Boz holstered the last of three pistols he carried on his belt, slid his shotgun out of its bindings, breeched the big popper, and examined both heavy loads. “True enough,” he said. “Don’t recall ever havin’ to take a man down what kilt four people with a double-bit ax.” He snapped the weapon shut with a loud metallic pop and laid it across his saddle for death-dealing handiness.
“Talked with Hardy Forrest ’fore we rode out of Fort Worth, Boz. He’s the Ranger what found them poor boys. Said it was the worst mess he’d ever seen in all his days of investigatin’ murders.” Followed my partner’s lead and checked my sawed-off blaster as well.
“Yeah. I spoke with Hardy too. Man told me as how it looked like someone slaughtered half a dozen hogs in that shack. Even found bloody flesh, teeth, hair, and an eyeball or three stuck on the ceiling. Glad I didn’t have to see any of it.”
My friend’s rendition of Ranger Forrest’s assessment of Dolphus Twiggens’s murderous efforts drew a cold, wordless shroud over our conversation. Noticed hardened lines at the corners of Boz’s eyes. Detected an involuntary twitch near the edge of a cracked lip.
He lifted his animal’s reins, gently brought Mexican spurs against its flanks, and said, “Well, let’s ease on down and corral the evil son of a bitch. Gonna give me more’n a little pleasure watchin’ him hang for what he went and done.”
“Think he’ll fight, Boz?”
He shook his head and urged Sunset forward. “Doubt it, but ain’t no way to know for certain sure. Near as I’ve been able to tell, the man never hurt a fly up till the day he chopped up all them poor folks. Personally, never even knew of him to carry a gun. But you cain’t ever tell what any man’s gonna do when confronted with the possibility of his own mortality at the end of a rope. Guess we’ll damned sure see how dangerous ole Twiggens is in a few minutes.”
We moseyed down the gentle, grass-covered slope, and drew our animals up near one end of the cabin’s dilapidated porch. Stopped behind a stack of firewood decorated with a heavy growth of thick moss. Got settled and Boz yelled out, “Dolphus Twiggens. This is Ranger Boz Tatum. You know why I’m here. Bring your murderous self outside—right now.”
Something huge and heavy moved behind the shack’s thin walls. Door cracked open on dried-out leather hinges that complained under the weight of unpainted wood. Brought my shotgun up and propped the butt against an aching leg. Thickly bearded man, the size of a Concord coach, stepped onto the creaking plank porch and turned, kind of sideways, toward us—half in and half out of the entryway. Whole building appeared to tip up and sag his direction.
Under my breath, and out of the corner of my mouth, I whispered, “Sweet jumpin’ Jesus, Boz. That’s the biggest human being I’ve ever seen. No one bothered to mention ole Dolphus might have some grizzly bear in his family tree.”
“He’s a big ’un all right. Must be a six-and-a-half-footer. Bet he weighs upward of three hundred pounds. But far as I’ve ever heard, big ole boy’s sweet-natured as a well-fed house cat—long as he ain’t had nothin’ to drink.”
Creature on the porch eyeballed us for a spell before he finally spoke. Dark, bushy brows knotted over a flat nose when he growled, “Ain’t goin’ back with you ’uns, Ranger Tatum. Them folks in town will hang me fer what I went and done. Sure as death, taxes, and Texas.”
My partner shook his head. Sounded almost sympathetic when he said, “You gotta come with us, Dolphus. No way around it. We’ll take you to Fort Worth. See you get a fair trial. Can’t promise what’ll happen after that.”
Twiggens’s fur-covered chin dropped to his slab-sized chest. He swayed back and forth like some kind of massive puppy dog, puzzled over a newly discovered scorpion.
Surprised the hell out of me when Boz said, “Will you let us come a bit closer? Never cared to spend my time yellin’ at anyone.”
Twiggens pawed the tangled mess of hair on his head, then scratched at the front of a ragged shirt. “Don’t make me no difference where ’bouts you sit, Tatum. Come on over, if’n that’s what you boys want.”
Boz clucked at Sunset, urged the hay burner around the pile of stove wood and up to the edge of the porch. I followed, but immediately felt uneasy about the less than ten feet that separated us from the object of our nearly two-week search. Didn’t appear to matter how we approached. The bulky giant kept his right side turned away from us, and kind of danced, from foot to foot, in a childlike fidget.
“Ain’t goin’ back. Don’t matter what you say. Done made up my mind. Them fellers I kilt deserved what they got. Wouldn’t’ve chopped ’em up lessen they went and done something what warranted it. Bastards cheated me.”
Thought to continue my partner’s method and reason with the murderous skunk. “We don’t care why you killed ’em. You can tell your story to Judge Pedigrew in Fort Worth, Twiggens. He’s a good man and puts on a fair trial,” I said.
My partner raised a quieting hand as if to motion me into silence. Given the gift of time and hindsight, guess I should have kept my mouth shut. What little I could see of Twiggens’s face behind his shovel-sized beard flushed up. Deep-set eyes almost crossed and went all wild-looking.
“Done tole you more’n once, goddammit. I ain’t a-goin’ back, by God,” the creature growled. “You fellers both deef, stupid, or somethin’?”
Boz moved his soothing hand up as though to shush our angry killer. “Don’t go and get yourself all riled up now, Dolphus,” he said.
“You go straight to a burning Hell, Tatum. Done made up my mind. Git riled up any damned time I feel the urge, by God. Ain’t lettin’ no man string me up to a crossbeam and watch me mess my pants in front of a bunch of whiskey-saturated Saturday afternoon gawkers. You boys is gonna have to kill me right here.”
And then, Sweet Merciful Jesus, before I could blink twice, that monstrous son of a bitch snatched up a double-bit ax from behind the doorframe, let out a screeching yelp that brought a branded panther to mind, took two steps, jumped, and flew at us like some kind of gigantic bird. Flapped his arms like he actually thought he could fly. Swear to God, his face turned into a skeletal mask that looked exactly like Death’s very own self. Lord have mercy, scared the burning, sulfurous hell out of me.
In mid-flight, he brought that ax down right in the middle of Sunset’s head. Poor beast’s skull split like a ripe melon. Blood sprayed in forty directions at the same instant. Splattered all over me, Boz, and everything within fifteen feet of where we sat them animals. Horse never made a sound. Dropped like a felled tree with Twiggens on top, clawing his way toward my stunned friend, who had gone and got tangled up in his stirrups.
All the screaming, jumping, and blood caused Grizz to crow-hop sideways. He humped up, bucked, and deposited me on the porch. Flimsy, near-rotten, rough-cut boards collapsed when I landed. Went through on my back and hit hard. Cloud of dust and splinters fell all over me. Then the poor crazed beast headed any place away from the brutally bloody action. Took some seconds to scramble out of the pile of busted-up timber and rusted nails.
Finally staggered to unsteady feet, just in time to see that Twiggens had Boz by the throat and held him in the air like a child’s corn-shuck doll. He rattled ole Boz, from head to foot, as easy as any whiskey slinger waves a wet bar rag at spilled booze on a busy Saturday night in Hell’s Half Acre.
Figured out right quick my shotgun was about as worthless as a nail without a hammer. Would’ve killed both of them had I fired. Pitched the sawed-off aside, and pulled two pistols about the time Boz fumbled around and managed to get a grip on his short-barreled belly gun. He brought it up between the two of them and pushed the muzzle against his attacker’s breastbone.
Barely heard the muffled blast from the Colt when it went off. Two shots knocked Twiggens backward and forced his fingers from around Boz’s neck. Both slugs came out of the big man’s back in separate wads of tissue, bone, and a vaporous cloud of bloody spray.
My friend’s brutal method had the desired effect. Ole Dolphus dropped to his knees, coughed, spit, and clawed at his throat like he had a fistful of cockleburs stuck somewhere behind raw tonsils and couldn’t cough them up.
He knee-walked a step or two, landed on his perforated back like an anvil dropped from Heaven. Stunned the hell out of me when he did a rubber ball and bounced right back up on wobbly legs like nothing had happened. Grabbed at the two holes in his chest, and let out a shriek that made my eyes water.
Then, I swear before Jesus, he bent over and puked gouts of blood, bone, and everything he’d eaten in a week. Straightened up, and shot a murderous glance my direction. Stumbled toward me with one arm out like a blind drunk searching for a hidden bottle of Old Spider Killer. Tripped over poor Sunset’s gore-drenched neck, fell, and hopped up again. A blood-saturated hand the size of a camp skillet covered holes in his chest that oozed and bubbled a crimson froth.
Have to admit, I found myself in something of a state of flabbergastedness. Hell, I’d never witnessed anything to match it. Stood like a tree rooted since the beginning of recorded time. Couldn’t believe a man as dead as the twice-shot Dolphus Twiggens could still suck air and move around. But by God he could, and headed for me with the look of death on an ashen skull of a face and murder in his flat black eyes.
Must have finally come back to myself when he was almost on top of me. Would wager I ripped off half a dozen shots fast as I could thumb them. Got him dead center with every single one of those bullets, but he kept coming. Dead man stumbled one final step, and fell on me like a downtown Dallas brick bank building. Damn near crushed the life out of me—right on the spot.
Not sure how long I laid there and tried to push that gushing three-hundred-pound corpse off. Couldn’t breathe worth a bucket of cold spit. Then, of a sudden, the weight rolled away, and Boz jerked me up by the collar. Helped me over to the porch and made me sit. Slapped me on the back till I thought my eyes would pop out. Had me bend over at the waist and take in as much air as I could. Got all my innards started back up again.
Then he stomped over to the corpse and went to talking to it. “Hope you like the way everything turned out, you crazy bastard. Just couldn’t go peaceable, could you? Just had to fight. Made up your feeble-assed mind not to get hung. Settled on gettin’ shot all to hell and gone. And on top of everything else, you killed my horse, you son of a bitch.”
For a few seconds I went to thinking as how maybe my friend and mentor had completely lost his mind. He finally did come back around to something like sanity. But that was only after he’d pulled his hip pistol and plugged ole Dolphus three more times. Said it was just to make sure, you know.
Suppose the worst part of the whole affair was the burying of that monster. Found some rusted shovels in the corral. Took both of us the better part of half a day to dig a hole big enough for his moose-sized corpse.
Had to run Grizz down. Looped a rope around Twiggens’s feet, and dragged him into the grave. Otherwise, we never would have got him underground.
Boz threw the last shovelful of dirt on the grave, ripped his hat off, held it over his heart. Thought, Jesus, is he going to offer up a prayer for ole Dolphus?
He got right thoughtful-looking and said, “Dear sweet God, please don’t let this son of a bitch get up again. I’m tired of shootin’ ’im. Amen.”
Took both of us a spell to get over the events of that fateful afternoon. Just nothing like blood, gore, and a near-death experience to send a man to his prayers at night. Had absolutely no doubt in my mind that I’d seen the true face of Death that day for real and awful. Had to mention it when I spoke with God that night.
’Course those feelings only stayed with me for about two months. That’s when me and Boz rode into a pissant-sized town named Salt Valley in search of a spot to lock Buster Caldwell up for a spell. Salt Valley’s where I
truly
saw Death for the very first time. Soul-stealing bastard crept up on me unawares, as it were. He’s snaky like that, you know. Get to you when you least expect it. I’ve never forgotten what he looks like, or the black-haired angel a benevolent God sent to save me from his icy clutches.
1
“WHO CARES ’BOUT DIRTY-LEGGED WHORES?”
BUSTER CALDWELL, A cowboy from down San Antone way, got liquored up over in Hell’s Half Acre one night, and decided he couldn’t live another second without the attentions of a ruby-lipped, fancy woman. Hoofed it over to Mattie Osborn’s parlor house on Rusk Street, and picked a cute little buck-toothed gal named Goldie Starr for the ride. Fellers called her Goldie ’cause one of them squirrel-like teeth of hers was as gold as could be and sparkled like a star in the night sky when she smiled.
Stories, rumors, and outright lies followed his deadly visit. Truth is, no one knows for sure exactly what happened after Buster closed the door to Goldie’s room. But about twenty minutes into their whoop-and-holler session, that horny brush popper went crazier than a feather mattress full of bedbugs. For reasons beyond all human understanding, he pulled a nine-inch bowie knife and damned nigh sawed that poor girl’s head clean off.
Folks swore you could hear little Goldie scream bloody murder a quarter of a mile away and above all the racket typical of a Saturday night in the Acre. Leastways till he sliced through her windpipe, that is. One man I talked with, who was waiting his turn out in the parlor, tried to help the murdered girl. He testified as how the only thing that kept the corpse’s head attached to its body was the neck bone.
Captain Wag Culpepper called me and my partner, Boz Tatum, into Company B’s headquarters tent the following morning, shook his stubby finger in our faces, and said, “It’s bad enough that every other cowpunchin’ leather pounder between here and the Rio Grande counts himself as a badman and looks to prove it at the first opportunity. Sons of bitches will fight each other with guns, knives, barrel staves, fence posts, and whiskey bottles at the drop of a palm-leaf sombrero. Now we’ve got a woman killer runnin’ loose. Poor workin’ girls have a miserable enough time makin’ a livin’ as it is. Women shouldn’t have to worry about being brutally cut into several different gruesome pieces by one of their idiot clients.”