Through the Shadows with O'Henry

CHAPTER VI. In the outlaws' country; acquittal of the assassins; a brother's rage; false accusation; the father's denunciation; refuge in the outlaw's camp.

Nearly every range on the prairies sheltered and winked at outlaw gangs. From peeler to highway-man was a short step.

Frank and I went down to the Spike S to hang up till after the trial.

John Harliss owned the ranch. The Snake Creek and the Arkansas river ran through his 100,000 acres. It was an ideal haunt for fugitives. Harliss was hospitable. The Conchorda Mountains, like tremendous black towers, formed a massive wall on one side. The cliff came down to the creek. On the near side of the water the land rolled out in a magnificent sweep of low hills and valleys.

Once across the Snake Creek to the mountain side, and capture was almost impossible. Dogwood, pecan trees, briar and cottonwood matted together and pread like a jungle growth up the mountain and there wasn't a marshal in the State would set a horse toward it.

It was across the Snake Creek and up the Conchorda that I made my last race against the law, years later.

I went cow-punching there; Frank went over to Pryor's Creek, 20 miles distant.

The branding pen was just at the edge of the timber on the near side of the creek. Harliss was not over-particular as to the ownership of the calves branded. His pen was well concealed.

One morning we were branding the cattle. Five men rode up, nodded to Harliss and began stripping off the meat from the carcass hanging in the trees. One of them came over to me.

"Reckon you don't remember me? Reckon you uster work on the Lazy Z for my father?"

He knew of the shooting in Las Cruces. He knew of my brother's murder. He knew I had a fast gun and a close mouth. He told me of a robbery that had been pulled off on the Sante Fe.

"Ain't much in range work," he ended. "Reckon you'll join us yet."

He was a shrewd prophet. Not more than a month later John Harliss was sitting on the porch of the ranch house. I was standing in the door. A nester rode up. We knew that something had happened.

The nester comes only to bring news. If there's one fellow in the world that loves gossip it's these puffy little farmers that nestle in the flats. It makes them big with importance.

John Harliss was a blond giant. He towered over the blustering nester.

"Ain't heard the news, hev ye?" Then he caught sight of me and added furtively. "They cleared the fellows that killed Jennings' brother."

Houston and Love free!

The thing I had been dreading and expecting for six months came now with a shock that sent a cold fury of resolution through me. I knew that I would have to do deliberately what I should have done in passion.

It was not blood-lust, but raging vindictiveness that spurred ire on the 75-mile ride to my father's house.

The hoofbeats stopping at his door aroused him. When he saw me, he stood as one petrified.

"Lo, your honor!" I put out my hand. He did not take it.

"What have you been doing?'" Never had I seen his eye so cold, so hostile. "What does this mean?" He reached into his pocket, took out a folded hand-bill and offered it for me to read.

"Reward for the apprehension of Al Jennings," it said, "wanted for the robbery of the Santa Fe Express."

I saw it in a moment. That was the work of Houston and Love. They would get me out of the way. They would save their cringing hides by another cowardly attack.

"I had nothing to do with it. I'm damn' sorry I didn't---" I hurled the words at my father. Anger caught me by the throat and was choking me. "Damned if I had anything to do with it. By hell, they'll pay for it."

"If you had nothing to do with it, give up and clear yourself. That's the way to make them pay."

One of those sudden shifts from command to appeal softened my father's face. "Do you want to bring disgrace on the name?" he asked.

"The name be damned and the law and everything connected with it. I hate it."

"If you don't come in and clear yourself, I'm finished with you."

"I can't clear myself," I told him. "The Harliss range harbors outlaws. I can't bring them in to prove an alibi for me. Harliss wasn't there at the time. If I did give up, I couldn't establish my innocence."

"Then you're guilty?"

Not in all the lawlessness of my early life, nor in all the frenzy of sorrow and revenge after the murder, had such a full tide of storming violence beaten down the discretion of my nature. If he distrusted me what had I to expect from enemies?

I went out from my father's house, lashed with a desperate, unappeasable fury. I wanted something to happen that once and for all would put me beyond the pale.

I slept out on the range and the next morning rode toward Arbeka. I had eaten nothing the day before. On the public road through the timber on the old trail west from Fort Smith was a little country store. I could have carried off nearly all its contents in my slicker.

Five men were lounging on the bench near the horse rack when I threw my bridle over the pole. Their horses were tied. I couldn't tell whether they were marshals or horse-thieves from the look of them. Whatever difference there is favors the horse-thief.

I bought some cheese and crackers. When I came out my horse was gone.

"Where's my horse?" The fellow felt the hot blast of anger in the challenge.

"Ran away," he answered.

"Ran?" I snapped at him. "Some of you fellows turned him loose."

In the glade about 200 yards distant, I saw my horse nibbling grass. I ran down, mounted and was just galloping off when a shot whizzed past, then a clash, a volley, and the next moment the horse lunged sideward and thumped to the ground, pinning my leg under him.

They were possemen out to get me on the holdup. They were five to one and they didn't even try to take me on the porch. They fired without calling for a surrender. It was better to get a suspected trainrobber dead than alive. The question of guilt and the surety of reward were then settled beyond dispute.

I pulled myself free, started firing like a madman, and saw two of them drop. I hid behind a tree, reloaded and went for the porch, shooting as I went. Two of them ran into the timber.

As I got to the store the fifth tumbled over into the brush. I ran inside, took up an ax and smashed the place to pieces. The owner crawled out from behind an empty cider barrel. I didn't care what I did. The viciousness of their attack infuriated me. I busted one at him as he crawled out the back door.

The drawer in the counter was open. There was $27.50 in it. I took it. I needed no money, but the theft filled me with happiness. I had taken a definite step. I was a criminal now. My choice was made. I was one with the outlaws. For the first time since Ed's death, I felt at peace. I knew that I would have a gang with me now to the end.

The big iron-gray horse that had stood undisturbed during the ruckus, I mounted and started back to the Harliss ranch. My foot was slipping up and down in my boot. I looked down.

The boot was filled with blood. One of the bullets had struck through the muscles above my ankle. I picked it out with my pen-knife and stuffed the hole with a puff-ball weed.

When I got to the range I did not stop at the house but made for the cover in the timber. As I came near a pang of fear shot through me. It was long past midnight, but they had a fire blazing. One of the men raised himself stealthily and glanced toward me.

He nodded.

The sudden elation at the store was dissipated. Should I go on? Could I rely on these men? I no longer felt at ease with them. Should I tell them what had happened? The silence of the fugitive is inbred. The reserve of the savage in his armor. Innocent, I had trusted the outlaws; guilty, I doubted their loyalty.

"Hello," Andy called.

"I'm coming over," I answered, guiding my horse into the deep stream.

"Want some coffee?" Jake asked. I was limping miserably. They asked no question.

"Looks like you got snagged," Bill offered.

"Got shot. They tried to kill me. Soaked my horse full of lead. They beat it. I robbed the damned store."

"Reckon you're with us."

Andy settled it.

They had a cozy camp hidden there in the lap of the mountains. An old wagon sheet, stretched between two poles, roofed the kitchen. Bill was making biscuits in the flour sack, shuffling up just enough dough and not wetting the rest.

I was lying on the ground at the fire. A man on horseback in the level at the edge of the creek had reined in and sat staring at me.

Andy nodded to him. He came over. It was Bob, the fourth man of the gang.

"It's O. K.," he said. "She stops at the tank."