Forty Times a Killer Read online

  I changed the subject. “Wes, I want to go on the cattle drive.”

  He stared at me, the imp of amusement in his eyes. “Little Bit, how the hell would you make Abilene? If things go bad, it could take three mighty hard months to get there.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” It was boastful talk coming from a skinny pipsqueak with a bad leg and eyes too big for his little pale face.

  And John Wesley knew it. “You figure to ride herd, Little Bit? Maybe bring up the drag on a half-broke pony with the wherewithal of a cougar that would like nothing better than to break your damned fool neck?”

  Desperate, I lied in my teeth. “Gip said I could be the assistant cook’s assistant.”

  “Gip said that?”

  “Sure did,” I said, blinking.

  “You’d carry water and firewood on a gimpy leg?”

  “I’d surely like to give it a try.” Then I told another lie. “I’m stronger than I look.”

  Wes considered that for a while, then said, “Little Bit, we can’t nurse a man who doesn’t pull his weight, not when we’re driving sixteen hundred head of wild steers up the Chisholm. If you fall behind, we’ll leave you.”

  “I won’t fall behind.”

  “Apaches, bears, thirst, hunger . . . that’s what you’ll face if you can’t keep up with the herd,” Wes said. “Best you stay here and make plans for the Wild West show and draw up them business documents that Sam Luck needs.”

  “Wes, you’re my friend, and you’re ramrodding the drive. I want to go with the herd. Don’t let me down.”

  Wes sighed. “All right, Little Bit, you can help the cook. But don’t expect any special favors from me. You drop out, you’ll be on your own.”

  “Thank you, Wes. I won’t let you down.”

  John Wesley crossed the floor, picked up my leg brace and tossed it on the bed. “Then get the hell up,” he said, unsmiling. “You’ve laid there too long.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Murder on the Canadian

  We didn’t own the cows we were to drive north. John Wesley and the Clements boys made the gather for three fellers by the names of Jake Johnson, Columbus Carroll, and Crawford “Doc” Burnett. They weren’t cattlemen either, but were contracted by ranchers to supply the drovers needed to drive their herds to Kansas and the railheads.

  Back in those days, none of the Texas cattlemen could afford to hire their own cowboys, so they left it to the contactors to sign up out of work punchers, men on the scout looking to get away from the law, and any dancehall lounger, porch percher, or footpad willing to fork a bronc for eighty cents a day.

  Being a lowly assistant of the cook’s assistant, I got twenty-five cents, but was allowed to ride in the Studebaker chuck wagon that was invented by good ol’ Charlie Goodnight.

  The cook was an irritable, abrasive man, as they all were, but since a ten-pound cannonball had run away with his right leg at Gettysburg he took a liking to me, probably because we were both gimps.

  His assistant was a stove-up cowboy named Lou. He was a few years past middle age, had a long, sad face and an alarming habit of, at the drop of a hat, shedding sudden tears for the woman he’d loved and lost years before. Her name was Sarah, but he imparted no further information, though I often pumped him for more.

  John Wesley took a dislike to him, declaring that shedding tears for a woman wasn’t manly. It was unbecoming of a Texan.

  As for me, Lou never asked me to do too much by way of hauling water and firewood, so I liked him just fine.

  At the end of February 1871, Columbus Carroll and Jake Johnson pushed north for Abilene with sixteen hundred beeves. Wes was in charge of a second herd of the same size that left a week later.

  Wes and Jim Clements were paid handsomely, each receiving a hundred and fifty a month, but getting the herd to Abilene intact was a heavy responsibility. Just keeping order among a dozen hands, most of them hardcases, was no easy task.

  That’s why, for the first time in his life, John Wesley drew gun wages. It indicated how his reputation as a named shootist was growing.

  Needless to say I was immensely proud of him as we left Texas at Red River Bluff and crossed into the Oklahoma Territory. We pushed north without incident and followed the Chisholm into the Nations.

  Fifteen herds crossed the Red on the same day and the trail became a great winding river of Texas beef headed for the railheads and Yankee bellies.

  Then John Wesley killed an Indian on the south bank of the Canadian that even now, many years later as I enter my dotage, I can only call cold-blooded murder.

  One early evening as the herd rested, Wes took me on the back of his horse to show me the river we’d have to cross the next morning. The Canadian was a slow moving waterway at that time, bounded by red mud flats and treacherous quicksand and was swollen by the recent rains.

  “Once we cross, we’re halfway there, Little Bit.” Wes drew rein on a brushy rise overlooking the river. “Ain’t it a sight to see?”

  And indeed it was. The setting sun tinged the sky scarlet and jade and the Canadian looked like a river of molten brass. The night birds squawked at the sentinel stars and far off coyotes talked.

  “Want to ride closer, Little Bit?” Wes said. “If your leg will stand it.”

  My steel cage stuck straight out from the side of the horse, but the sore had healed pretty well and I had little pain. “Sure. I’d like to be the first of the outfit to drink water from the Canadian.”

  Was turned his head and grinned at me. “I’ll join you and we’ll both boast of it in our old age.”

  As we rode down from the rise toward the river past a stand of salt bush, the horse shied. Wes grabbed for the horn and yelled, “What the hell?”

  Mind you, I heard that from the ground where I’d landed in a heap, scared to move, worried that I’d discover a brand new misery. A moment later, as I rubbed dirt out of my eyes, I heard a shot.

  Then a terrible scream.

  I was in time to see a young Indian boy topple forward into the brush, a scarlet rose blossoming on his chest.

  Wes swung out of the saddle, and then stepped warily toward the body, Colt in hand.

  The young Indian, a Kiowa as we later learned, was dead, his black eyes dully staring into nothingness.

  “He had a bow and arrow,” Wes said. “I saw it plain.”

  I rose slowly to my feet and stepped to the body. Half-hidden in the brush lay three dead cottontails and the boy, for that’s what he was, still clutched a small bow.

  “He was rabbit hunting,” I said.

  “The hell he was. He was trying to bushwhack us.”

  “Wes, he’s only a boy. No more than twelve or thirteen years old, I reckon.”

  “Older than that,” Wes said. “Look at him. He’s a warrior.”

  “He was just a boy hunting rabbits,” I said.

  But John Wesley wasn’t listening. A hint of a triumphant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Since I started this drive, the only talk I’ve heard is Indians, Indians, Indians, and that they’d recently killed two white men in the Nations. Everybody is scared of them—except me.”

  He prodded the slim, brown body with his toe. “Hell, I’m no more afraid of a damned Redskin savage than I am a raccoon in a tree. I was anxious to meet one of them on the warpath and now I did.” His smile grew wider. “And I done for him.”

  Wes reached into his pocket, produced his Barlow, and opened the blade “I think I should scalp him. That’s what you do with an Indian you’ve killed, isn’t it? Or should I cut off his ball sack for a tobacco pouch?”

  “Wes, leave him be,” I said. “Damn it, you killed him. Isn’t that enough?” My face was blazing.

  Wes looked at me. He smiled and closed the knife. “Well, I don’t know how to scalp a man anyway. Mount up, Little Bit, and we’ll go down to the river and have a drink like we planned.”

  I shook my head. “It’s getting late. We should head back to the herd.”

>   “Suit yourself,” Wes said.

  But suddenly he wasn’t smiling any longer. “I sure never took you for a damned Indian-lover, Little Bit.”

  The next morning, Wes took Jim Clements and some of the drovers to see the dead Indian and they all agreed that he’d been a fearsome warrior. A puncher named Gray scalped the boy and gave the scalp to Wes who kept it for a couple days before he threw it away. He said it was a filthy thing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Strong Drink and Wild Women

  The Osage Nation was the last Indian reservation we had to cross before entering Kansas and the tribal elders demanded a tax of ten cents a head to let us through.

  John Wesley told them to go to hell and pushed the herd north.

  That led to another killing and a second dead Indian.

  The morning after Wes’s meeting with the Osage, he and most of the hands were out scouting the trail ahead of us.

  I helped the cook prepare breakfast—cornbread and fried salt pork. The meal is stuck in my memory because of what happened later that day.

  Wes had not yet returned when half a dozen Osage rode into camp, demanded their tribute, and started to cut out cattle.

  The cook and me, with only two good legs between us, could only stand and watch. He hurled cusses at the Osage now and again that the savages pretended to not understand.

  One of the two hands left in camp, a young fellow by the name of Tin Cup Sam, looked at me, his eyes scared. “Are they gonna massacree us?”

  “I sure hope not,” I said. “I’m not up for a massacree this morning.”

  “Well,” Tin Cup said, “I’m going to fetch my pistol.”

  The cook agreed. “Me too. I will not be murdered by thieving savages.”

  How this would have ended I don’t know. The cook was only halfway to the wagon when Wes and the rest of the hands rode into camp.

  He drew rein and said to me, “What the hell’s happening, Little Bit?”

  “The Indians are taking some of our cattle,” I said.

  “The hell they are.” Wes swung his horse around and rode to the chuck wagon where an Osage with a bright red scalp lock had dismounted. He demanded food from the cook, all the while brandishing a bloodthirsty tomahawk of the largest size.

  As I watched Wes swing out of the saddle and approach the savage with a determined stride, I very much feared for my friend’s safety. But he ignored the Indian and stopped beside the warrior’s horse, which bore an ornate silver bridle cunningly inlaid with a beautiful blue stone the Navajo call lapis lazuli.

  After examining the bridle closely, Wes advanced on the savage, his hand on his pistol. “That bridle was stolen from our camp. I’m taking it back.”

  A huge, brindle steer that had wandered into camp was grazing close to the smoky fire built to keep the flies away. The Osage walked his horse to the steer, pulled a pistol from his belt and pushed the muzzle into the animal’s forehead. “If I cannot keep the bridle, I will kill this cow.”

  “Harm that animal and I’ll kill you,” Wes said.

  To my surprise, shock I should say, the stupid savage pulled the trigger!

  The brindle steer bellowed in pain and then it staggered a few steps before its legs buckled and it fell.

  Wes raised his Colt and slammed a shot into the Osage’s head. The Indian’s dead body joined the steer on the bloody ground.

  Turning to the hands, Wes grinned. “Well, he killed the beef and I killed him. I guess now we’re all even.”

  This drew a cheer from the punchers as the remaining warriors fled.

  The cook, with the single mindedness of the truly dedicated, glanced at the Indian, then at the dead steer. “Looks like we’re having beefsteaks for dinner tonight, boys.”

  The cook had made a good joke, and we all laughed.

  A couple days later, we crossed into Kansas and drove the herd toward Cowskin Creek, about twenty miles south of Wichita.

  At this juncture I would like to ask all ladies of gentle breeding to forbear reading from here to the end of this chapter of my narrative, for I will talk of whiskey and loose women and wish to spare your maidenly blushes.

  I was up on the wagon seat with the cook and his assistant, when a delegation of well-dressed gentlemen met us on the trail and hailed John Wesley in a most friendly manner. After what seemed like a congenial conversation, the men left after a deal of smiles, handshakes, and back slaps.

  Wes then explained to the assembled hands that the businessmen had extended everyone an invitation to visit their new town, Park City by name, and be prepared to whoop it up.

  Privately Wes told me that he’d mentioned to one of the men, a Mr. Millard, that Park City, soon to rival Wichita as a cattle town, might be the ideal spot to debut his Wild West show. “I told him I’d act out how I killed the Kiowa warrior to save a fair maiden from a fate worse than death and how, though badly wounded, I bested the murderous Osage. And he was very interested.” Wes slapped me on the back. “Park City could make us rich, Little Bit.”

  And so it was that Wes veered the herd a few miles west of the Chisholm and followed a wagon road into the town, a raw, rough settlement that smelled of newly sawn lumber and boasted three saloons, a hotel and bath house, a dancehall, and cattle pens large enough to accommodate up to five thousand cattle.

  There was no church and no school, but the place was booming.

  The saloon whiskey passed muster and, to punchers fresh off the trail, all the girls were pretty and wild as cougars.

  Wes and I raised a few pints to celebrate his eighteenth birthday a couple weeks away and his obvious success as a shootist. Half drunk and loving it, we staggered from saloon to saloon, bottle to bottle, woman to woman.

  Despite my unprepossessing looks—for was I not a pale, twisted, little goblin?—the girls took a liking to me and treated me like a sick puppy, cooing as they stroked me and kissed the top of my head.

  As you no doubt have already guessed, I lost my virginity that very day . . . and have never regretted it.

  Suffering from massive hangovers we headed back to the Chisholm the next morning. All agreed wholeheartedly with John Wesley when he said, “Boys, I reckon a good time was had by all.”

  Wes never again mentioned Park City and his Wild West show in the same breath. That was just as well. After the railroad bypassed the town, it died a quick death.

  Finally its dust was blown away by the prairie winds and today there is no sign that Park City ever existed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Dead Man’s Trail

  After fording the Little Arkansas River, Wes pushed the herd into Newton Prairie where the Chisholm widened from a mile to nearly three. There was plenty of good graze, and room for following herds to pass us if they needed to.

  One Mexican trail boss didn’t cotton to swinging wide around our herd. He wanted to push us aside and go straight on through.

  Well, when that idea didn’t set too well with John Wesley, I knew bad things were bound to happen.

  The stage was set for a killing.

  Things went from bad to worse when the point of the boss vaquero’s herd collided with our drag and cowboy cusses were exchanged in English and Mexican.

  The cook, his assistant, and I went back to see the fun in time to hear Wes yell to the Mex trail boss, “Go the hell around!”

  The air was thick with yellow dust as our hands started to turn the Mexican herd. Fistfights broke out all over the place, but since the scrapping was done from horseback, no great damage was done to either side.

  But the boss vaquero was on the prod and mad enough to bite the head off a hammer. He swung back to the rear of his herd, grabbed a Henry from a wagon, and galloped back to the point again, a chaotic scene of tussling, cussing punchers and vaqueros, bawling steers, and dust so thick I could hardly see a hand in front of my face.

  Beside me, the cook shook his head. “Son, this ain’t gonna end well, mark my words.”

  The ol
d-timer was right. The herds were all tangled up and the whole sorry affair was turning into a regular donnybrook. Above the din, I heard Wes yelling orders, but nobody seemed to be paying him any heed.

  A paint pony bucked out of the melee, the puncher’s chaps flapping as he white-knuckled the horn. He nearly cannoned into the boss vaquero who swung out of the saddle and stepped into the cartwheeling dust, his rifle up and ready.

  I didn’t see what happened next because of the lack of visibility, but one of the hands later told me how it all shook out.

  The Mexican trail boss, his name was Jose, or so I was told, spotted Wes through the murk and took a pot at him. He missed then stepped forward and fired again.

  Another miss.

  His Henry jammed, probably from grit and dust, and he shifted the rifle to his left hand and drew a Colt with his right. He advanced, shooting every few steps, but did no execution.

  For some reason John Wesley was carrying a revolver so old and abused it had shot loose and the cylinder wobbled.

  It happened time after time to those old cap and ball Army Colts. I blame roosters who loaded so much powder into the chambers they had to shave the balls to allow the cylinder to turn.

  I don’t think Wes figured he’d get into a gunfight that day, and he paid for his lack of oversight.

  Still mounted, he fired several times at the advancing Mexican, and only God knows where the balls went.

  “Git off the damned hoss, Wes, and hold the cylinder!” Jim Clements yelled. He was unarmed and could not join in the shooting scrape.

  The hand I spoke to afterward told me, “Well, ol’ Wes jumps off’n the pony, holds onto the iron with both hands, an’ cuts loose. His ball burns the Mex across the thigh and then his piece locks up solid and he can’t shoot no more.”