Authors: Brett Cogburn

Panhandle (4 page)

BOOK: Panhandle

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“I'm keeping the paint.”

I threw a disgusted look at the paint, and headed out to rope Billy's horse out of the herd. I'd lost my personal saddle horse somewhere in our flight with the stolen herd, and was more than happy to take Dunny. He was as gentle and dependable as the day was long. Billy could have that flashy little pinto nag if he wanted him. He probably thought the horse matched his ivory-handled pistol.

“Who's going to help Whiskers drive that bunch?” I asked.

“That fellow looking over the creek bank pointing a shotgun at us,” Billy burst out, obviously enjoying my shock and growing discomfort.

Sure enough, after he pointed out the direction I could make out somebody looking at us over a cut-bank in the creek. He had been there all along, not ninety feet from us when we were at the fire. That would have made most folks nervous.

“Old Whiskers ain't too trusting,” I said.

“His name is Harvey.”

“I'll call him some other things once we get out of here. I don't like anybody pointing a gun at me, especially when I don't know they're there.”

We rode back to Harvey Whiskers' camp, and Billy was smiling like somebody holding a gun on him was the funniest thing in the world. I threw my saddle on Dunny, proud to have the little black dun, or what a lot of folks call a line-backed buckskin.

Harvey began pulling his saddle from the horse he was riding. “I think I might keep that sorrel for my own personal horse.”

“I bet you'll love him,” I replied.

I stepped up on Dunny, and Billy came up with a little canvas sack of grub that he handed up to me.

“Get up, Andy,” Billy hollered.

Andy didn't stir until I walked Dunny over the top of him. He sprang from the grass in one move. “That horse could have stepped on me!”

“Mount up.”

While Andy went out to get his horse, Billy handed me his Winchester, and shoved the Sharps in his own saddle boot. I took a latigo string from a bunch I carried on my back dee, and tied it to the saddle ring on the carbine. As soon as I'd hung it on my saddle horn, Harvey walked up and paid us the currency. Billy held the coins out in his palm to eye them appreciatively. Reaching down, I snatched a twenty-dollar gold piece and a few dollars more from the little pile in his hand, and pocketed them.

“Hey! We've gotta divide it evenly!” Billy cried.

“If you were an educated man you'd call that an eyeball-cut.” I laughed and started to turn away.

Harvey was saddling the sorrel, and he called out across the horse's back. “I'd say that wasn't much of an accurate split.”

“I'd say you'd better call in that man you got out yonder. I'm tired of my back feeling most too wide.” I wasn't feeling funny anymore.

I wasn't about to try and ride out of there with Whiskers' money, only to give it back to him after I was shot in the back. Common sense and experience made me wary, and with Billy along I would have thought nothing of bearding the devil in his den.

Harvey didn't argue any and waved his man on in. A big black fellow came walking up out of the creek with a long-barreled shotgun cradled in one huge elbow. That man was a giant, and must have stood half way past six feet. One of his legs was as big around as my chest. He wore a big-brimmed, straw sombrero, a rough calico cloth shirt, and a pair of patched overalls that ended about three-quarters the way down his calves.

“You want me to hitch up the mare, Mister Harvey?” The man's voice was deep, and slow.

Andy rode up just as that fellow spoke, and I thought he'd break a spring. “Where the hell did he come from?”

“Let's go.” Billy reached up and tucked some of the money into Andy's vest pocket.

Andy wasn't having any of it. His voice raised a notch higher, “Has that nigger been holding a gun on us all this time?”

I studied the black man standing there like a tree. He was as calm as can be, with that shotgun looking awfully little on his arm. A quiet man can be the one to watch in a fight, and despite his outward calm, I could tell he would scrap at the drop of a hat if Andy continued to push him.

“Let's go, Andy.” I tried to relate the seriousness of the situation in my voice.

“That nigger don't scare me none,” Andy sneered.

That black man's face might as well have been chiseled from stone, but I noticed his thumb ease up onto the hammer of his scattergun. I figured I'd have to shoot him, but by then it would probably be too late for Andy. That shotgun had two holes in the end of it big enough to stick your thumbs in. A double-barrel ten-gauge with full chokes at fifty feet can be a serious proposition. A man might miss, even with a shotgun, but who in their right minds would want to chance it?

Before things got too Western, Billy shoved his horse against Andy's. “Let's go.”

Andy didn't want to leave without a fight, but Billy spurred into him, and Andy's horse staggered, turning away from camp in order to regain its balance. Before he could turn back, Billy cut Andy's horse across the rump with his hat. That bay horse farted, gathered itself up, and took off in a runaway with Andy hauling back on his mouth to no avail.

Billy eyed the black man for a long moment. A second seems like an awful long time in a situation like that. Billy could be a little abrupt when it came to disagreements, and I resigned myself to whatever was about to happen.

“Was there enough grub in that sack to suit you?” Harvey's voice interrupted the staring match.

Harvey must have had more sense than I had thought to change the subject. Of course, there would come a time when I would rethink a lot of the things about people I had judged in my past, some of them sooner rather than later.

“It'll do,” Billy said to Harvey, but he was still looking at the black man.

Billy wasn't one to pick a fight, but I knew he wouldn't let anybody think they had run him off. We had been in the act of leaving when Harvey called up his man, but that didn't keep Billy from taking the time to roll a cigarette and study the weather for a bit. That black man hadn't said a word to us, or threatened with his gun. Still, the calm, massive presence of him challenged us, and Billy seemed to feel it most.

“I wonder if Andy has gotten his horse stopped yet?” Billy finally asked me.

He turned the paint and we took our own sweet time riding away from camp, as if there wasn't a gun at our backs. Andy was long gone, obviously unable to turn his cold-jawed pony. Once we reached the crest of a big hill we struck a lope to catch up to him, and I turned in the saddle for one more look back. Harvey had gone to saddling the sorrel we had sold him, but that black man stood in the same spot like he was rooted there. He appeared determined to watch us until we were out of sight.

About half a mile over the hill, Andy loped back to meet us. “You'd no call to do that, Billy. No nigger ever backed me down.”

Andy was just about as mad at Billy as he was at that black man. However, he worshipped Billy too much to want to shoot himâor kill him anyway. While the two of them jawed back and forth, I happened to look to our east. About two miles off I could see a long plume of dust worming its way toward Harvey's camp.

“You two look yonder. I think that's those Cheyenne fogging it up our trail.” I didn't wait for a response. I just stuck the spurs to Dunny and headed west.

Billy and Andy didn't take long in following suit. We ran that way for about a mile, and then hit some canyon country and slowed to a long trot. We stopped just off the edge of a big canyon, looking back the way we had come, and listening for sounds of a fight. There were no gunshots, and the wind was blowing too hard to hear anything else.

“I wonder what that nigger thinks about a bunch of mad Cheyenne?” Andy was obviously pleased.

“I hope that old man is a talker,” I said.

“I hope they give him a chance to talk,” Billy replied.

“He was a crafty sort, and if he does squirm his way out, those Cheyenne can read sign.”

“You always look at the bright side, Nate.” Billy shook his head at me.

“I'm still kicking, and I intend to be tomorrow.”

I made sure to keep my eye on our back trail as we circled south. An old frontiersman once told me that the best way to stay in some semblance of good health in Indian country was to always keep your eyes upon the skyline, and never sleep beside your fire. Maybe I was just a natural-born worrier, but I had no confidence in my luck or fate to favor me with fortune.

“I'm too busy having fun to worry.” Nothing could faze Andy. “We'll have a time in Mobeetie come tomorrow, won't we, boys?”

“Hell yes, let's ride! There's whiskey, gambling, and a good-hearted whore waiting on me!” Billy hollered, and raced off.

Both of them were soon riding beside each other, laughing about the time they were going to have, and the trouble they might get into. Before long I was feeling it too, and my worries were slowly left behind along with what little good sense I had. Sometimes all a man needs to forget his cares is a little recreation, and a dose of harmless misdemeanor. Yes sir, high times were coming to old Mobeetie. It was good sport, and damned the consequences when you rode with Billy Champion.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

T
here are moments when the world seems to sleep, and time passes with absolute perfection. Those times are fragile, and are to be observed in stillness.

The day after our horse trade, we camped in a draw south of the Canadian River. It was a quiet place, with a small cottonwood and hackberry grove shading a little spring that slowly seeped down to the river. We tossed our saddles on a sandy flat at the bottom, and picketed our horses close to hand. Each one of us lay down, and although it was only late afternoon, we slept like dead men until the next morning.

I awoke first, rolling out of my bed just as the sun was rising. I walked up out of the draw, and looked upon the plains falling away to the south.

In that light, at that moment, the world was a different place, and I was small upon the face of it. The shortgrass glowed golden yellow in that light. The slightest of breezes rolled the grass away from me, flowing away in rows, like ripples in the water, growing ever outward until they were out of sight. That wind swept away before me, quick and elusive, but with a sweetness that lingered.

You can't capture moments like that in memory, much less describe them with accuracy to anyone else. You only recall bits and piecesâlittle boxes of precious perfection that come back to you with the purest clarity, even many years later. They were things like the feel of a horse, the sound of cattle bawling out of the dust, or the smell of a certain woman floating in your head.
God, how they could linger.

And then the moment was gone, or rather, I was gone from the moment. The world moved on and left me, and I was large upon its face again.

I walked back to camp to find Billy and Andy lying on their blankets, smoking and telling tall tales. They both looked at me curiously, for I must have seemed too quiet. My mind was bad to take hold of things, like a dog worrying a bone.

“Where ya been?” Andy asked.

“Looking.”

“At what?”

“I don't know for certain.”

“What?”

I watched him scratch his tangled blond mane, his brow wrinkled in irritated puzzlement. I hunkered over our little fire, my hands spread over its flame. It wasn't cold, but several days of being a little chilled had worn on me, and the fire felt good.

“I was just looking at the horizon. It's a beautiful morning.” I was anxious to end the conversation.

“Nate, you beat all! I think you're a little addled.”

“Let up, Andy. He's just educated, that's all. Educated folks have got a different way about them,” Billy stated in a matter-of-fact way.

“Well, I went all the way to the fourth grade! Even if that was off and on a little, you could say I graduated,” Andy said. “And I don't talk funny like he does, even after all my schooling.”

“Nate there is a Kentucky gent. He went to fancy schools, and danced at them fancy parties. He slept in a feather bed in a big, white house, the whole bit. Didn't you, Nate?”

“It wasn't quite like that.”

Billy knew a little about me, or what I'd let him know. My folks were considered big people back there. They weren't rich, just affluent in their own little world. They had a lot of land in cultivation, a big house, and some fine horses, but not enough for a second son.

My parents did see to it that I had a fair education for the time. After my stint in a little country schoolhouse, I spent two years at a college in Virginia. Returning home, I was given a small stake, my inheritance, and a merry send-off to get me started on my course in life. My oldest brother got the farm, as was his right. My sisters could marry their way to fortune, and knowing them, they would.

Me, I lit out for the West to see the sights, and I hadn't stayed in one place too long since. I made my way to Texas, and hooked up with a trail herd of horses headed to San Antonio. I went with a Blocker herd of steers north to the railroad at Wichita. From there I made my way into Nebraska following another herd, and soon drifted into Colorado, where I spent two years on a ranch there. Most of my work was taking delivery of Texas herds, and driving them one bunch at a time for sale to the miners in the mountains west of there.

I had eventually made my way back south, and wintered in the Cherokee Strip, riding the grubline from camp to camp to keep from starving. I'd met Billy there, and went with him that spring on the long drive from deep in South Texas to deliver Jay's trail herd.

Basically, I spent years in the saddle learning a trade. And in that time, I learned how those conquistadors must have felt when they came riding across that country astride those fine Barb horses, with lances in their hands, and their eyes hungry for gold. The elevated feeling of the
caballero
, the gentlemen on horseback, made even the smallest man look down on those who were lowly enough to walk on their own two legs. I was no gentleman, but I'd be damned if I'd ever do anything again that couldn't be done from the back of a horse.

I remember my grandpappy never drank but one kind of liquor. I asked him once why he didn't ever try anything else. He told me he couldn't imagine liking anything better than what he already drank, and I guess I was like that too. I had found what suited me and I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

The country was big and open to the sky, and made a man feel either awful large, or awful small, depending upon the grit in his craw. It brought out the pride in a man, blew him up, and seemed to raise to the surface the core of his character, both the good and the bad. I think it was the freedom that did that. We had endless space to ride in, game for the taking, and too little law to keep us all from going half wild. A man could be as good, or bad, as he felt big enough to be, but the country had a knack for taking a man's measure, and trying him on for size.

“My stomach's rubbing my backbone raw,” Andy whined.

He reached out from his bed, and grabbed at the grub sack. I felt the same way, but didn't say so. He could do the cooking himself.

“You worried about those Cheyenne?” Billy asked.

“After a week in Mobeetie, I might not worry about them anymore,” I said.

“If I didn't know you better I'd say you were scared of those reservation warriors,” Andy jabbed at me.

“You've got the Injun fighter's name.”

I watched him trying to find a witty reply. I cut him off before he could say a thing, and motioned toward the fire. “Why don't you go get us some chips? These damned cottonwood limbs are green and will hardly burn at all.”

Grumbling something under his breath, he dumped our groceries on the ground, and took off from camp carrying the sack. He was back before too long with an impressive pile of cowpatties.

“How far did you have to go to find a dry one?” Billy asked.

“Wind's already dried most of them out.” Andy pointed to his gathering as evidence.

“Keep the fire small so it doesn't smoke too much,” I said.

Studiously ignoring me, Andy fed the fire like he was stoking the boiler on a highball train. “I need a hot fire to cook on, and anyhow, Nate, I figure it is a question of bravery. Does it take a braver man to face scalping, or a slow death from starvation?”

“Hell, I'm hungry myself. I saw a chunk of side-meat in that sack,” Billy said.

We were cleaning up the last of the bacon, and sipping coffee boiled in a fruit can, when Andy jumped to his feet. “Lookee there what comes!”

We all looked back down the draw, and watched that big black man come up to us. He was riding the sorrel we'd traded Harvey, and that shotgun was still in his arm.

He pulled up in front of us. “Got a bite to spare?”

Lo and behold, Billy invited him to step down. Billy and I, and that black fellow, sat down around the fire, and left Andy standing there with a dumbstruck look on his face.

I figured Andy would make trouble. He wasn't necessarily a hothead, but I think he was bound to show Billy how tough he was. Despite that, he continued to stand there for a bit, looking awkward and unsure. I think he was a little awed standing up close to our visitor. Andy could climb on a man-killing horse, run breakneck over a prairie dog town, or race beside a stampede in the black of night, and never bat an eye. But I don't think he'd ever seen the likes of that black man.

“All we have left is coffee.” Billy motioned to our improvised coffeepot.

“That'll do,” the black man said.

He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a battered tin cup. After pouring himself a cupful, he hunkered back on his heels, apparently unaware that Andy still stood above and behind him.

“That was a good trick you boys pulled.”

“We thought so.” Andy's courage was returning. Even a giant didn't faze him for long.

The black man seemed not to even know Andy was there. “My name is Tom Freeman.”

“What about Harvey?” I asked.

“Those Indians were on us quick. Harvey lit out for the plum thicket along the creek. Me, I rolled under the cart, and they just went on by. They'd spotted Harvey and were hot and heavy after him. While they were hooting and hollering and searching the thicket, I jumped on the sorrel and lit out before they took the time to notice there were two of us.” Freeman's big hands cut the air sharply, as he described the action.

“You probably led those Injuns right to us.” Andy squatted beside Billy, with his bony wrists dangling between his knees

“I didn't owe that old crook anything, so I left him,” Freeman paused and then added, “If those Indians didn't get him, the Lord will some day. You boys don't know what an old he-coon you pulled that stunt on.”

“We just sold him some horses,” Billy said.

“You didn't make out so bad yourself.” Andy jabbed a finger at the sorrel Freeman rode up onâthe sorrel with Harvey's saddle on it.

“That man owed me more than that horse yonder.”

Billy removed his hat, and began to idly turn the brim in his hands. “What'd he owe you?”

“Fifteen gallons of whiskey.”

“Where the hell did you get that much whiskey?” The mention of liquor seemed to embolden Andy a little more.

“I made it.”

“Is that what you did where you come from?” Billy asked.

“I made the best whiskey in the Nations, and that's saying a lot.”

“Reckon that's sure some recommendation in your line of work. Is that where you hale from?”

“Yeah, down in Choctaw country. Had me a good operation there. Had some land and a Choctaw woman.”

“Parker's boys run you out?”

“I just got tired of their stealing. âConfiscations,' they called it. They never arrested me, just got so they'd steal my whole batch.”

“Seems like you might have made good whiskey if they thought so highly of it.”

“I made some.”

“What about your woman?”

“She was worse than those deputies. I might have shot me a few of those old boys, but that woman was something else. Me and her squared off one day, me with this shotgun, and her with a cast-iron skillet. It was touch and go there for a moment. I decided it was too chancy of a thing to try her, and left the country.”

Billy, as usual, seemed to be enjoying the moment. I figured Tom Freeman would keep his attention for a while. Billy often claimed that entertainment was where you found it. That entertainment was generally in the form of the eccentric characters Billy seemed to draw to him.

Billy studied Freeman with obvious pleasure, like a kid with a puppy. “Now, if you had a bottle of your whiskey we could take the measure of it.”

“Yeah?” Freeman seemed to be enjoying Billy just as much.

“Well, you claim to be an expert in the field of whiskey-making, and we claim to be equally skilled in whiskey-tasting.” Billy motioned around the fire.

“Seems like almost everybody claims to be a sampler.” Freeman's manner was as equally grave as Billy's.

Billy jabbed his thumb my way. “Yes, but most folks don't have a Tennessee boy in their midst. This long-legged jasper here is a bonified Tennessee gentleman, and he claims that there ain't any whiskey except Tennessee whiskey.”

You would have thought Billy was selling a horse.

Freeman eyed me for a long moment, as if inspecting me to see if he thought I matched my pedigree. “I've known a few of you boys in my time. Don't know nothing but coon hounds, sipping whiskey, and fighting.”

He rose and headed for his horse, returning shortly with a bottle of whiskey. He pitched it to me. “Let the expert begin.”

“I ain't from Tennessee, I'm from Kentucky.”

BOOK: Panhandle

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