Winchester 1887 (6 page)

“Know 'im?” Sergeant John Hashtula asked.

Jackson Sixpersons glanced at the bloated body, shook his head, and pulled the tarp—no pine box for this outlaw—over the man's head to reduce the smell. Yet he could assume this man had been shot during the bank robbery across the border in Greenville, Arkansas. The McCoy-Maxwell Gang kept getting thinner all the time. Like most outlaw gangs, these days.

“The men with him?” Sixpersons asked.

The sergeant thrust his jaw northwest toward Muskogee, Sixpersons guessed, in the Creek Country, where John Hashtula hung his hat.

Hashtula was older than even Jackson Sixpersons. He had run the Choctaw Lighthorsemen back when Sixpersons was riding for the Cherokee Lighthorse Police.

In the early days in the Nations, after the tribes had been removed from their Southeastern homelands, the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles had formed their own police forces, most of them taking the name of Lighthorse, named after General Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee of the white man's Revolution against King George.

Actually, the Cherokee police force dated to 1797, although they wouldn't begin calling themselves “Lighthorsemen” until the 1820s. Sixpersons figured, giving the lesser brains of the Creeks and Choctaws, those tribes naturally borrowed the “Lighthorse” name for their own tribal police. In 1844, the Cherokee National Council had made things official, by authorizing a Lighthorse company—a captain, lieutenant, and twenty-four policemen—empowered to arrest Cherokee fugitives. By 1874, the Cherokees had their own prison at the national capital in Tahlequah, but that was the year the white man's government in Washington City had consolidated the Indian agents for the Five Civilized Tribes.

Muskogee's Union Agency had become the headquarters—a slight to the superiority of the Cherokees and Tahlequah, Sixpersons knew in all his heart—and in 1880, Colonel John Q. Tufts, the Union Agency's Indian agent, had organized a new group of policemen. So Hashtula and Sixpersons moved from their Lighthorse police to the United States Indian Police.

Hashtula had his job with the U.S.I.P. Sixpersons also had his commission as a deputy marshal for Judge Parker's court.

“Muskogee,” Sixpersons said.

Hashtula nodded.

“Four men?” the Cherokee asked.

The Choctaw shrugged. “Five, six, ten?” He pointed toward the white men and Indians working at the salt stills and springs. “They don't know.”

“You find a trail?” Sixpersons asked.

Hashtula's head shook. “They're good.”

The trail ended at the salt works. McCoy, Maxwell, and what was left of their gang could be riding to Muskogee. Or west, deeper into Indian Territory. They might follow the Arkansas River on up into Kansas. More than likely, they would catch the first Katy train and jump off somewhere in Texas. Either way, once they were out of the Nations, they were out of Sixpersons' jurisdiction, which meant that he would go on to Muskogee, even though he clearly knew what he would find. Some white men—four, five, six, ten?—had sold their horses and tack at one of the city's livery stables and hadn't been seen since. Nobody would remember them at the depot, and maybe they would have taken separate trains. Certainly they would not have boarded the train together. But if Link McCoy and Zane Maxwell had sold their horses, that meant they had hurried south to Texas.

Judge Parker and the marshal would be disappointed, but until McCoy and Maxwell returned to the Nations, there wasn't anything Sixpersons could do. Against those bad men. Yet the white men in Fort Smith weren't all stupid. They had given Sixpersons plenty of other warrants. He would meet up with the posse at Eufaula and start hunting. Link McCoy and Zane Maxwell would have to wait.

For now.

Jeff White barged through the batwing doors of the Railroaders Saloon, stopped only long enough to see Link McCoy, and stormed over to the corner table where he nursed a beer alone. Uninvited, White pulled up a chair, sat heavily down, and slammed a newspaper on the table.

“Spell your name wrong, Jeff?” Sarcasm accented McCoy's voice.

“What this says is that the McCoy-Maxwell Gang made off with more 'n a thousand bucks!” He slid the paper angrily toward McCoy's beer stein. “You give me and Tulip jus' a hunnert.”

Ignoring the paper, McCoy picked up the stein, and sipped his beer. He waited for the barmaid to walk by, and when she stopped, and looked at White, McCoy said, “Bring him a whiskey. And you might as well bring me another pilsner, sweetie.”

With a smile, she hurried back to the bar.

Only then, did McCoy turn the
Morning Call & Telegraph
around and read the story on the front page. It didn't take long. Texas didn't really care much about what the McCoy-Maxwell Gang was doing in the Indian Nations or Arkansas, which was why the law pretty much left the gang alone in Denison and over in the Hell's Half Acre district of Fort Worth.

He counted two paragraphs and three typographical errors. Maybe four. “Wouldn't be the first time a newspaper has made a mistake. Or a bank official lied.”

“Wouldn't be the first time some smart dude has cheated me, neither,” Jeff White said. “And—” Dumb as he was, White was smart enough, savvy enough, and experienced enough to shut up when he heard the saloon gal coming up behind him.

She placed the shot glass and bottle in front of White, and the new beer beside McCoy, and took the empty stein and McCoy's greenback away.

Before White could say something else, McCoy cut him off, his voice a cold whisper. “Most of those boys we left dead in Arkansas and at the salt works had been riding with Zane and me a lot longer than you, White.” He let those words sink in.

“What are you sayin'?” White reached for the bottle. He didn't bother with the shot glass.

“Meaning I ain't knowed you long enough to miss you when you're gone.”

“If yer cheatin'—”

“Drink your whiskey. Take your bottle back to your room. Get drunk. And keep your mouth shut. The paper's wrong. We got four hundred bucks from that robbery. They probably hadn't found the gold-filled sack Clete McBee died for. Go on. The whiskey's on me.”

White swore, slammed the bottle on the table, and reached for the
Morning Call & Telegraph.

“Leave the newspaper,” McCoy said.

The outlaw cursed again, but obeyed.

McCoy made sure he left the saloon, watching him through the front window as he stormed across the boardwalk, crossed the muddy street, and made his way toward the hotel across the street.

Only then did McCoy sip his beer, then pick up the newspaper again. He wasn't vain. He didn't care about what the ink-slingers wrote about him or Zane Maxwell, and could care less if the newspapers reported he had stolen $400 or $4 million. But above the newspaper fold, and far more detailed, was another article.

That one, he read with interest.

Twenty hours on a Fort Worth–Denver City train was about as much as Millard Mann could stand, and when he stepped out of the coach onto the crowded Fort Worth depot, his clothes reeked of cigar smoke and sweat. The air around the cow town didn't make him feel any better, but he knew where to go.

The first man he saw was heading across the street toward the nearest saloon, and he didn't like it one whit when Millard Mann stopped him.

“Who was the yard boss when the southbound came in the other night?”

“How in the—” The railroader must've seen something in Mann's eyes that warned him. His tone changed quickly, and he took a couple steps back. “On the F.W. and D.C.?”

Mann's head nodded.

The railroader wet his lips. “Flannery Finn. Be my guess.”

“Where do I'd find Mr. Finn?”

The railroader shrugged. “If he ain't in jail or Boot Hill, try the café yonder.” He pointed.

“Thanks.” Carrying his grip and Winchester, Millard weaved through the porters, passengers, and greeters, stepped down the steps, and waited for an omnibus to pass before crossing the busy street toward the Iron Rail Café.

The place was packed, and the smell of greasy food and hot coffee reminded him of the last time he had eaten. But food could wait. He picked out Flannery Finn instantly, and moved quickly, turning sideways to avoid a petite blonde carrying plates of food, and squeezed between two seats at the counter. “Finn.”

He was a big, burly Irishman with red hair, a full beard, and a face pockmarked with scars. The man crushed out his cigarette in the runny yokes of what remained of his eggs, and turned. “Who wants to know?”

“Mann. Boss a crew in the Panhandle.”

“I boss the yard at Fort Worth. And I'm eatin' me breakfast.”

“You've finished eating,” Mann pointed out. The grip fell to the floor, and as Finn began to rise, the barrel of the Winchester found itself between two buttons on the center of the big brawler's chest.

The Irishman sank into the stool. A few diners nearby decided their stomachs were full, and left in a hurry.

Millard smiled. “My treat, by the way.” Holding the rifle with one hand, the stock braced against his hip, he fished a dime from his vest pocket and dropped it on the plate near the cigarette and leftover crumbs. He had fetched two coins from that pocket. The forefinger and thumb of his left hand held a Morgan dollar. “Information?”

Flannery Finn smiled. “Now what can I bloody well do for a kindly gentlemen like yeself?” His massive left hand came up, palm open, underneath the coin.

“Any riders on last night's southbound F.W. and D.C.?”

Finn understood the meaning was vagabond freeloaders. “Aye. There was one.”

Millard breathed a little easier, but did not lower the rifle. “Where might I find him?” His finger tightened on the trigger.

The big man's laugh boomed across the café. “I left the cur dog with Doc Gertrude. Across from the Donovan Brothers mercantile on Weatherford.”

Millard felt the blood rushing to his head, and he had to fight for control. Finn's eyes turned troubled, and the grin vanished.

Millard Mann spoke, though his words were quiet. “You . . . beat . . . up . . . a . . . teenaged . . . boy?”

Just about everyone in the café stopped eating. Most of them, including Flannery Finn, held their breath.

“Are ye off yer bloody rocker?” Finn pushed up his Irish cap. “A boy? 'Twas a man full grown. A brute named Clanton that I've warned ten thousand times not to let me catch him ridin' on our line's dime ag'in. He deserved ever' busted bone I give him, he done. Ask anyone in Fort Worth, and ye'll hear it true. Flannery Finn doesn't beat up children.”

“Be glad you didn't.” The coin dropped into the Irishman's ham-sized palm. Millard picked up his grip, and backed out of the café, never lowering the Winchester's barrel until he was out the door.

An hour later, Millard Mann sat on a bench in the shade at the depot, grip at his side, '73 Winchester across his lap.

He had found Clanton at the doctor's office above the bank next to the mercantile on Weatherford Street. He had given Millard the news . . . as best as he could with his jaw broken and teeth busted, plus four broken ribs and a fractured skull.

After Clanton finished his confession, Millard decided the hobo had been lucky. He would probably have killed the bum.

According to Clanton, James had boarded the boxcar at the water tank by Comanche Springs. They had gone maybe a mile or two before the boy leaped off. Clanton didn't say why, but Millard knew. The sorry cuss had probably tried to rob James of everything he had, which wouldn't have amounted to much—except for the Winchester '86 rifle.

A mile or two from the stop, and just a few miles from home. And there sat Millard, some three hundred miles south of McAdam. He prayed that the frightening experience with Clanton would have ended James's dreams of . . . of . . . of whatever he planned on doing and sent the boy back home.

Yet even as he closed his eyes and clasped his hands, even as he prayed his hardest to God, he knew James would not have gone home. He would have taken off.

But where?

“Reckon that twister blowed his carcass here?”

Spit. “Else he sprouted from all that thar rain.” Spit.

“Is he dead?”

“Shore oughta be.”

Instantly, James Mann came awake, realizing that those voices were not from a dream and that he wasn't dead. He fought to grip the Winchester, trying to find the lever, but slammed his head into something hard, which knocked him back down onto the cold, soft, soaking ground.

He remembered he had found shelter underneath a wagon out on the Llano Estacado.

As stars and blazes of orange and white and red circled around him, laughter rang louder than the sudden pounding in his head.

Forcing his vision to clear, James made himself lift his head and shoulders, and the rifle. Two figures squatted just ahead of him on the wet ground, between the two left wheels of the wagon. When he had stumbled onto the wagon during the fierce storm, he had thought the vehicle was some old abandoned relic from those wild and woolly days. The two figures told him otherwise.

Both wore buckskins and slouch hats still soaking wet from the rain. One had a full beard—thick, greasy, and silver—and no teeth. The other, much, much younger, had a mouth full of pearly whites and no beard, not even stubble. Just mud. His unkempt hair was the color of corn silk, his eyes a deep blue. The old man had only one eye.

James wished he would put a patch over that hole in his face.

“Careful with that cannon, bub,” the old man said, pointing a finger—or what was left of a finger, the pointer missing the first two joints—at the Winchester. “Barrel's clogged with mud. Pull that thar trigger, an' I expect she'll blows up in yer face.”

The younger one cleared his throat. “Iffen we wanted you dead, the devil 'd be introducin' hisself to you by now.”

Said the old man, “Name's Lamar. Wildcat Lamar. This here's me boy, Robin.” Slowly the old man rose, knees popping like gunfire, reaching for the front wheel to help him find his feet. His boots were caked with reddish mud. “Got coffee boilin'. Jerked venison and cold biscuits. Ain't much of a feast to celebrate survivin' that eternal storm of yesttiday, but it'll keep yer belly from rubbin' ag'in yer backbone.”

The younger one's blue eyes danced. “He's a right fair hand at cookin'.” Then he, too, started moving away from the wagon, boots splashing in the puddles that even the parched patch of land had not yet soaked in.

James rolled out from under the wagon. It was huge. Even the rear wheels stood over his head. The eight-feet-high wheels had to be six inches wide, and the tires had been double-rigged, to prolong their wear. Sixteen feet long, the wooden sides of the wagon stretched up at least ten feet, and although the big freight wagon had the bows for a canvas cover—like one of those old prairie schooners from the Oregon Trail days he had read about—the ribs were empty. It was no Conestoga, but bigger. Considering the lack of cover, whatever those two folks were carrying in the back, was soaked from the hail and rain.

“Help yerself to the grub.” Wildcat Lamar slurped some coffee from a tin cup. “Got a heavy load, so we ain't goin' nowheres till the ground dries a mite. Don't fancy gettin' stuck out here.”

James rubbed his head, shifted the rifle to his left hand, and looked up at the wagon. “You could fit a stagecoach in there,” he marveled.

“Two more 'n likely.” Lamar finished his coffee and tossed the cup to James.

He fumbled with it, dropped it, and knelt to pick it up, but not before making sure Robin Lamar wasn't ready to jump him.

After that incident in the Fort Worth–Denver City boxcar, James wasn't trusting anyone.

“Ain't got an extry cup to share,” Lamar said. “Didn't expect to have no comp'ny payin' us a visit.”

Robin moved around James, giving him a wide berth, and squatted beside his father. “How come you landed underneath our wagon?”

James scanned the countryside, puzzled.

The old man laughed. “Twister run off our oxen, iffen that's what yer lookin' fer.”

“It is,” James admitted, and moved toward the fire. The smell of coffee proved more than he could stand. He filled the cup, sipped some, and finally relaxed.

“How come you landed underneath our wagon?” Robin asked again. He piled two biscuits and some huge bits of jerky on a plate, and slid the plate across the slick grass toward James's boots.

“The twister dropped me here.” James smiled as their eyes widened. “I'm kidding.” The biscuits practically broke his teeth, and the jerky felt even harder.

He kept trying to make himself more presentable, but the ripped shirt and everything else about him made that impossible. Before long, nothing mattered. The coffee, even the tough food became his sole focus. He didn't speak further until he had cleaned the plate. Neither the old man or his boy spoke, either.

“I'm bound for Fort Smith,” James said at last.

Coughing, Robin spit out a mouthful of coffee, and his father leaned forward, mouth agape. “Afoot?” the old man roared.

The coffee tasted finer than even the chicory Ma brewed. But after all that time without food or anything other than hard water, anything would have tasted good. Well, maybe not the granite-like biscuits and jerky.

James lied. “Lost my horse a ways back.”

Old man Lamar seemed to accept that, nodding. “It'll happen. Lost yer way, eh?”

James eyed the man curiously.

Wildcat laughed and found a pouch that hung from the belt over his waist. He opened the piece of fringed leather and pulled out a twist of tobacco, from which he bit off a sizeable chunk and began softening the chaw with his gums. “Ye ain't followin' no knowed trail to Fort Smith,” he explained after a moment.

“Yesterday's storm,” James offered as an explanation.

Again, the old-timer took that lie as gospel, too, and looked at his son. “What you think, kid?”

Robin shrugged.

After spitting tobacco juice into the fire, Wildcat wiped his mouth with the back of his buckskinned sleeve, and nodded. “Ya can ride along with me and my boy.” He laughed. “We's bound for Fort Smith, ain't we, son?”

The kid rolled his eyes. “Eventually.” Robin sighed.

 

 

First, of course, they had to find the oxen—eight in all—that pulled that large wagon. The old man decided to break camp, sending Robin and James out after the beasts, hoping the animals had not strayed too far during the storm.

The sun dried out James's clothes quickly, but after an hour, James had his doubts. They had found only one animal, and it was dead. He and Robin spread out, trying to cover more ground, although he would have preferred sticking close, just for the conversation. Robin looked to be about James's age, slimmer, fairer, and with the worst haircut he had ever seen. Even the drunkard at the tonsorial parlor in McAdam, who only cut hair part-time (his main source of income being the postmaster, if that was a full-time affair in a place like McAdam), gave a better haircut that the one Robin Lamar had been given. It looked as if Wildcat had cut his son's hair with a knife, a dull knife at that.

Another ox had been killed, too. They saw the turkey buzzards circling before they found its carcass.

James begin to realize how lucky he was to be alive. “Did you see the twister?”

Robin stood just a few feet from him, the two of them looking down into an arroyo, still running with water, and what once had been a beast of burden.

“Heard it,” he said. “Storm come up on us so fast, didn't have time to find shelter or nothin'. We'd just turned the stock loose, and we leaped into the back of the wagon.” He looked away from the dead animal, and at James. “Didn't hear you when you come in, else we'd have invited you inside.” He grinned, a wonderful smile, full of life. “Don't want you a-thinkin' we ain't hospitable.”

James laughed. “I'm surprised the tornado didn't haul your wagon off.”

Robin shrugged, moving on, calling out the animals' names. “It's heavy enough,” he said after walking several rods, and then his head shook. “If any more of our oxen is kilt, we won't be haulin' nothin' nowhere.” That gave him a moment's pause. “Which might not be a bad thing.”

“What do you mean?” James had just caught up with the lad.

“Nothin'.” Robin changed the subject and pointed at James's ripped clothing. “I gots a shirt you can wear. Yer a mite bigger 'n me, so it might not fit that good, but it's better than what you's wearin'.” Without waiting for a reply, he started walking across the plains. “July! August! Where are you knuckleheads?”

By dusk, they had found July and August, November and March. They had been driven into another arroyo, miles south of where the Lamars had been forced to camp, and the narrow slit in the ground had likely saved those four oxen from joining April and October in death. Not bad graze down in the little cut, either. The four animals were obedient, and November took the lead, so that all Robin and James had to do was clap their hands and let out a whoop every now and then to keep the oxen moving. The other two beasts they never found. Robin said four would have to do.

“Too late to make much progress,” Wildcat said when they returned to camp. “Let the sun bake the ground some more.” He staked the animals a ways from camp and began to get the fire going again.

“Sorry about April and December, Mr. Lamar,” James said as he accepted the coffee the one-eyed man had poured. “And the two we just couldn't find.”

“October,” Wildcat corrected. “December was their ma. She got called to glory back in Missouri.”

“Right.” James sipped the brew. “October.”

“Four's enough,” Wildcat said. “They's good oxen. Can pull six tons, I'd bet, and we ain't haulin' that much—jus' enough to make our trip profitable. And them other two . . .” He gestured toward the flat expanse of land. “This country swallers things up, all the time.”

“What are you hauling, sir?” James stared at his cup. Anytime he looked at Wildcat Lamar, his eyes almost immediately locked on that hole where the man's right eye should be.

“Supplies.” The answer was curt and final.

“For Fort Smith?”

“We'll get there directly. We'll make some stops in West Cache Creek, Elm Springs, old Fort Holmes and some places.”

Those names meant nothing to James, but he nodded as if it all made sense to him.

The man kept on talking. “Sell some of our wares there. Good profit to be made in Indian Territory, but it can be dangersome. So I'm glad we got you and your Winchester cannon.”

Maybe that was why they had invited James to accompany them on their journey to Arkansas. They needed an extra gun for protection. James swallowed, and almost told Wildcat that he lacked any shells for the repeater. After all, they were decent enough to let him ride along with them. If fate hadn't led James to their wagon, he'd probably be feeding carrion like October and March. No, April. Yet something stopped him. He just couldn't trust these two merchants. Not yet. He didn't know why.

Wildcat spit juice into the fire, and continued. “Cross the Arkansas River again and pret' much jes foller it out of the Nations and to Fort Smith. Big town. Mighty fancy.”

James wanted to ask more questions, but didn't want to show them—especially Robin—just how green he was.

Robin told his father to fetch an extra shirt for their new companion.

James expected the supper to be unappetizing as the biscuits and jerky, but as dusk fell, Robin disappeared into the back of the wagon and came out with a double-barreled shotgun, toting the gun and a sack slung over his left shoulder. “I'll see if I can't rouse up a grouse or some pheasant.”

Relaxing, James eased his hand away from the rifle's lever, wondering what he would have done had Robin trained those long twelve-gauge barrels on him. Club him? Run? Beg for his life? Wet his britches?

The old gun's barrels were enormous, almost four feet long, but Robin seemed experienced holding such a huge weapon.

The shotgun belonged to another age, probably before the Civil War. It was a muzzleloader, the barrels, affixed to the stock by barrel keys surrounded by egg-shaped escutcheons of German silver, were dark brown and rough from a life of abuse.

“Got yer caps?” the old man asked.

Robin pulled a capper, full of the copper percussion caps, from the pocket of his vest.

“Birds.” The old man cursed and shook his head. “Well, maybe with James a-joinin' us with that big ol' Winchester of his 'n, we'll eat us some antelope or a mule deer afore too long.”

Suddenly, James frowned. The coffee didn't taste that good anymore, and he hated himself for fooling these good people. Even if he couldn't quite trust them completely.

 

 

He went to bed with his stomach full and wearing a new blue-checked collarless shirt, a little tight on him, especially after savoring the taste of sage hens. Robin proved a good shot with that old shotgun, and the old man could cook after all. Roasted sage hens, sourdough biscuits, and fine coffee. He felt as if he had been treated to a supper at the eating parlor in McAdam.

When he woke the next morning, he crawled out from underneath the wagon and found the Lamars hitching the team to the wagon.

“Hungry?” Wildcat asked.

“No, sir,” he answered honestly. “Not really.”