Panhandle (31 page)
Authors: Brett Cogburn
“They've both surrendered, Cap.” I stood over Billy with my gun.
Cap's pale blue eyes studied Billy lying in the doorway. “He ain't going to forgive you for that.”
He didn't have to tell me the ramifications of what I'd done. I knew that from watching Billy's face as he managed, despite his throbbing head, to stand and prop himself against the doorjamb. The look he gave me was as simple as it was murderous, and had he a gun then he would have tried to kill me. His eyes left me and locked on to something across the street. There stood Barby holding Samuel in her arms, with Owen staring big-eyed from behind her skirt. Billy cussed under his breath, and I knew that even if I'd had a chance of his accepting the buffaloing I'd given him, he'd never forgive me for Barby and the kids seeing him that way.
I studied Barby where she stood and tried to interpret the look she was giving me for what it actually was. Maybe her perspective of the matter was closer to the truth, because I had no faith in my ability to find my way through the tangled mess that fate had woven for all of us.
“That's all right, Cap. I don't sleep easy anyway.” And that was the bitter truth.
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either Billy nor Andy ever threatened me while in jail or on the long ride to Clarendon, but neither acknowledged my presence with so much as a single word. I rode silent sentinel on the edges of their escort, shunned by the men who had once been my good friends. Once or twice I caught Billy looking at me, and his stare was a cold, hard thing. I cursed him for a pigheaded fool who couldn't tell friend from foe.
either Billy nor Andy ever threatened me while in jail or on the long ride to Clarendon, but neither acknowledged my presence with so much as a single word. I rode silent sentinel on the edges of their escort, shunned by the men who had once been my good friends. Once or twice I caught Billy looking at me, and his stare was a cold, hard thing. I cursed him for a pigheaded fool who couldn't tell friend from foe.
We arrived in Clarendon to find that a mob of the rough element from Tascosa and Mobeetie had beaten us to town. They were burning effigies of the county officials, and threatening to tear the town down around our ears. There was a bit of high tension until Goodnight showed up with a crew of his cowboys just in the nick of time. They parked a wagon full of rifles along the main street, and stood around the entire day within handy reach of them while the rustlers, pimps, and murderers decided how far they were willing to take things toward a fight.
That bunch wasn't there so much to rescue fellow criminals as they were to have one last go at stopping the law from coming into the Panhandle. If law and order were allowed to take a hold, their merry refuge far from legal constraints would be no more. I was proud that Billy showed no pleasure in the presence of that crowd, although he knew many of them just as well as I did.
We had just enough firepower that the toughs kept their peace, and a jury was convened to hear what was scheduled on the docket. My belief that Billy's case would be quickly dismissed was ill-founded, and the jury ruled him and Andy guilty of a list of charges a country mile long. The evidence against them was strong on hearsay and weak on evidence, but the jury and prosecutor didn't seem to care. In fact, that was why they stamped them guilty for so many things. The common belief of those gathered to watch the trial was that any decent lawyer could beat the charges, but Billy and Andy would be in and out of court for five years in the process.
I thought Billy would tell the entire court what he thought about them, but he never even said anything other than to quietly answer the questions asked of him as he took his turn on the stand. He denied everything they accused him of, but he might as well have been yelling into a well for all the good it did him. It looked as if Billy and Andy were bound for a long stay in jail, or high bond, and years of lawyer fees. There was no denying that I had brought them to that point.
Through legal shenanigans that only lawyers can understand, a deal was negotiated whereby Billy and Andy agreed to leave Texas if the state would drop all charges. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but they had no other options with so much set against them. Sometime during the night they rode off bound for parts elsewhere, and the court said hallelujahs that justice held sway in the Panhandle.
The next morning I handed Cap my badge, and told him I was done with enforcing the law. He knew that I wasn't cut out for it anyhow, and he gave me no argument as I went upon my way. I stopped in Mobeetie long enough to hitch my team of mules to the wagon, and load up the wife and kids. We made our way to the home place and settled back into life away from town, and badges, and crooked courts.
Despite drought, blizzard, and uncertain market, I talked Long into partnering with me. We bought out a rancher I knew who wanted to recoup a little of the fortune he had lost. We made the deal at a bargain price with a market panic going on, and though the few brands on his books didn't amount to much in numbers, I felt once again on my way to building the ranch I'd hoped for.
We had another addition to the family when Fawn gave Long a pretty baby daughter, and at about the same time Barby informed me that she was pregnant again. With the population of our little settlement booming I couldn't help but wonder what the country would be like by the time all of our children were grown.
I helped Long put in a quarter section of wheat along the creek, although I couldn't see myself farming no matter how Long preached about the future in it. I was content to work our cattle, or build improvements on the ranch. Between the toil and labor I found time to spend with my family in those little moments that don't seem to matter much while they're happening. On hot summer days at dinnertime we would often take a picnic on the banks of the creek, where I swam under the hot sun with Owen riding on my back while Barby watched with happy eyes.
Sometimes in the evenings, after Barby had read or sung the kids to sleep, we would walk out across the prairie under the night sky, hand in hand like two young sweethearts. I came to know beyond all doubts that she loved me, and if possible I loved her more.
Those were good times, and to all intent and purpose, I looked as if I'd found peace away from the worries of the world. But in the back of my mind was the constant certainty that Billy would come calling one day when I least expected it. More than one person had heard him threaten to kill me in the year since the trial. When a strange sound startled me in the dark, I couldn't help it that my heart jumped beat and my hand reached for the pistol that I made sure never to be without.
I never told my concerns to Barby, and if she came to the same conclusion on her own, she never let it show. If maybe she hugged me a little tighter, or kissed me a little longer when I left for a trip, I accepted it as a sign of how much she loved me, and let it go at that.
And when on that day I saw Cap Arrington loping his horse to me across the plains, I knew just about what he had come to tell me when he was still a mile away. He took his sweet time crossing the creek, cutting for sign along the sandy banks and scanning the area carefully. He made his way up to the corner of the corral, where I was forking hay to my horses. From the sweat and dust caked on his tired mount, I took it that he had come a long ways to see me, and fast.
“Are you craving some of Barby's biscuits, or did you just miss me?” I jabbed my pitchfork into the hay pile and leaned against the top rail of the fence.
“No, I've come on another matter altogether.” It was plain to see he was in no mood for small talk. In fact, he looked plumb wary.
“Get down and visit awhile.”
“No thanks.” He continued surveying my homestead, starting close to the house and working his gaze all the way to the horizon.
“Did you come all the way from Mobeetie just to sit your horse in my yard?”
“I don't suppose you've seen Billy, have you?”
“No.” I suspected he already knew the answer to that before he asked.
“Well, he ain't in New Mexico like everybody says.”
“You can't believe half of what you hear.”
“I rode into Mobeetie yesterday evening and he had just left there.”
“You think he's headed here?”
“That's the rumor.”
“I don't need you playing nursemaid to me.”
Cap grunted once in disagreement and chewed at his mustache. “There's some that say it was Billy that shot up that track-laying crew's locomotive east of Oneida last week.”
“Where the hell is Oneida?”
“Little spot down on Wild Horse Lake that the land promoters have staked out. The LX cowboys got talked into voting it the Potter County seat, and those promoters say it's going to be a boom town.” Cap scowled as if he didn't believe such talk was anything more than snake oil salesmen pitching foolishness. “A man told me that there's already half a hundred people there. He said the tracks are still a week away and they're already thinking about changing the name to Amarillo before it's even a town proper.”
“Well, Billy never did like the thought of railroads coming here, nor farmers either, but I doubt he'd shoot up a train, even if he was on a little Saturday night spree,” I said.
Cap paused just long enough to give the country around him another careful look. “There are also those that say it was him that ran off with some of the Bar CC's horses last winter.”
“The Stock Association outlawed him, and that gives every gossip that wants to an excuse to lay every head of stolen Association stock off on him.”
“You don't believe it?”
“He ain't the rustling kind.”
“But he's got it out for the Association, doesn't he?”
“I wouldn't put it past him, pestering them a bit.”
“I've got some other bad news.” Cap's face didn't change expression, but he was the kind that could tell somebody he was going to hang them in the same voice he asked about the weather.
“Oh?”
“Andy was killed a little over a week ago. Some promoter hauled in an outlaw horse to Dodge, and offered a fifty-dollar bounty to anybody who could ride him.” Cap shifted his weight in his saddle and rubbed at his achy hipbones with both palms. “They say the damned thing reared up and fell over on him.”
I watched the wind roll the dust across the yard while I thought of Andy trying to ride a bad horse on a whim. He always claimed he could ride anything with hair, and I knew without being told he'd been laughing when he'd climbed into the saddle one last time. The world had become a little tamer when all the mad, vibrant life of him rushed out from his lungs, crushed between horse and ground. I missed him already.
“A man never knows when his time is near.”
Cap raised one bushy eyebrow at me. “I've felt Old Death circling around me a time or two.”
“You'd best get down. It's just about time for supper.”
“No, I'll be riding on. It's a long ride back to Mobeetie.”
“Why are you so bound and determined to catch Billy?”
Cap seemed to give that some thought for a spell. “I guess you could say he bothers me.”
When Cap rode away that evening, I watched until he was out of sight, and then saddled a horse and took down my Winchester from its pegs above our door. Owen was playing in the middle of the room, with little Samuel studying his every move. I roughhoused around with them for a bit, and told them to mind their mama while I was gone. And maybe I risked a little lie when I hugged Barby and asked her to keep my supper warm.
No silly premonition or casting of the bones led me down to wait for Billy at the creek crossing below the house. I knew he was coming for me just as plain as I could tell when a rain was brewing by watching black clouds building overhead. I felt no sense of doom, but I dreaded what I was sure would come.
I was sitting on a cottonwood log when he rode into view just at dusk. As he wound his way down the slope to the crossing I saw he wasn't alone. I couldn't make out the other rider in the failing light, and my hand slipped back the hammer of my gun. Two against one didn't seem to me the way Billy would want it, but no matter, I was determined to beat the odds.
My plan was to stop him on the far side of the crossing, and with the creek between us we could say what needed said and settle what was between us. I was no match for him with a pistol, and a rifle fight in the growing dark was as good as I was likely to get. While I waited I tried to determine just how things ended up like they were, and I had come to no satisfactory conclusion when Billy rode down to the edge of the water and stopped.
“Is that you, Nate?” he asked of the night.
Out of the dark shade of the cottonwoods I stepped to the edge of the creek bank, where the moonlight lit the water, and I cast a long shadow on its sheen. I stared across that universe of stars floating there at the vague shadow of Billy that could have been my twin for all appearances of the night. The other rider with him stopped back in the brush, and I studied hard to see him there. The dull stomp of his horse's hooves, and a hint of shadowed movement in the dark told me where he was.
Maybe whoever it was would sit this one out, and leave it as should be, between just us two friends.
“Hello, Billy.”
“I've come a long way to see you,” he said, and I didn't doubt that he had.
His horse bobbed its head down for a drink and my tight-strung nerves had me too much on edge. My rifle sprang to my shoulder at the quick movement, and I tensed myself for the bullet I was sure he had already sent on its way. I stared down the long glint of my worn rifle barrel willing myself to hold steady, and knowing that I had already hesitated perhaps longer than I should have. Billy seemed as still as death, and I held on to the faint hope he would just ride away and leave things as they were.
“Hold up there,” a voice shouted from the night, and I knew it was Cap Arrington calling out from ambush.
Billy's pistol flamed and cracked twice followed by the dull boom of a shotgun from somewhere down the creek. I watched as he reeled in the saddle, and then another round of buckshot knocked him to the ground. His horse charged over the crossing and passed so close by me that his shoulder brushed against me in the dark. I could feel the wild, hot sweat of him on my arm while I stared across the water at Billy lying there.
I waded the shallows to where he lay in the sand, already certain I would find him dead. He was on his back with both eyes open to the sky above and one hand upon his riddled chest. There was no sign of what force had left him lying peaceful there, for blood is not even so much as a shadow in the dark. I studied him there in his silent repose, and I knew he had nothing left to say to me forever and ever anymore.
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