Sam Bass (25 page)

At daylight the birds wakes me up, and I gets out of bed and makes coffee and brings him a cup. He's awake, and he smiles while he watches me bring it to him. I sits aside the bed and drinks my coffee with him, and when he finishes he takes my cup out of my hand, too, and sets them on the floor. He grabs my arm and pulls me down on the bed with him.

“Your friends will be wanting breakfast,” I says.

“Let them wait,” he says.

“You sure is a needful man,” I says.

For the next three days a couple of them would saddle up their hosses and ride down toward the new town from time to time. Sometimes it would be Samuel and the goldheaded kid, sometimes the scared-looking redhead and the other dark man. They'd stay maybe an hour and then show up again and unsaddle the hosses and tie them in the grass down by Brushy Creek. That's all they does. Rest of the time, they just lays around under the trees back there till I comes and tells them their vittles is ready. They comes to the house to eat, but don't say hardly nothing at the table. And sometime after dark, Samuel comes in and makes me stop my ironing and takes me to bed.

One day, a Thursday it is, I's walking down to the trees at noon to tell them dinner's fixed. I hears them talking, but I don't think nothing of it. Then I hears Samuel say, “I tell you, they was Rangers! They was dressed like cowboys, but I
knowed
they was Rangers!”

“Sam, you's just jumpy,” the big redhead says. “You's seeing things that ain't there.”

I guess they hears me coming then, because they don't say nothing else.

That night while we's in bed I says to Samuel, “What business you in?”

“Mules,” he says. “Government mules.”

“What you do with mules?” I says.

“I buys and sells them,” he says. “I goes around the country looking for good mules, and when I finds one, I buys him and sells him to the Army. The Army needs lots of mules.”

“And what does them other men do?” I says.

“Why, they helps me with the mules,” he says. “Ain't no man can handle all them mules by hisself. Mules is hard.”

“How long you going to stay here?” I says.

“Saturday,” he says. “We's leaving Saturday.”

I's grieved to hear that. I likes Samuel, and I's getting used to having him in my bed. But I don't say nothing. Then Samuel, he gets fidgety. Real jumpy, just like the redhead said. And I says, “Samuel, why you acting this way?” And he says, “I don't know, Mary.”

Well, next morning that pretty goldhead and the redhead saddles up right after breakfast and heads down to the new town.

The other little dark one stays down in the trees with the hosses, and Samuel hangs around the house all morning, watching me iron and looking out the window at the graveyard, up towards the hill. The goldhead and the redhead gets back about time for dinner, and Samuel goes to the door. He's standing in the door, and the redhead comes up to him and says, “We didn't see no Rangers down there,” and Samuel says, “Hush.”

After dinner Samuel goes down to the trees with the others, and I don't see nothing of him for three or four hours. Then I sees all four of them leading their hosses past the window. The door's open, it's so hot, and in front Samuel hands the reins of his red hoss over to the goldheaded kid and comes in.

“Mary, I wants you to have this,” he says, and he gives me a ten-dollar bill.

“You leaving?” I says.

“No, we's just going down to the town for a few supplies,” he says. “I'll be back.”

“Why you giving me this money, then?” I says.

“Well, I just wants you to have it,” he says. And he kisses me aside the neck and goes out and climbs on that red hoss.

Frank Jackson

Everyone in the niggertown had taken to the shade. It was so quiet I could hear dogs scratching themselves under the shanty porches and flies buzzing in the dusty bushes beside the road. Heat climbing from the road made the way ahead of us wavy and bright, painful to the eyes. Slow nigger voices drifted through the open doors of the houses. The voices and the creak of our saddles and the soft thud of our horses' hooves in the dust all seemed separate and distinct and loud. I was sweating under my coat and wished I could take it off without revealing my pistol.

The new town was as dead as the old. Sun reflected white off the stone of the new buildings and the street. A team of mules stood hipshot in their traces, heads bowed, while a boy unloaded fodder at the livery stable. The boy stood up in the wagon bed and watched us for a moment, then bent to his work again. A man in black stepped into the barbershop down the street. A few horses stood at the hitching rails in front of the stores and offices, all hipshot, all dozing. A wagon loaded with lumber and a cook-stove and a spool of fence wire was in front of the hardware store, and a boy, about ten, I guess, overalled and barefooted, stood beside it holding the lines, a piece of candy sticking out of his mouth like a cigar.

“Sam,” Jim said. “Why don't I go back to the old town and check for Rangers there? I'll meet you after you buy the supplies.”

“All right,” Sam said, and Jim turned his horse and trotted back the way we had come.

We turned left a block and tied our horses in an alley on the north side of the business district. We walked through the narrow space between two buildings, blinking in the shade, then stepped into the main street, blinded again by the sun. We walked abreast down the street for a block, then turned to cross to Henry Koppel's store on the opposite corner. Sam's hand brushed his coat back, revealing the butts of his pistols. He pulled the coat closed and buttoned one button. The boy in front of the hardware store wrapped his lines around the brake lever and went inside.

Koppel's clerk was alone, sitting on a box behind the counter, fanning himself with a newspaper. He got up when we came through the door. “Hot enough for you?” he asked.

“Hot enough,” Sam said.

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, we need some things,” Sam said, placing his hands on the counter. “Let's start with the tobacco.”

“Smoking or chewing?”

“Smoking. About eight sacks, I guess.”

As the clerk turned to get the tobacco down from a shelf, two more men came in. One leaned against the wall beside the door and stuck his hands in his pockets. He started whistling. The other walked to the counter where we were, smiling. He nodded at Sam and put his hands on the counter, too. Then his right hand moved and touched Sam's coat. “Don't you have a pistol on you?” he asked.

“Yes!” Sam cried, and he went for his gun. Seab and I did, too, and suddenly we were firing.

“Don't, boys! Hold up, boys!” the man screamed. He stumbled backward, clawing at his coat, trying to get to a gun, I guess. Then he fell, his coat open, his white shirt bloody.

Now the man by the door had a gun in his hand, and we fired. We fired and fired. All sound was lost to me in the roar. My nose itched with the stink of gunpowder. The room was so full of the smoke of our firing that I couldn't see the man by the door. I ran through the fog toward the daylight and bumped into Sam. He was running, too. The man who had stood by the door was on the floor now. He fired at us again, and I fired at him.

Sam and I reached the sidewalk, gasping. Sam's right hand was dangling at his side, dripping blood. Several fingers seemed to be missing. Then Seab dashed through the door, too, and the man who had been on the floor by the door stood up and fired a shot after him.

The street was full of men, all firing. Three knelt on the sidewalk behind us as we ran, firing and firing. The man in black ran out of the barbershop and fired. A one-armed man stood in front of Koppel's store now, firing as we ran down the block toward the hardware store. A big man, a badge glinting on his chest, stepped around the corner in front of us and fired. I fired back at him, and he ducked around the corner again. The boy was holding the lines at the lumber-loaded wagon again. The horses were rearing and pulling in their traces, and the boy was scared, but he held onto the lines. A man ran out of the store and grabbed the lines and climbed to the wagon and stood there pulling on the lines, shouting something, and the boy ran into the store.

We bent low and ran into the street, trying to cross to our horses. Bullets raised puffs of dust all around us, and we fired back at nothing in particular. We made it to the shady passage between the buildings and ran on to the alley, and turned toward our horses. Someone fired a single shot at us from the back of one of the stores, and someone at the livery stable fired several rifle shots, then stopped. I saw his face above the stable fence, looking at his rifle. It was jammed or empty, I guess. Seab fired at him, and he ran away.

We had almost reached the horses when Sam screamed, “God!” and I knew he was hit again. I turned and saw a tall man silhouetted against the bright street at the end of the alley. I fired at him, and he ducked behind the building. Sam was falling. I grabbed him under the arms and pulled him toward the horses. Seab was untying his horse when he fell, his face gone, like Arkansas's. He sprawled in the dust, his arms and legs spread like a star.

I held Sam up with one arm and untied his mare. The man at the end of the alley, the one who killed Seab, I guess, was on his knee, aiming. He fired but missed us. I ignored him and lifted Sam to Jenny's back and wrapped the fingers of his good hand around the reins. His coat and shirt were bloody. I untied and mounted my own horse, then grabbed Sam's arm and held it to keep him from falling. “Can you ride?” I shouted, and I thought he nodded. I swatted Jenny on the haunch and held onto Sam's arm while we rode toward the end of the alley. The man at the other end was firing. A bullet sang off the stone of the building beside us, but we made it to the street, and I turned us right, toward Brushy Creek. I let go of Sam's arm, but he started weaving, so I grabbed him again.

I urged the horses across the creek, then turned them into a lane toward the niggertown. I looked behind me, but saw nobody after us yet. A couple of houses down the lane, a little girl was hanging head down from a low branch of a tree in her front yard, swinging by her knees. “Get in the house!” I shouted. “Get in the house, little girl!” She swung up, then dropped to the ground and stared wide-eyed. “You'll be killed!” I shouted, and she turned and ran.

Soon we were in the old town, among the nigger shanties. I looked behind me, but no one was coming. As we passed the Mays and Black store I noticed several men lounging on feed sacks on the porch. I thought one was Jim, but when I looked again he was gone. I was punching cartridges into the cylinder of my pistol, and Sam was trying to do the same, but he couldn't with his crippled hand, and he kept dropping the cartridges on the ground. I took his pistol and loaded it and handed it back and noticed he was very pale. I grabbed his arm again. Our horses were moving at a trot now, and it was hard to hold him, and the jarring gait wrinkled his face with pain. I spurred my horse into a slow, gentle gallop, and Jenny adjusted her gait to his.

I took the road toward the graveyard, and when we got to the house of the woman Mary, I started to turn in, but Sam said, “No, don't stop here.”

“Our rifles are here,” I said.

“Don't stop here,” he said, so I didn't. The woman Mary came to her door with a basket of laundry on her shoulder. She stopped and stared, her eyes likes small moons, and started to speak.

“Get inside!” I shouted, and she ducked back, and I moved us on until we reached the Georgetown road, and turned northward. A nigger was coming toward us on a wagon. He saw the blood on Sam and stood up and pulled on his lines and drew his mules to a stop. We passed near him, and Sam told him, “We gave them hell in the new town, but they got us some.” The nigger said nothing and stared as we passed.

We galloped along the Georgetown road for a way, the sun hot in my eyes, then I turned us into a narrow lane, heading for the broken hills to the west and the cover of the cedar brakes on them. I looked behind me, but no one was coming. The country side seemed empty and still. I turned off the lane into an unfenced pasture and struck for the hill on the other side. We reached the cedars, and I knew we weren't visible now from any of the roads. Sam was pale as death and whimpering at every movement of his mare. “We'll stop,” I said. “I think we're safe for a while.”

I helped him down from Jenny's back and half-carried him to a huge live oak that stood alone among the lower cedars. I laid him in its shade and propped him against its gnarled trunk and tied our horses to one of its branches. I returned to Sam and lifted his shoulders and tried to take off his coat. He looked at me, pain and pleading in his eyes, but said nothing, and I twisted him and tugged until I freed him from the coat. It was soaked with blood, but I folded it and put it behind his back and took one pistol from his belt and laid it beside him. He lost the other one when his hand was hit, I guess.

The hand was shattered, the middle and ring fingers missing. It was still bleeding. Sam looked at it and said, “Just like old Wetzel's leg. Blowed clean away.” His voice was thin and weak. I unbuttoned his shirt and worked until I had it off. “Move up a bit,” I said. “I've got to take a look at this.” I helped him move away from the tree, and he groaned. I thought he was going to faint. “Easy,” I said.

I turned sick when I saw what had been done to him. His lower back was covered with blood, some dry and dark, some fresh, just oozed from the hole. The bullet had entered him an inch or two to the left of the spine. The hole was perfectly round, like a bleeding eye. The hole in front, about three inches to the left of his navel, was larger and jagged and bloodier. I guessed the bullet had hit a kidney, or hadn't missed it by far. There was nothing I could really do. “Bad, ain't it?” Sam said.

“Pretty bad. But I'll fix you up. You'll be all right when we get away from here. How do you feel?”