Butch Cassidy the Lost Years Read online

  I also found a small herd grazing in a pasture to the east, not far from the gully where I had run into Abner. The rustled stock had to have come from that bunch. When I got back to the house I took the cows in the corral and drove them out to join the others. I checked the brands first, though.

  Sure enough, the extra six animals had Fishhook brands on them, although the Daughtrys had tried to rework them into something else. It was such a clumsy effort I couldn’t even tell what the new marks were supposed to be. Those boys had picked the wrong line of lawbreaking to get into. It’s a pretty sorry owlhoot who can’t even rustle cattle and use a running iron properly.

  That was a full day’s work. After supper that evening I pulled out an old trunk I found in one of the small back rooms while I was looking for clean bedding and went through its contents.

  The first thing I found was a sober black suit that looked like it hadn’t been worn for years. It was dusty and smelled of mothballs. Too small for me even if I’d wanted to wear it, which I didn’t, so I set it aside. I found some dish towels with fancy stitching on them, another indication that there had been a woman in Abner’s life at one time.

  Wrapped up in one of the towels was a photograph in an oval gilt frame. It was the sort of picture you saw a lot back in those days, with a man sitting in a chair while a woman stood just behind and to the side of him with her right hand resting on his left shoulder. The man was a lot younger and his hair and beard were dark, but I could tell he was Abner. The woman had fair hair that fluffed prettily around her head. She wasn’t a great beauty, but she was pleasant enough looking. Both of them were dressed in their best duds and had pinched expressions on their faces like they needed to go to the outhouse. I don’t know why photographers always insisted on folks looking like that when they had a portrait made. I had my picture taken once with some pards of mine in Fort Worth, and the whole thing tickled me so much I couldn’t help but smile a little when the flash powder went off.

  I turned the photograph over, but nothing was written on the back. I wrapped it up in the dish towel again and set it with the suit, which I had a hunch might be the same one Abner was wearing in the picture.

  Some more digging around in the trunk turned up a big, thick, heavy book. It was a family Bible, and knowing that people often kept important documents in such a book, I sat down cross-legged on the floor, put it in my lap, and carefully opened it.

  Sure enough, several folded documents were right in the front of the Bible. One of them was the deed to this property. That was what I’d been hoping to find, because it gave the boundaries of the land. The Fishhook wasn’t big at all as ranches go in Texas, only about fifty square miles, but it had been big enough to suit Abner.

  I found a marriage license in the Bible, too, telling me that Abner James Tillotson had married Martha Grace Hargity in San Marcos, Texas, on October 12, 1882. That put a name on the woman standing beside Abner in the photograph, I thought, although I supposed she could have been somebody else.

  There was some paperwork registering the Fishhook brand with the state, some county tax records, and a few receipts that didn’t mean anything to me. I’d found what I was looking for, but instead of putting the Bible away I turned a few more pages and came to the family record. A woman’s hand had recorded the dates that Abner and Martha were born and the date of their marriage. On the page after that, in the Births section, in a man’s much cruder script, was written John Abbott Tillotson, b. September 17, 1883.

  The reason for the change in who had entered that information was in the Deaths section on the next page, where the same hand had printed with obvious effort: Martha Grace Tillotson, d. September 18, 1883, and John Abbott Tillotson, d. September 18, 1883.

  “Well, hell, Abner,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry, old son.” I figured he had lived here by himself ever since.

  I found one other thing of interest in the trunk, a coiled cartridge belt with an attached holster that held a long-barreled Remington revolver. It was a fine-looking gun and obviously well cared for. Abner must have taken it out and cleaned it pretty regular-like. I stood up and tried on the belt. It fit well enough, although Abner had been thicker through the middle than me and must have fastened the buckle in a different hole. The gun wasn’t loaded, but there were a couple of boxes of cartridges in the trunk. They might be too old to fire properly, I thought, but I left them out when I replaced everything else from the trunk and put it away. The Remington’s weight felt pretty good on my hip.

  So I had a place to live, five horses, two mules, a couple of hundred head of stock, a rifle, and two pistols. I’ve held small fortunes in my hands on a number of occasions, but right then, as I walked outside and looked around my ranch, I felt pretty rich.

  CHAPTER 5

  It had been a while since I worked a spread like this, but I remembered what needed to be done. Abner had done a good job of keeping the place up, and that sure helped. By the time spring was about to roll around, I had fixed everything that needed fixing. It had been a pretty mild winter. That first morning, back before Christmastime, was probably the coldest it got. The cattle came through it pretty well and were in good shape.

  The nearest town, about fifteen miles southeast, was a wide place in the road called Largo. Not much there, but it had a store, and I had hitched the mules to the buckboard and driven in a few times for supplies. The first time I did, the storekeeper, a man named Clyde Farnum, had looked out the front window for a long moment and then said, “Ain’t that Abner Tillotson’s buckboard?”

  “It was,” I said. “I bought it from him, along with everything else on the place.”

  “Did you now?” Farnum said. He was a small man with perpetual beard stubble and a wary merchant’s look in his eyes.

  “Yes, sir, lock, stock, and barrel.” I put out my hand across the counter between us. “Jim Strickland’s the name.”

  He hesitated, but not long enough to be insulting about it. Then he shook and told me his name.

  “Hard to believe ol’ Abner would sell out,” he said. “He’s lived on that spread for as far back as I can remember.”

  “He said his health was goin’ south on him.” I put a solemn look on my face. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Farnum, I don’t think he had a lot of time left to him, and he knew it. I figure he wanted to be sure that his place was left in good hands, him having put so much work into it and all.”

  “How’d he come to sell it to you? I don’t like bein’ nosy, mind you, but I considered Abner a friend.”

  “So did a lot of people, I reckon. That’s how he and I met, through some mutual friends back in San Marcos.”

  That was a shot in the dark, but I thought since Abner had gotten married in San Marcos, he might still know some folks there.

  Farnum didn’t seem to think that was unusual. He just nodded and said, “I used to see a letter for Abner come through here now and then with a San Marcos postmark on it. I’m the local postmaster, you know.”

  “Well, there you go,” I said with an easy grin. I’ve found that folks tend to be a lot less suspicious of me when I grin at ’em. I guess I’ve just got a friendly, trustworthy face.

  “Are you going to change the brand?” Farnum asked.

  “No, sir, I don’t believe I will. I’d be honored to run the same brand that Abner established for all these years.” I thought that might help endear me to the locals, and again, make them less suspicious of me.

  “That’s a nice thing to do. What can I get you today?”

  That was all it took. Farnum was a talkative sort and well-respected thereabouts, so after he accepted me I was a member of the community as far as other folks were concerned.

  And I didn’t even have to show him the bill of sale Abner had signed, although I was prepared to do so if need be.

  Except when I went into town, I didn’t see many people during those months. There was a road of sorts from the Fishhook to Largo, and somebody could have driven a car over it, I s
upposed, but nobody did. One day an itinerant preacher came by in a buggy and offered to save my soul in exchange for a meal. I gave him the meal but told him my soul was just fine.

  “It’s good that you’re right with the Lord, son,” he told me. “You just never know in this world. You just never know.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Life was a continual surprise. Sometimes I thought I was the never-knowingest son of a bitch on the face of the earth.

  Another day I saw a rider coming over the hills to the north while he was still quite a ways off. I’m not as young as I used to be, but my eyes are still keen. I was outside working on the corral fence at the time. The Winchester leaned against the fence not far from where I was. But I put my hammer down anyway, went in the house, and buckled on that old gun belt of Abner’s. I had tried some of that ammunition he had for the Remington, and it fired just fine. I went back to work but kept one eye on the rider.

  He slowed his horse to a walk as he came up. As far as I could see, he wasn’t armed. His horse looked plumb worn-out and so did he. Eighteen or twenty years old, I thought. The boy, not the horse, although I wouldn’t have ventured a guess as to its age. He had the gauntness of long, weary trails about him.

  It was a look I knew well.

  He reined in and said, “Good day to you, sir,” nice and polite-like.

  “Hello, son,” I said. “Your horse looks like he could do with some water.” I nodded toward the well. “Help yourself.”

  “Thank you, sir. Is it all right if I have some for myself?”

  “No.”

  He frowned in confusion, then started to look mad.

  “I’ve got coffee in the pot in the house, and you’re welcome to some,” I went on. “I seen a lot colder, but it’s still sort of a chilly day.”

  He relaxed then and said, “I’m obliged to you again. I’ll tend to my horse first.”

  “That’s what I’d expect.”

  Every instinct I had told me somebody was after him, probably the law. But it was none of my business and that’s the way I wanted to keep it. He watered his horse, and I gave him some coffee and wrapped up some biscuits for him to take along with him when he left. I could tell by the awkward, grateful way he took the little bundle that he hadn’t had anything to eat for a while but didn’t want to wolf them down right in front of me.

  He started to mount up, then paused and asked, “You wouldn’t be looking to take on any riders, would you, sir?”

  “No, son, I’m afraid I wouldn’t.” Whatever trouble was dogging his trail, I didn’t want any part of it.

  He didn’t tell me his name and I didn’t offer mine. He rode on, and I kept an eye on him until he was out of sight.

  A week or so after that, three more riders approached the ranch, but they came from the south this time. Since they came from the opposite direction I figured they probably didn’t have anything to do with the youngster. As they drew closer I saw they were Mexicans in well-worn vaquero clothes. I met them out in front of the house with the Remington on my hip and the Winchester in the crook of my left arm.

  “Howdy,” I called as they reined in. They were all in their twenties. One of them edged his mount slightly ahead of the others. He had a thick black mustache and the face of a hawk and looked like he should have been riding with Pancho Villa.

  His voice was quiet, though, as he said, “Donde esta Señor Tillotson?”

  I understood what he was asking, but I said, “Can you speak English, my friend?” I could get along in Spanish, but if he thought I spoke it fluently he might start going too fast for me to keep up.

  “Sí, of course. Where is Señor Tillotson?”

  “He sold the ranch to me a while back. Who are you?”

  “Santiago Marquez,” he answered without hesitation. He tipped his head toward the other two. “These are my cousins Javier and Fernando. We work for Señor Tillotson. Or I should say, we did. We came to see if he was ready for us to start preparing for the spring roundup.”

  Santiago was a well-spoken man and obviously intelligent. Apparently he accepted my story about buying the ranch from Abner, but I had a hunch he didn’t trust me completely. I wouldn’t have been surprised if when he and his cousins rode out, they headed straight for Largo to ask around about me.

  For that matter, I didn’t trust him completely, either. All I had was his word that the three of them had worked for Abner. They might be as crooked as the Daughtrys were. If I was going to give this business of being an honest rancher a try, I wanted to go about it the right way.

  So I said, “Let me study on that, Señor Marquez.” What I really wanted to do was ask Clyde Farnum about him. “Can you ride back by here in, say, a week or so? I’m sorry to inconvenience you—”

  He shook his head and said, “De nada. A week will be fine, Señor . . . ?”

  “Strickland,” I told him. “Jim Strickland.”

  He lifted his reins and nodded.

  “We will see you in a week, señor.”

  Neither of the other two had said a word so far. But before Santiago could turn his horse to ride away, one of them spoke up, and sure enough, the words came out so fast I didn’t know what he was saying. But Santiago pointed to the northeast and told me, “It looks like you have more company coming, señor. This is a popular place today.”

  Too popular, as far as I was concerned. I had come to value my privacy. I squinted into the distance and saw a buggy rolling toward the ranch houses. For a second I thought the preacher was back until I realized it was a different vehicle.

  “Now who the blazes . . . ,” I muttered.

  “I can tell you that, Señor Strickland,” Santiago said with a hint of a smile on his lips under that drooping mustache. “It appears that the sheriff is about to pay you a visit.”

  CHAPTER 6

  I’d been living an honest, respectable life for several years now. It wasn’t so much a matter of choice as it was of circumstances. And I had nothing to fear where my dealings with Abner Tillotson were concerned. Abner and I had struck an honest bargain, and we had both lived up to our ends of it . . . so to speak.

  But old habits die hard, and just hearing the word “sheriff” made me look around for the nearest horse I could jump onto and light a shuck out of there. I tried to control that reaction, but I thought Santiago might’ve caught a hint of it. Like I said, he was smart and observant.

  I kept my voice casual as I said, “The sheriff, eh? Wonder what he wants.”

  “I suspect we will find out, señor.”

  I thought maybe there was a trace of mockery in Santiago’s words. He didn’t act like he was leaving anymore, and the other vaqueros sat there stolidly on their horses, following their cousin’s lead. They wanted to see what was going to happen. I couldn’t blame them for being curious. I was wondering about that myself.

  The sheriff’s buggy rolled steadily closer. A fine matched pair of bay horses pulled it. Only one man rode on the seat. He wore a gray pinstriped suit, a black vest, and a white shirt buttoned up to the collar with no tie. A flat-crowned gray hat sat square on his head. Bushy side whiskers came down onto his jaw, flanking a rough-hewn face. Under a prominent nose that reminded me of a potato was a brown mustache. He wasn’t what you’d call a handsome man.

  He brought the buggy to a stop, gave the Mexicans a dismissive glance as if they didn’t matter, and nodded to me.

  “Good day, sir,” he said. He pulled back his lapel a little so the sun reflected off the badge pinned to his vest. “I’m Sheriff Emil Lester.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sheriff,” I said with the usual friendly smile on my face. “Jim Strickland’s my handle.”

  Sheriff Lester looked around at the house and the outbuildings.

  “This is Abner Tillotson’s ranch,” he said.

  “It was,” I agreed easily enough. “I bought it from him.”

  “So I was told in Largo. I don’t get up this way very often. Doings in the county seat, d
own on the railroad, usually keep me occupied.”

  “Sheriff, I’d be glad to tell you the whole story,” I said, “but it’d please me if you’d light down and come inside so we can talk in the house.”

  He didn’t respond to the offer. Instead he looked at the vaqueros again and said, “Marquez, did you and the Gallardo boys know Señor Tillotson had sold his ranch?”

  “No, Sheriff,” Santiago replied with a shake of his head. “Not until we rode up just a few minutes ago.”

  “Farnum and the other folks in Largo knew about it.” Lester’s voice had a challenging note to it, as if he didn’t believe what Santiago had just told him.

  Santiago shrugged and said, “We do not shop at Señor Farnum’s store. When we go to Largo, we stop at the cantina, and when we leave the cantina, we go back to our rancho.”

  “Fine, fine.” Lester tied the reins around the buggy’s brake lever and started to climb down from the seat. “You boys can go on about your business now. You can come back later and talk to Señor Strickland about working for him . . . if he’s still here.”

  That comment with its veiled threat nettled me a little, but I kept the smile on my face. Santiago lifted a hand slightly and said to me, “Adios, Señor Strickland.” I got the feeling that he disliked Sheriff Lester more than he distrusted me.

  “Adios, Santiago,” I called to him. “You, too, Javier and Fernando.”

  They rode off at a good clip, dust kicking up from their horses’ hooves.

  Lester looked at me and said, “I suppose you can prove you bought the place from Tillotson?”