As I went clawing my way up the bank, Pappy said, “Keep down, son. We
don't want to tell them anything they don't already know.”
I raised my head carefully over the edge of the bank, the way Pappy
was doing. Sure enough, it was Hagan and four other men that I'd never
seen before. All of them were heeled up with guns. Hagan was the only
one not carrying a rifle in his saddle boot.
“Who are they?” I said.
“Jim Langly's men.”
I shot Pappy a glance. Langly was the marshal of Abilene.
I said, “I thought the marshal was a friend of yours.”
Pappy smiled that smile of his, but this time it seemed sadder than
usual. “That was a mistake I made,” he said quietly. “You never know
who your friends are until you get a price on your head.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don't know,” Pappy said slowly. “I haven't decided yet.”
We lay there for a long moment watching Hagan call one of the herders
over. The man pointed toward the creek, evidently in answer to a
question. The man went away, and Hagan called the four Langly men
together and talked for a minute. Then the men fanned out, taking up
positions inside the covered supply wagons.
“Well, that's about as clear as a man could want it,” Pappy said.
I felt myself tightening up. The rattle of the cotton-wood seemed
louder than it had a few minutes before. Smells were sharper. Even my
eyes were keener.
“That bastard,” I said. “That lousy bastard.”
“Hagan?”
“Who else?”
Pappy seemed to think it over carefully. “I guess we really can't
blame Hagan much,” he said. “Fifteen thousand is a lot of money for a
few minutes' work-especially if you don't have any idea how dangerous
work like that can be.” He paused for a minute. “But Jim Langly...
We've been good friends for years. This is a hell of a thing for Jim to
do.”
He still didn't sound mad, but more hurt than anything.
“What are you going to do?” I asked again.
After a long wait, Pappy said, “I think maybe we'll ride up the creek
a way, and then make for Abilene and talk to Jim.”
“You're not going to let Hagan get away with this, are you?” I was
suddenly hot inside. I had forgotten that last night I had promised
myself no more trouble.
“We can't buck four saddle guns,” Pappy said.
I knew he was right, but my hands ached to get at Hagan's throat. I
wanted to see that pink face of his turn red, and then blue, and then
purple. But I choked the feeling down and the effort left me empty. It
always has to be somebody, I thought. Now it's Hagan, and Langly. Why
can't they just let us alone?
Slowly, Pappy began sliding down the bank. His eyes looked tired and
very old.
We went upstream as quietly as we could, scattering drinking cattle
and horses, and once in a while coming upon a naked man lathering
himself with soap. We rode for maybe a mile in the creek bed, until we
were pretty sure that nobody in the Hagan camp could see us; then we
pulled out in open country and headed north.
Pappy rode stiffly in the saddle, not looking one way or the other.
After a while the hurt look went out of his eyes, and a kind of smoky
anger banked up like sullen thunderheads.
We left North Cottonwood behind; and I wondered vaguely how long it
would be before Hagan and his law-dogs would get tired of waiting in
those covered wagons and send somebody down to the creek to see what
had happened to us. Maybe they already had.
I tried to keep my mind blank. I tried to push Hagan and Langly out
of my brain, but they hung on and ate away at me like a rotting
disease. As we rode, the morning got to be afternoon and a dazzling
Kansas sun moved over to the west and beat at us like a blowtorch.
Gradually the monotony of silent march lulled me into a stupor, and I
found myself counting every thud as Red put a hoof down, and cussing
Bass Hagan with every breath.
Actually, it wasn't Hagan in particular that I was cursing, but
mankind in general. The thousands of greedy, money-loving bastards like
Hagan who were never satisfied to take care of their own business and
let it go at that. They were like a flock of vultures feeding on other
people's misery. They were like miserable coyotes sniffing around a
sick cow, waiting until the animal was too weak to fight back and then
pouncing and killing. I had enough hate for all the Hagans. The
thousands of them. All the bastards who wouldn't let us alone, who
insisted on getting themselves killed. And every time they insisted, it
put a bigger price on our heads.
I remember looking over at Pappy once and wondering if he had ever
thought of it that way. Pappy, who had never stolen a dime in his life,
who had never wanted to hurt anybody except when it was a matter of
life or death for himself—I wondered if he felt trapped the way I did,
if he could feel the net drawing a little tighter every time some
damned fool forced him to kill. If Pappy ever felt that way, he had
never talked about it. He wasn't much of a man with words. And then it
occurred to me that maybe that was the reason he was the kind of man he
was. Being unable to depend on words, maybe he had been forced to let
his guns do the talking.
Then, out of nowhere, Laurin came into my brain and cooled the heat
of anger and helpless frustration, the way it happened so many times.
When everything seemed lost, then Laurin would enter into my thoughts
and everything was all right again. I'll be coming back, I promised.
And I could almost see that hopeful, wide-eyed smile of hers. They
can't keep me away from you, I said silently. You're the only important
thing in my life. The only real thing. Everything's going to be all
right. You'll see.
I looked up suddenly and Pappy was giving me that curious look. I
felt my face warm. I had been speaking my thoughts out loud.
“Well?” I said.
“Nothing, son,” Pappy said soberly. “Not a thing.”
It was late in the afternoon when we finally sighted Abilene. The
noise, the bawling of cattle, the shrill screams of locomotive whistles
around the cattle pens, the fitful cloud of dust that surged over the
place like a restless shroud gave you an idea of what the town was like
long before you got close enough to be part of it. Over to the west we
could see new herds coming up from North Cottonwood, heading for the
dozen of giant cattle pens on the edge of town. Pappy and I circled the
cattle pens, and the combined noise of prodded steers and locomotives
and hoarsely shouting punchers was like something out of another world.
It was worse than a trail drive. It was like nothing I had ever seen
before. I had never seen a train before, and I kept looking back long
after we had passed the pens, watching the giant black engine with
white steam spurting in all directions, and the punchers jabbing the
frightened cattle with poles, forcing them through the loading gates
and into the slatted cattle cars.
Then we came into the town itself, which was mostly one long
street—Texas Street, they called it—of saloons and barbershops and
gambling parlors and dance halls. Some of the places were all four
wrapped in one, with extra facilities upstairs for the fancy women who
leaned out of the windows shouting at us as we rode by. The street was
a mill of humanity and animals and wagons and hacks of every kind I
ever saw, and a lot I had never seen before. Every man seemed to be
cursing, and every jackass braying, every wagon squeaking, and every
horse stomping. The whole place was a restless, surging pool of sound
and excitement that got hold of you like a fever.
So this was Pappy's town. I didn't know if I liked it or not, but I
didn't think I did. I didn't think the town would ever quiet down long
enough to let a person draw an easy breath and be a part of it.
I couldn't help wondering what Pappy was going to do, now that he was
here. Would he be
crazy
enough to walk up and kill the marshal
of a town like this? I couldn't believe that Pappy would try a thing
like that, not unless he knew he had some backing from somewhere. More
backing than I would be able to give him.
But his face didn't tell me anything. A few curious eyes watched us
as we pushed our way up the street, but most of the men were too intent
on their own personal brand of hell-raising to pay any attention to us.
At last Pappy pulled his big black in at the hitching rack near the
middle of the block. I pulled Red in, pushing to make room between a
bay and a roan.
We hitched and stepped up to the plank walk, but before we went into
the bar that Pappy was headed for, I said, “Pappy, don't you think this
is damn foolishness, trying to take the marshal of a place like this?”
He looked at me flatly. “You don't have to go with me, son. This is
just between Jim and me.”
“I'm not trying to get out of anything,” I said. “It just looks crazy
to me, that's all.”
Some men had stopped on the plank walk to look at us. Perhaps they
recognized Pappy, for they didn't loiter after Pappy had raked them
with that flat gaze of his.
“You go buy yourself some clothes,” Pappy said quietly. “I can take
care of this.”
He seemed to forget that I was there. He turned and pushed through
the batwings of a place called the Mule's Head Bar, going in quick in
that special way of his, and then stepping over with his back to the
wall. I didn't think about it, I just went in after him. Somehow,
Pappy's fights had got to be my fights. I hadn't forgotten the way he
had taken care of the cavalry for me that time at Daggert's cabin.
We stood there on either side of the door, Pappy sweeping the place
in one quick glance, taking in everything, missing nothing. “Well,
son,” he said, “as long as you've dealt yourself in, you might as well
watch my back for me.”
I said, “Sure, Pappy.” But it looked like it was going to be a job.
The saloon was a big place with long double bars, one on each side of
the building. There were trail hands two and three deep along the bars
seeing how fast they could spend their hard-earned cash, and the tables
in the middle of the floor were crowded with more trail hands, and
saloon girls, and slickers, and pimps, and just plain hardcases with
guns on both hips and maybe derringers in their vest pockets.
Down at the end of the bars there was a fish-eyed young man with
rubber fingers playing a tinny-sounding piano. The tune was “Dixie,”
and a dozen or so cowhands were ganged around singing: “Oh, have you
heard the latest news, Of Lincoln and his Kangaroos...” One of the
million versions of the tune born in the South during the war.
The gambling tables—faro, stud, draw, chuck-a-luck, seven-up, every
device ever dreamed up to get money without working for it—were back
in the rear of the place. That was what Pappy made for. I hung close to
the doors as Pappy wormed his way between the tables and chairs, trying
to keep my eyes on the gallery—I didn't intend to let a gallery fool
me again—and on the men with the most guns. Before Pappy had taken a
dozen steps, you could feel a change in the place. It wasn't much at
first. Maybe a man would be talking or laughing, then he'd look up and
see those awful, deadly eyes of Pappy's, and the talking or laughing
would suddenly be left hanging on the rafters. One after another was
affected that way, suddenly stricken with silence as Pappy moved by. By
the time he had reached the gambling part of the saloon, the place was
almost quiet.
I moved over to the bar on my left, keeping one eye on Pappy and the
other on the big bar mirror to see what was going on behind me. Most of
the men had turned away from the bar now, watching Pappy with puzzled
expressions on their faces, as if they couldn't understand how a
scrawny, haggard-looking man like that could draw so much attention.
Then mouths began to move and you could almost feel the electricity in
the place as the word passed along.
Somebody spoke to the man beside me. Automatically, the man turned to
me and hissed, “It's Pappy Garret! He's after somebody, sure's hell!”
The men around the piano sang: “Our silken banners wave on high; For
Southern homes, we'll fight and die.” Still to the tune of “Dixie.”
Their voices died out on the last word. The piano went on for a few
bars, but pretty soon it died out, too. All eyes seemed to be on Pappy.
I didn't have any trouble picking Jim Langly out of the crowd. His
eyes were wider, and his face was whiter, and he was having a harder
time of breathing than anybody else in the place. When he had looked up
from his poker hand and had seen Pappy coming toward him, he'd looked
as if he was seeing a ghost. And maybe he was, as far as he was
concerned. Maybe he'd figured that Pappy would be dead on a creek bank
by now, and all he had to do was wait for the reward money to come in
and think up ways to beat Hagan out of his share.
He started to get up, then thought better of it, and sat down again.
You could almost see him take hold of himself, force himself to be
calm. He laid his cards face down on the table, fanning them carefully.
“Why, hello, Pappy,” he said pleasantly.
He was a big, slack-faced man wearing the gambler's uniform of black
broadcloth and white ruffled shirt. He wasn't wearing side guns, but
there was a bulge under his left arm that looked about right for a .38
and a shoulder holster.
“Hello, Jim,” Pappy said quietly. “I guess you didn't expect to see
me coming in like this, did you?”
I thought I saw the marshal's face get a little whiter. “Nobody ever
knows when to expect Pappy Garret,” he smiled. One of his poker
partners wiped his face uncomfortably, gathered in his chips, and eased
away from the table. Langly pushed the empty chair out with his boot.
“Sit down, Pappy. It's been a long time.”
Pappy shook his head soberly. Carefully, I moved down the bar,
looking for a place where I could do the impossible of covering the
saloon with two guns. I saw that Langly was having trouble again
getting his words out.