C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
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NINE
M
y second son was born that winter, and we named him Samuel Houston Reynolds, a fine Texas name if ever there was one. To all appearances he seemed a healthy baby boy, but by the time he was two weeks old a fever and a cough racked his little body. With his condition rapidly worsening, we raced him to Mobeetie in the middle of the night. The doctor there helped us save him, but he was as weak and fragile as fall leaves before the wind.
We were too afraid to get far from the doctor, and I rented us a little house above the Sweetwater for the time being. The child's convalescence drug out longer than I had planned, and spring came with little improvement in his lungs. The winter had cost me too many cattle, and the hot, dry summer that followed just about finished off my hopes of building a herd. I had never liked bouncing along on the seat of a freight wagon cussing at a team of mules for my living. The fear of returning home from one of my long trips to find Samuel dead kept me home so long that we were soon scraping the bottom of the money barrel.
I was loafing in the Pink Pussycat Saloon when a chance at a new occupation called on me. Cap Arrington walked up to me and plainly and simply asked me to go to work as his deputy, for no other reason than he thought I'd performed well in our apprehension of those two bandits a couple of years before. I had always scoffed at the law, but the thought at least merited consideration.
I guess I drove a hard bargain, because he offered me sixty dollars a month, half to be paid by the Association, and 5 percent of his cut of fees, fines, etc. I'd never wanted to be a lawman, but to me, anything beat hauling freight. Cap had to say no more to get his man, and I was ready to start my new profession.
Like me, Cap may have been receiving bonus pay from the Association, but I found him a fair man, even if a little bullheaded in his sense of justice. I didn't consider myself a tough man, and was content to follow his lead and learn the trade. Despite Barby's worries, I didn't get shot those first couple of months, and in fact, did nothing much that could be considered dangerous.
Most of the time Cap seemed content to keep me as his presence around Mobeetie while he rode the countryside sniffing out cattle rustlers, and horse thieves. Other than lending the city marshal a hand in quieting some drunk, I stood little chance of being shot except on those occasions when Cap got a lead on the whereabouts of some wanted man, and called me out to help in the chase. Most of those leads didn't pan out, and my education into handling desperados was slow to say the least.
Along about August, Cap got me out of bed in the middle of the night. I followed him out a ways into the sand hills in my bare feet and drawers, and found a posse holding horses in the dark.
“How long since you've seen Billy?” Cap asked me, and I could tell he wasn't sure if I'd tell him or not.
“I haven't seen him in more than a month. Archie's crew has been around, but Billy hasn't made the rounds here for a while.”
I knew Cap would eventually get around to telling me whatever was on his mind; it was just a matter of patient waiting.
“Do you know he killed Colonel Andrews a week ago over in Tascosa?”
I merely nodded that I knew, and let it go at that. The cowboy rumor express was faster than the telegraph at times, and I'd gotten the details secondhand not three days after it had happened.
“You don't want him for that, do you?” I asked.
“No. The officials over that way ruled it self-defense, and I daresay I envy Billy some. I would have liked to have caught that man myself.”
I saw more justice in Billy putting a bullet in the gambler than I did in Cap catching him for the courts. The regular law had come to the Panhandle, and Cap couldn't get away with hanging bandits on a whim anymore.
“The grand jury down at Clarendon has indicted Billy and your other friend Andy on charges of cattle theft,” Cap said.
“Billy's no rustler.”
“We've got word from a stock detective that he is,” Cap tossed back at me.
“What detective?”
“Dale Martin.”
“Hell, that schoolteacher is the worst stock thief in the entire country, and everybody knows it.”
“I guess he reformed. The Association puts a lot of faith in his work.” Cap sounded like he knew how little confidence I had in the Association.
“I'll agree that he's caught a few rustlers, but that was probably just to cover up his own thieving.”
“You don't have to come with us. In fact it would probably be best if you didn't,” Cap offered.
I weighed my options cautiously, and found no easy answers. On one hand I knew Billy wouldn't take this lightly, and wanted to be around to see that he didn't get himself shot by the posse. On the other hand I didn't know if I could bring myself to ride with a party willing to arrest Billy on false charges.
“Best thing you can do is just send word for Billy to come turn himself in. Give him time to get over the urge to fight, and he'll show up soon enough to call us all liars.”
Cap shook his head in disagreement. “No, I've got an idea where he and Andy are, and I'm going to have them in Clarendon for the coming session of court in Donley County.”
“I don't blame you if you fire me, but I won't have any part of this.”
Cap seemed to have the answer he expected, and mounted his horse to go.
“I figured you wouldn't go, and I can't say as I don't respect you for it. I just hope he's worth your trouble.”
“I know him better than most.”
He started to ride off with his men, but stopped his horse broadside to me, and paused to ponder what he was about to say. “I know more than enough to judge that I might have to shoot him to bring him in.”
“He won't fight you if you give him time to think it over.”
“Like I said, I know him better than you think.”
Something about his tone of voice made me believe him, and a cold shiver of premonition ran down my spine.
“I trust I know you well enough that you won't try and warn him,” he said as he rode off into the night.
I walked back to the house with a bad feeling in my bones. Billy was hell on wheels with a pistol in his hand and his color up, but Cap didn't take any chances. If he wanted you he would wait in ambush with leveled rifles, and if you decided to make a fight of it you would end up riding home tied belly down on your saddle.
The word was Billy was drinking more than usual, and folks said once he got word of Colonel Andrew's presence in Tascosa, he hunted him down like a mangy coyote. I knew that the whiskey had nothing to do with it. When Billy found the colonel in the street, he put a bullet in him because he aimed to set things right. I saw nothing but justice in his action, and liked to think I would do the same to a man who'd stolen from me if I had the chance. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself of the fact that Billy was no different from me, I knew better.
Billy was a bad man to tangle with, but not a bad man in the usual sense of the word. Maybe we of that time just gave that distinction to some men in the way of taking up for our friends. I thought Billy was a good man for the most part, but I knew that he had a streak of something that separated him from most of his fellow men. Those like me might talk tough, but it was easy for us to hesitate when it came time to pull the trigger. Billy's kind never hesitated, and were marked as deep as branded Cain with a willingness to do violence. They have a well-defined limit to the amount of insult they will bear, and are weighed down by no more conscience for their antagonists than a rattler when it strikes.
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Cap Arrington and his posse beat the sagebrush for a week in search of Billy and Andy, but didn't get so much as a whiff of their scent. One fine, bright Sunday morning at the end of that same week I was walking with Barby and the children upon the sandy path to church. I should have been shocked when I spotted no other than Billy himself enter the Lady Gay saloon, but on the other hand, I should have expected no less audacity from the man. Barby had seen him too, and I felt her hold on my arm tighten. I knew she wanted me to pretend I had seen no such thing as passed before our eyes.
Before I'd taken two more steps, I saw another thing that concerned me even more. Cap Arrington's gray horse was tethered in front of the courthouse, standing alongside several others that I was sure belonged to the rest of the posse. In my mind there was but one thing to do before Cap got wind that Billy was in town. I made Barby promise me she would take the kids on to church while I went to talk to Billy.
“Be careful, Nathan. He's a proud man.” She clung to me, not wanting to let go.
“I know something about foolish pride.” I kissed her and gently sent her on her way.
I just made it to the front door of the saloon when Cap and three men toting rifles started down the steps of the courthouse. I stopped just long enough to make sure they were headed my way, and then ducked inside. Billy was standing at the far end of the bar, and he smiled thinly at the badge pinned to my shirt.
The length of the room was between us, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Andy sitting at a corner table with a Winchester hidden in his lap. Nothing much usually bothered Andy, but it was obvious he was fretting. I would have been nervous too had I been in his shoes with Billy calling the play.
“Never thought I'd see you wearing a badge,” Billy bantered as easily as if he were swapping lies on a spit-and-whittle bench.
“Cap's coming, and he's got three guns to back him.” I had no time for small talk, and felt fate gave me little time to maneuver.
“I see him coming.” He gazed out over my shoulder and through the saloon's front window.
“Turn yourself in, and we'll prove it all a lie.” I tried to sound as level and calm as I wanted to appear.
“I'm more of a mind to show them that I'm tired of being picked at.”
“Arrington's got you outnumbered.”
“How do you figure in the count?” Billy stepped by me to the door.
“I won't let them shoot you down, if I can help it.” I followed him across the room.
Andy rose and slipped along the wall to take a stand at the window just out of sight from the street. He was wiping sweaty hands on his shirt front, and his bottom lip was clenched in his teeth. I knew Andy, and no matter how scared he was, he would follow Billy straight to hell, and do his part in the clutch. He was nothing if not reckless, and that is always a thing to be reckoned with.
Billy was standing just to the side of the open door watching Arrington make his way down the street. Billy noticed just like I did that two of the posse had disappeared, and he cast a quick look over his shoulder at the back entrance to the room.
“Where do you stand, Nate? It's time to pay the fiddler.” Billy's eyes gave me no room to waiver. “Throw down that badge, and we'll give old Cap a dose of humility.”
He knew without me answering that I wasn't going to stand with him, and he turned his back on me to watch the street once more.
“You'd better get home to your wife. It's fixing to get touchy here,” Billy said as he slipped his pistol from his holster.
In Billy's mind he'd dismissed my presence, and his thoughts turned solely to the task at hand. I could see Cap and the deputy only twenty yards away and coming nearer. Watching Billy with his pistol hanging at the end of his arm, I knew that it was only seconds before he stepped into the doorway and opened up on the lawmen who thought they had him treed.
My gun came to my hand and I took two quick steps toward the door just as Billy turned halfway around to face me. The impact of my pistol barrel against his head shocked me to my elbow, and Billy folded up on the floor, slobbering and squirming in semi-conscious pain. I whirled to face Andy, who stood with rifle leveled on my guts and a wild, shocked look on his face.
“They would have killed him,” I said loudly to him.
For a moment I wasn't sure if Andy was going to shoot me or not, and tried everything I could to talk him down.
“Drop your rifle, and we can beat this thing in court.”
“He was your friend, Tennessee.” There was as much confusion as there was anger in his voice.
“That's why I did it.”
My pistol felt slick in my sweaty palm, and I wondered if Andy was the joker in the deck I hadn't taken account of. I sighed with a gush of relief when he laid his Winchester upon a table and slumped limply into a nearby chair.
“You better not have killed him,” he threatened.
Looking down at Billy groaning on the floor, I had no doubts his wound was too far from his heart to kill him. I kicked his pistol across the room and stepped to meet Cap just outside the door.