Daddy I'd help him thrash his wheat. If you can wait till I'm through, maybe I'll go.”

Sam stood up. “All right, we'll wait. We need you in our business. Our horses could use a rest, anyways.”

He went down the steps, and Jackson and Barnes dragged theirselves up and followed him. “We'll be up the hollow,” Sam said.

“I'll be there,” I said. The fluttery feeling was worser.

Daddy's cell was a ways down from mine, but I could hear him coughing. He coughed all day and all night, but it was worser at night. I thought he'd never stop, and prisoners would yell, “Shut up!” and “Cut that out!” Of course there wasn't no way he could quit. I worried when he coughed, and I worried when he didn't, afraid he was dead. “My daddy's got the consumption,” I would tell the jailer. “He needs the sunshine.”

“Well, Jim, this here's a jail, not a sanitorium,” the jailer would say.

“But he's innocent,” I would say. “There ain't no reason for him to be here.”

“And are you innocent, too?” the jailer would say. “Yes,” I would say.

The jailer would put his hand on his hip and look at me kind of disgusted and shake his head. “You know, Jim, this is the damndest jail,” he would say. “Every man in it's innocent. How you reckon them Rangers keep on making so many mistakes?”

It went like that for almost two weeks. Then one day June Peak come with the key in his hand. “Major Jones wants you,” he said, and he unlocked the door and taken me to a little office. Major Jones was setting behind the desk, but he got up and waved to a chair and said, “Set down, Jim.” I taken one chair, and June Peak taken another, and Major Jones set down again. I'd never laid eyes on him before. He was big, big as me. Heavy, you know. With a big brown mustache and little black eyes. “The jailer says you been raising hell about your daddy,” he said.

“Daddy ain't done nothing wrong,” I said. “He didn't know what Sam Bass was doing. He's a good man. Everybody in Denton will tell you that.”

Major Jones smiled. “Don't know nothing about nothing, eh?”

“No.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

Major Jones looked at June Peak, and they laughed. “He hid on your place,” Major Jones said. “He come and went at your house whenever he wanted to. You even got his supplies for him.”

“We been friends for years,” I said. “I didn't know he was wanted.”

“You didn't, eh?”

“No. Dad Egan never come after him. He never asked me nothing about Sam.”

The two Rangers laughed again, then Major Jones said, “Well, Jim, you'll get a fair trial. Your daddy, too. If you're innocent you got nothing to worry about.”

“Daddy's a sick man, Major. If jail don't kill him a trial will.”

Major Jones shrugged. “What can I do? The law's the law.” He swiveled his chair till his back was to me and looked out the window, rubbing his chin. “Of course, if we was to catch Sam Bass, everything would be different. I reckon half the men in this jail would go free then. I guess the charges against your daddy would be dropped then. Maybe yours, too, although we got a good case against you.”

I didn't say nothing, and he swiveled his chair back around and faced me. “I'll lay it right on the line,” he said. “You help me catch Sam Bass, and I'll see that you and your daddy
both
go free.”

The fluttery feeling started in my belly right then. “What can I do?”

“Join his bunch,” Major Jones said. “Help us lay a snare for him.”

“Sam's my friend, Major.” “Better than your daddy?” “No.”

“Well, then.”

“And after you get the snare laid, what am I supposed to do then? Kiss him on the cheek?

Major Jones smiled. “That won't be necessary, Jim. We want all the disciples, too.” I didn't say nothing.

“There's another thing,” Major Jones said. “There's all that reward money.”

“I don't care nothing about that.”

“Well, it'd be quite a sum if we was to get all five of them.” I didn't say nothing.

“You want some time to think about it?” “All right.”

“When you decide, tell the jailer you'd like to talk to Lieutenant Peak.”

Major Jones swiveled back to the window, and June Peak stood up and taken my arm and walked me back to my cell.

Daddy coughed all night, and the next morning I told the jailer I wanted to see June Peak.

Peak told me he'd arrange for the charges against my daddy to be dropped and would see that my bail got paid. I lied to Sam when I told him Daddy and me left Tyler together. Daddy got on the train for Dallas that same day, and my brother Bob met him. But Peak told me to hang around Tyler a few days like I was waiting for my trial. I did. I spent a lot of time around the federal courthouse, and the lawyers and officers and bondsmen got to know me pretty good. Then one day Peak showed me a document that the United States attorney had drawed up and signed. It said all charges against me would be dropped if I helped capture Sam or any of his bunch. “It's time you went,” Peak said. “Just get on a train and get out. But be careful. The word'll spread fast, and the bondsmen'll try to have you arrested in Dallas. And stop somewhere and get that mustache shaved off. It's like a goddamn flag.”

He got up and walked me to the door, then picked up one of the hats that was on the rack there. “Here, try this on,” he said, and I did. “Fit?”

“Yeah, pretty good.”

“Wear it, then.”

“Whose is it?”

“Some lawyer that's trying a case today. Go ahead and take it.” I got on the train and slumped down in my seat and put the hat over my face like I was sleeping. At Mineola I got off and went to a barbershop and told the barber to give me a shave, mustache and all.

“You sure? It's a pretty one.”

“Take it off,” I said.

I caught the next train to Dallas and got through the depot without no trouble. I bought me a horse and rode to Denton to see my brother Bob. He told me Daddy had made it home all right. It was dark when I started out to Daddy's place to see him. I was riding past an alley, and this voice come to me real low, saying, “Jim. Come here.”

I rode over, and Dad Egan was standing there, leaning against the wall. “I hear you done some business with Major Jones,” he said.

“Goddamn!” I said. “Nobody's supposed to know about that but Jones and Peak and me!”

“He had to tell me,” Dad said. “He was afraid I'd arrest you again.”

I didn't say nothing, and Dad just stayed there in the shadows, not moving. “You know how to get in touch with me,” he said. “I want to be in on it.”

I turned my horse and headed on up the road toward Daddy's house, worrying about how many more sheriffs and deputies and Rangers and Pinkertons knowed about our business. The fluttery feeling was something awful, because I knowed if word about me was to get out, Sam would hear it, and old Jim would be a gone gosling.

Daddy was glad to see me and told Sarah Underwood to give me a cup of coffee. When she left the room Daddy closed the door. He was coughing as bad as in the Tyler jail. “Why'd they let us go?” he asked.

“They didn't have nothing on us, so they dropped the charges,” I said.

“Is that right'”

“You seen Sam or any of the bunch?” I asked. “No. Why?”

“Thought they might've come by.” “Not since I been home.”

“Well, if he comes by, tell him I'm looking for him,” I said. Late that afternoon I saddled me a good horse. “You be careful,” Daddy said. And I rode down to the Hickory bottoms, thinking I might run into Sam down there. I camped there for better than a week, and I seen a couple of posses, but I never found Sam or any of his boys. And the longer I stayed there the nervouser I got, so I just packed up one day and rode up to my Cove Hollow place.

If Sam knowed about the deal I made with Major Jones, he hadn't let on when he showed up at my place. But Jackson and Barnes hadn't been a bit friendly. They was tired at the time, and maybe a little scared theirselves. But maybe they knowed, and I tried to figure how I'd feel if I was in their place and one of my friends done what I done. I had to admit that if I was in their place, I'd blow my head off. But what's a man to do when his daddy's dying? Blood runs thicker than water, don't it? And when your daddy's coughing his guts out in a goddamn cell, well that's worse than hell. No son worth his salt can just let that happen. I wished it would take forever to thrash Daddy's wheat, but of course it didn't.