The Butcher of Baxter Pass Page 6

  “Maybe the worst part of it was reading about it in the newspaper a neighbor, Mister Clavin, brought us. That’s how we’d learned that ... that ... that ... Vincent wasn’t coming home.” She picked up the soaked handkerchief and dabbed her eyes again.

  Despite all that crying, her swollen eyes, Jess thought that she still looked lovely.

  “General Dalton ... the damned Butcher ... he had lined them up against the prison wall. He had made them recite the Oath of Allegiance to the Union. And while they were doing that, he gave the order, and the Gatling guns barked ... and ... and ...” She shuddered, tossed the handkerchief away, and found the cup of coffee.

  “He shot them down like dogs.”

  Jess leaned back in his chair. “I read ...” he began, but she silenced him with a stare.

  “Did you fight in the war?”

  His head shook. “Too young.” He frowned. How old does she think I am?

  “I’m from Texas.” He felt that she needed to know this. “And not from one of those Union-loving counties.”

  “I’m sorry.” She gave him a weak smile.

  “You said that the prisoners ...”

  “Two hundred of them.”

  “Yes. You said they were in the prison camp at Baxter Pass. That’s when Dalton ... the Butcher ... gunned them down with the Gatling gun.”

  “Guns. I think they had a dozen at that wretched, wretched place.”

  Jess nodded.

  Her eyes still held a spark that reminded Jess of a percussion cap. Ready to pop and ignite a chamber, or maybe a barrel, of gunpowder. He had stared into friendlier looking eyes belonging to a rattlesnake coiled up and whirring its tail. This was a subject, Jess knew, that would need careful phrasing.

  He hooked his thumb at the closed door that led to the jail cells. “Burt ... he said something else. He said they were marching out of the prison camp when Dalton began firing.”

  She shrugged. “He was just a baby when that happened. What—two, three, maybe four years old?”

  His head nodded, but he kept talking. “I guess I’ve heard that story before. The general opens the gates to the prison, tells all those Johnny Rebs they were free to go home, and as soon as they were out the door, through the gates, the Gatlings opened up and brought them down like a McCormick’s Reaper.”

  Amanda shook her head. “Yes. There are all sorts of stories.”

  Jess went on. “Yet I remember reading in a magazine ... no, it was a newspaper. The Dallas Mercury. That’s the paper.” It had been used to paper a wall in a line shack when he was cowboying. Faded and hard to read all those years later, but he had read that article, had been drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

  “That paper, if I remember right, said the prisoners had been loaded onto a ship. The Fancy Belpre!” That amazed Jess, even excited him that he could remember that little detail from a newspaper he had read one winter night alone in a line shack down around Waxahachie way. “The steamboat was to carry the prisoners home, and as soon as it got into the middle of the Ohio, General Dalton began ...” He stopped.

  Amanda’s head had dropped.

  “I guess there are many stories about what happened,” she said.

  Jess could only nod. This was, after all, Texas. The Lone Star State. Bigger than anything and full of braggarts and liars. How many men had he met who had been with Sam Houston at San Jacinto? How many had ridden with Sam Bass? Had lived in a cabin where Davy Crockett had slept on his way to the Alamo? Had seen John Wesley Hardin gun down somebody in some saloon or in some street? Had fought with Ben McCullough during the war against the Union? Had taken part in one or even both fights up in the Panhandle at Adobe Walls?

  “What I remember,” Amanda says, “is what I remember. They were in the prison. Dalton opened fire.”

  Jess nodded. “I guess that’s one thing that’s consistent to the story. Dalton ... he was always the one cranking the Gatling gun.”

  Her eyes hardened. She was the rattler, and now she struck. “No, Sheriff Casey, there’s one more consistent, undisputable fact to the stories out there.”

  He knew what she would say.

  “Two hundred paroled soldiers were murdered ... by that damned butcher.”

  She stood, and he pushed himself out of the chair. The clock on the wall chimed, and he moved toward the office door as Doctor Wilson gathered her belongings. She opened the satchel, pulled out a tincture, and dropped it on the desk. “The prisoner can have one of those to help with the pain,” she said, and headed to the door, which Jess pulled open.

  The air remained cool.

  “How much do I owe you?” Jess asked.

  “Three dollars.”

  He paid her, thought about asking for a receipt, so he might ask the treasurer to reimburse him, but decided that would be in poor taste.

  She dropped the three greenbacks into the satchel, snapped it shut, and stared back at Jess.

  “Do I look ... presentable?”

  Her eyes were redder than scarlet, puffy and swollen, and her face was streaked with tears and dust. Her nose even was swollen and red from blowing it and sobbing so much. Somebody might even think she’d been drinking a few snootfuls.

  “You’re lovely,” Jess said, and he meant it.

  That got him a grin.

  “Flattery, Sheriff Casey ...”

  “I am sorry,” he said, seriously now, and her grin faded, but her eyes lacked that deadly intent. “I didn’t mean to bring up unpleasant memories.”

  “It’s all right, Jess.” Good. She was back to calling him by his first name. “I hadn’t thought of Vincent in a long time. Years.” She drew a deep breath. “Do you really think he’s coming ... here ... to Fort Worth? The Butcher of Baxter Pass?”

  Jess answered: “I hope to hell not.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Monday, 11:17 a.m.

  The stage from Dallas was late.

  Casey leaned against the wooden façade, sipping the thick tar Hank Joseph called coffee. It probably had been coffee when the old stationmaster first brewed it, maybe two or three weeks ago. It tasted awful, but no one could ever complain that it was weak or watered down.

  Hank wandered out of the station and settled onto the bench in front of the stagecoach stop, pulled out a sack of Bull Durham from his coat pocket, and began rolling a cigarette. He was grizzled and old, with a face like shoe leather and teeth stained brown from tobacco and coffee. He shaved once every two weeks, maybe three, bathed every other month, and spoke only when spoken to. His cavalry-style boots were brown and scuffed, holes in the bottoms, and patches covered his denim britches. An ancient kepi topped his balding pate. It was the kepi that Jess Casey noticed. He had always found Hank Joseph inside the station and had never actually seen him with a hat on his noggin.

  “Hank,” Jess called out.

  The rail-thin old man turned, licking his cigarette, and staring with dark brown eyes. He said nothing.

  Jess gestured with his coffee mug. “You fought in the war?”

  “Which war?” The cigarette went into his mouth, and he found a lucifer in his pocket, struck it against his thumb, and fired up the smoke.

  Which war? Answering that question incorrectly had caused a few fights during Jess Casey’s time in bunkhouses, saloons, and even church socials. For the most part, people called it the War Between the States or the War for Southern Independence in Texas. Ladies often referred to it, politely, as “the recent unpleasantness,” and Yanks called it the War of the Rebellion. A lot of folks would use the Civil War, but from the stories Jess had heard about the fighting, there had not been one damned thing civil about those four bitter, bloody years.

  Those brown eyes, set deep in that bronzed face, were hard to read, but that kepi told Jess how to answer.

  “The Rebellion.”

  Old Hank snorted, might even have grinned, and pulled hard on the cigarette, tilted his head back, and blew a smoke ring toward the awning.

  “Risky,” the
old-timer said. “Callin’ it by that handle.” Hank’s accent sounded pure Texan, not Yankee.

  “Union kepi,” Jess said, nodding at the cap.

  “Coulda taken it off a dead blue belly.”

  Jess grinned but said nothing.

  For a minute, Hank Joseph smoked, watched a buggy clip down the street, moved his outstretched legs to let a woman pass, then took the smoke out of his mouth and looked back at Jess.

  “Hailed from Cooke County,” he said.

  Jess nodded.

  “Union country,” he said.

  “Like Jack County,” Jess said. He had cowboyed up in that part of Texas, and had known quite a few men who had refused to vote for secession.

  “Yeah, but the difference between Jack County and Cooke County was that the boys up in Jack thought they was Texans first. Over ’round Gainesville, their blood was blue. Union blue.”

  That was more than Jess had heard Hank Joseph say in six months.

  “Hung a bunch of folks there, you know, in ’62.”

  Jess lowered his cup, surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yep. Said they wasn’t loyal to the Confederacy. Hung a ton of ’em. From a tree in Gainesville’s town square. Hung two of my uncles, a cousin, and my pappy.”

  Jess cursed softly.

  “So you’re damned right I fit for the Union. And that’s why I ain’t ashamed to keep this here hat on my head.”

  The coffee tasted worse than ever, so Jess poured out the remnants onto the street and stepped inside the office, dropping the cup by the table near the stove. When he returned, the old stationmaster was crushing out the butt of his smoke on the boardwalk.

  “He ain’t gonna be on the stage,” Hank said, “if the damned thing ever comes in.”

  “Who?”

  Hank Joseph snorted. “Who? Who else, ya knucklehead? Lincoln Everett Dalton. Brigadier General. Hero of the North. Savior of Ohio. The Butcher of Baxter Pass.”

  The old Yank had been staring out in the street, which saw little traffic now, but turned and let his dark eyes bore into Jess Casey.

  “Stout.” Jess spit over the hitching rail.

  That got a chuckle out of Hank Joseph. “Mayor couldn’t keep a secret to save his hide. I tol’ him the same thing. Dalton won’t be on the stage.”

  Since the old man seemed to be windy this morning, Jess decided to wait. Push a man like this, and Hank might press his lips together and not speak for another week.

  “Seen him oncet,” Hank said after a moment, “ten years, nah, a dozen years, back.”

  “You knew him?” Jess asked. “Did you serve ... ?”

  “I fit with the 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry—the Iron Brigade—from Brawner’s Farm to Petersburg. I didn’t hide in no stinkin’ prison camp.”

  He fetched a plug of tobacco from another pocket, bit off a mouthful, and tried to soften the rock-hard quid.

  “He give a lecture in Council Bluffs once,” Hank said. “Gen’ral Dalton. Come ridin’ into town on some fancy wagon, gal playin’ one of ’em steam pianies a body could hear ten miles outta town. Pretty gal. Real pretty but just a kid. Bet she’s a right handsome woman now, though. But that steam piany given me a blasted headache. Ain’t never heard such a racket.”

  This time, Hank Joseph removed his kepi, ran bony fingers over his bald head, returned the cap, and sent a stream of tobacco juice through the cracks in the boardwalk. His aim, Jess marveled, was perfect.

  After wiping his lip, Hank Joseph continued. “Buntin’ on the sides of that wagon, flags flappin’ in the wind, and Gen’ral Dalton standin’ atop. A Gatlin’ gun was secured atop that wagon, too, and the gen’ral, him in his blue uniform, brass buttons a-gleamin’ in the sun, purple ostrich plume tucked up in his Hardee hat.”

  “Did you attend his lecture?”

  “Hell, no.” Hank shifted the quid to the opposite cheek. “I couldn’t stand to hear that steam piany. Crossed the ferry and went to Omaha. But I seed him. Gen’ral Dalton. He was somethin’.”

  He stood then, and moved to the column, putting a weathered hand on the rough wood and looked east. Old Hank had a set of ears on him, for a half-minute later the red and gold stagecoach wheeled around the corner, the driver’s blacksnake whip popping over the ears of the six mules churning up mud and dirt as the Concord stage plowed its way toward the station. The messenger, holding a sawed-off shotgun, looked mighty pale when the stage slid to a halt in front of Jess and Hank.

  The driver set the brake, leaned over, spit his own river of tobacco juice into the dirt, and bellowed, “Fort Worth. Get off now or you’ll be walkin’ back from Belknap.”

  Mayor Stout and a few of his associates hurried down the boardwalk. Apparently, the mayor didn’t take Hank Joseph’s word that the Butcher of Baxter Pass would not be aboard the stage. Hank was jerking open the door, and Jess Casey watched as a potbellied man in a sack suit leap onto the boardwalk, turn quickly, and catch a gaudy carpetbag that the messenger was tossing off the top.

  Next stepped a tall man in black broadcloth shirt and a gold brocade vest with thistle designs. Tinhorn, Jess decided, and when the man took his grip, Jess moved toward him.

  “Gamblers are welcome in Hell’s Half Acre,” Jess said. The man’s face was deeply pockmarked, and his eyes were hidden by his shaded wire-rimmed spectacles. His hair was black, greased down, and his mustache had been trimmed pencil-thin. “As long as they don’t deal from the bottom.”

  The man said nothing.

  “But I’ll take that derringer.”

  Jess held up his left hand, palm up, and waited. His right hand rested on the butt of the .44-40.

  The man fished a Remington over-and-under .41 from the vest pocket, and laid it gently in Jess’s hand.

  “What name should I put it under?”

  “Luke Flint,” the man said.

  “Very well, Luke Flint. Pick it up on your way out of town. Sheriff ’s office. Up yonder way.”

  The man’s grin held no humor. “Aren’t you going to wish me luck, Sheriff ?”

  “You don’t need luck,” Jess told him, and stepped out of the man’s path, watching him amble through Mayor Stout and his followers, moving away from Fort Worth proper and toward Hell’s Half Acre. Jess slid the derringer into his rear pocket and turned back to the stage.

  The crew was already at work, changing the team of worn-out mules for a fresh batch. They were a marvel, those three young black men and the Mexican, replacing the team like they’d been doing it for twenty years. Professionals. But honest men, doing honest work, not like Luke Flint. Just another headache that would probably trouble Jess Casey until Kurt Koenig returned to his marshaling duties. But at least Jess had evened the odds by relieving the cardsharp of that derringer.

  “Sheriff,” the drummer in the sack suit called out, “where’s a decent place to eat some decent chow? That won’t blow my expense account.”

  Jess started to gesture down the street. “Well ...” No, Miguel Sanchez likely would not reopen today. Maybe not tomorrow. What was left of his ear had to hurt like blazes, and all the blood on the floor and counter might turn a body’s stomach.

  “Get the blue plate at the Trinity River Hotel,” he suggested, and watched the drummer waddle in the general direction.

  That was it. No more passengers getting off for Fort Worth and nobody climbing aboard for the journey north and west. The stable hands were leading the mules across the street toward the corral, and Hank Joseph was slamming the door to the coach as the messenger settled back onto his seat in the driver’s box.

  With a blast of profanity and the pop of the whip, the westbound stage pulled out of Fort Worth.

  “He wasn’t on the stage,” Mayor Stout said, his voice resigned in defeat.

  Snorting in contempt, Hank Joseph went back inside the office.

  Harry Stout’s eyes lifted toward Jess Casey’s. “Maybe he won’t come.”

  “Maybe,” Jess said, and thinking, but not sayi
ng, And maybe you won’t tell everybody this side of Dallas that he is coming.

  “Well.” Stout turned. “Time for dinner, boys.” He walked down the boardwalk, followed by his minions.

  Jess didn’t care and only half-heard the mayor’s comment. He kept watching Luke Flint. Even before he pinned on that nice gold badge, he had learned a few things on his own as a cowboy: Gamblers would never give a cowhand an even break. No honest gent sported a pencil-thin mustache. And any gambler who wore a brocade vest was a dirty, rotten cheat and one dangerous hombre. Jess would stop at the telegraph office and send a query about one Luke Flint to the Dallas constable. Not that that smart-aleck son of a cur dog would give him an honest answer.

  He turned and walked down the street, away from Mayor Stout, away from Luke Flint.

  “Sheriff.”

  Jess looked back at Hank Joseph, who had stepped out of the office. He wasn’t wearing that Union kepi. Probably had hung it on the rack behind the desk.

  “You ain’t gonna tell nobody nothin’ I tol’ you. ’Bout me bein’ in the war with the 7th Wisconsin.”

  “I don’t bring up a man’s past,” Jess said.

  Hank’s thin head nodded.

  “Like I done tol’ you, I don’t know Gen’ral Dalton. Just laid eyes on him that one time up in Iowa. But the man you oughta talk to, iffen you’s interested, is the perfesser.”

  “The professor?” Jess asked.

  “Uh-huh. Perfesser Mitchell Vogt. Teaches ’em petticoats and them boys who ougtha be wearin’ petticoats at that thar seminary place down by Thorp Spring.”

  Jess waited, and for a long while thought maybe that was all the information he would get from Hank Joseph. After all, the man had been an open book for the past half hour.

  “Vogt served with Hood’s boys. And he was at Baxter Pass.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Monday, 11:45 a.m.

  Professor Mitchell Vogt. Jess moved down the boardwalk, taking in the aroma of the myriad restaurants in Fort Worth as dinnertime approached. Chicken-fried steaks, fried potatoes, coffee that smelled more pleasing than the tar he had sipped at Hank Joseph’s stagecoach station, beef brisket, cornbread, enchiladas, beans... .