The Desperado

Chapter 9

THE NEXT MORNING was hot and hazy with dust from ten thousand stamping cattle scattering as far as you could see in any direction. There wasn't anything for Pappy and me to do. Hagan's regular riders were taking care of the herd and remuda, and guarding the wagons. I thought: It seems crazy as hell for Hagan to pay good money for riders he doesn't need. Unless, of course, he was figuring to get his money back, and some more with it. I watched Pappy plundering around in one of the supply wagons, and after a while he climbed down with a towel over his shoulder and a bar of soap in his hand.

“I figure we might as well wash up,” he said with a thin grin, “as long as there doesn't seem to be any work for us to do.”

I said, “Don't you think one of us better keep watch?” We still hadn't mentioned Hagan, but he was never far out of our minds.

Pappy shrugged. “We can watch from the creek. Maybe we've just got a case of the jumps. Anyway, we need a bath. We can't ride into Abilene looking like a pair of saddle tramps.”

Pappy was the careful one; if he thought it was all right, then it was all right. We went down to the remuda herd and cut out Red and Pappy's big black and got them saddled. The creek was only about a hundred yards back of our wagons, but a horseman never walks anywhere if he can ride.

We left the horses down by the water, and I took my place under a rattling cottonwood while Pappy bathed first. Nothing happened that I could see. I had a clear view of the herd and wagons, and everything was going on as usual. Behind me, I could hear Pappy splashing around and grunting at the shock of cold water. After a while he climbed up the bank where I was, wearing his new serge pants and clean shirt. But he didn't look much different, with that scraggly crop of whiskers still on his face.

“No sign of Hagan yet?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Go on and take your bath,” he said, handing me the wet bar of yellow lye soap. “I'll let you know if we've got company.”

I peeled off my clothes and waded out knee deep in the bitter cold water. I didn't have a change of clothes. That was something else I forgot to bring from John's City, along with a slicker. Well, I had over thirty dollars in my pocket. That would buy me some clothes in Abilene —providing nobody got too set on keeping us out of Abilene.

In the meantime, I washed the clothes I had, lathering them with the lye soap, then weighting them down to the bottom of the stream with a rock while I washed myself. I was grimy from top to bottom, not just my hands and feet and face, like it used to be on Saturday nights when Ma put the big wooden washtub in the kitchen and filled it for me and Pa. I scrubbed hard, using sand on my elbows and knees when the soap wouldn't do the job. I didn't feel naked until I got all the dirt off. After I had finished, I felt like I must have polluted the stream for ten miles down.

After I had sloshed my clothes around to get the soap out, wrung them out and hung them on a bush to dry, I went downstream to take care of Red. He wasn't as dirty as I had been, but I rinsed off some caked mud on his legs and rubbed him down and he looked better.

“You about finished down there, son?” Pappy called.

“Sure,” I said. “I was just sprucing Red up a little.”

“You better get your clothes on,” Pappy said with a mildness that still deceived me sometimes. “It looks like we're going to have company, after all.”

I stiffened in the cold water. Then I splashed over to the edge and went over to the bush where my clothes were. They weren't dry, but they weren't as wet as they had been the night of the rain—the night I had killed Buck Creyton. I put them on the way they were, stuffed my feet in my boots, and buckled on the .44's.

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 becrazy 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.

“What can I do for you, Pappy? Is there any trouble?”

“Maybe, Jim,” Pappy murmured.

Marshal Langly wiped his face with a neat, clean handkerchief. “What is it, Pappy? What do you want?”

“I came to kill you,” Pappy said softly.

The words were soft, but they hit Langly like a sledge. You could hear the wind go out of him, see his guts leak out. He groped for words, but there weren't any there.

“That's the way it goes with men like us, Jim. You tried to kill me and failed. A man only gets one chance in this business.”

“Pappy, what the hell's wrong with you? I don't know what you're talking about!”

“Sure you do, Jim,” Pappy went on in that velvety voice of his. “Hagan, our trail boss, came to you yesterday with a proposition. A profitable proposition for you, Jim —maybe fifteen thousand dollars, if you could figure out a way to keep Hagan from getting his split of the reward.”

“How could I do anything to you, Pappy? Hell, I've been here all day playing draw.”

“But not your deputies,” Pappy said. “They're right on the job. The job you put them on.”

The saloon seemed to be holding its breath. I glanced at faces around me. There were quizzical half-smiles on most of them, as if they thought it was all some kind of a big joke. I turned back to Pappy. I couldn't take my eyes off of him.

For a long moment he was silent, motionless. Langly was frozen. Then Pappy said, “You might as well draw, Jim.”

The marshal's mouth worked. “Pappy, for God's sake!”

“I'll give you time to clear leather,” Pappy went on, “before I make a move. That ought to make it about even.”

“Pappy, listen to me!” The marshal was begging now, begging for his life. “Pappy, for God's sake, I had nothing to do with it!”

“I'll count to three,” Pappy went on, as if he hadn't heard. Then something hard jabbed me in the small of the back.

I jumped, grunted instinctively. Pappy stiffened, but he didn't turn around. “What's the matter, son?” he asked quietly.

I had to tell him.

“Somebody's got a gun in my back,” I said. “I'm sorry, Pappy. I guess I'll never learn.”