Butch Cassidy the Lost Years (4 page)

CHAPTER 3

A
t least the wind was at my back during that ride, instead of trying to scrape the flesh off my face with knives of ice, like it felt when I was going north. I had to use my bandanna to tie my hat on and keep it from blowing off.

The fire was still burning by the time I reached the gully. Abner's body was undisturbed. Cold as it could be, too. He'd either been dead when I rode away earlier or had crossed the divide soon after. The packhorse was still there, too, and if a horse's neigh can be said to sound disgusted, the one he let out when he saw me sure did. It was like he was asking me what the hell I was thinking, going off and leaving him alone in a gully with a corpse.

“At least I came back for you, old son, instead of gettin' myself killed, too,” I told him as I took one of my extra blankets from the pack. I spread it out on the ground, laid Abner's body on it, and rolled him up in it.

He was heavier than he looked, and I could've used some help getting him onto the horse. Everybody I'd ever relied on to give me a hand was either dead or in prison, though, or else dropped off the face of the earth so I didn't know what had happened to them. I was on my own and had been for several years. I didn't like it much—I'm a friendly cuss by nature and enjoy having people around to compliment me on how clever I am—but that was the hand life had dealt me.

I finally got Abner loaded. I led both horses out of the gully. The wind had actually died down a mite, the norther having expended some of its force. I saw a few stars overhead through gaps in the clouds, and they helped me steer a westward course.

By morning the wind would die down all the way, I knew, and the clouds would break up and clear off, and the temperature would drop like it had fallen in a well. I could have tried to ride it out in the gully, but it would be better if I could find the ranch house.

The starlight helped, and so did the good sense of direction I'd been born with. Some hills rose to the north and south, and smack dab in the middle of the valley between them I found Abner's ranch house. It was an adobe in the Mexican hacienda style, with a good-size barn, a couple of corrals, a cook shack, a small bunkhouse, a blacksmith shop, and a smokehouse. Of course, I didn't know all that at the time. I could see some buildings scattered around, but I didn't explore them. I just put the horses in the barn, unloaded Abner's body, and carried it into the house. It was dark as sin inside, so I laid him on the floor until I had fumbled around, found a lamp, and got it lit. Then as the yellow glow filled the room I picked him up again and placed his blanket-wrapped corpse on the bed in the back corner.

There was a fireplace on the other side of the room with a supply of wood piled up beside it. I got a good blaze going so the place could warm up while I was tending the horses.

It was still chilly but reasonably comfortable in there when I came back in from the barn. I stopped outside long enough to hang that buffalo-hide coat on one of the vigas sticking out below the roof. I didn't want that stinking thing in the same room with me all night.

The adobe had one main room with the fireplace and a table and chairs on one side, an old sofa and a couple of rocking chairs on the other side, and the bed in the back. A bookcase full of books stood against the wall between the rocking chairs. It appeared that Abner was an avid reader, like a lot of men who live alone. The lamp was on a small table beside one of the chairs. It had a green glass base and a ceramic top with roses painted on it, not exactly the sort of thing you'd expect to find in an isolated ranch house where a rough old cattleman lived alone. I suspected there had been a woman in Abner Tillotson's life at one time or another, and this lamp was a memento of their time together. That was a story I'd likely never know.

I had brought in my supplies, so when the flames in the fireplace died down a little I boiled some coffee, fried some bacon, and ate it with a couple of leftover biscuits I'd had wrapped up in my saddlebags. It was meager enough fare but satisfied my hunger. I didn't mind preparing a meal with a corpse on the other side of the room, and I wasn't going to be bothered by sleeping in the same room with him once I stretched out on that sofa. I had occupied closer quarters with dead men before.

After I'd eaten, the weariness hit me. I didn't try to fight it off. During the night I got up a time or two and put more wood on the fire, but I just wanted to keep the chill off. I didn't want to warm things up too much with Abner in the room, but I wasn't going to leave him outside where varmints might get at him, either.

I was up early the next morning, and it was as cold as I'd figured it would be. I'd never felt a witch's teat or a grave-digger's ass, but I didn't see how they could be any colder than that December morning on the Texas plains. My breath fogged up like a thunderhead in front of my face when I went outside. But the wind was still so it didn't feel too bad.

It hadn't been cold enough, long enough, to freeze the ground. Once I'd looked around and found a suitable spot for a grave, I didn't have much trouble digging it. My side was a little stiff and sore where that Daughtry brother had kicked me, but some shovel work loosened it right up.

The place I picked was on a little rise off to the south that overlooked both the ranch headquarters and the little creek that ran nearby. The view wasn't all that much just then, but I figured it would be pretty nice come summer.

There was a buckboard in the barn, along with a couple of mules and two horses besides my pair. I hitched the mules to the buckboard, loaded Abner on it, and drove out to the hill where I'd dug the grave. When I got there, I found a strange horse waiting. The saddle he wore told me he was likely Abner's mount, come home after spending a cold night wandering around. I said, “You're lucky you didn't freeze to death, hoss.”

He tossed his head in agreement, then stood there watching solemnly while I lowered Abner into the grave and shoveled dirt back into the hole.

When I finished I took off my hat and said, “Lord, it's been a while since we talked, but I'm hopin' you recollect who I am. This man was named Abner Tillotson. You're probably better acquainted with him than I was. I didn't really know him, but he struck me as a good sort. He didn't cut down on those rustlers when he could have and probably should have. So maybe you'll have the same sort of mercy on him and welcome him home up yonder. That'll do it, I guess. Amen.”

When it warmed up some, I'd make a marker and put it out here on the grave. For now that was all I could do. I led the horse back to the barn, and after I'd unhitched the mules I unsaddled him, broke up the ice on the water bucket in the stall where I put him, and dumped some grain in the trough.

I went back in the house and started fixing some breakfast. Funny thing, the night before I'd felt like this was still Abner's place and I was just a guest. That feeling had stayed with me while I was burying him. But now when I looked around the room it was different.

It surprised the hell out of me, but I realized that I was home.

CHAPTER 4

L
ater that day I put my saddle on the horse I'd been using as a pack animal and rode back to the Daughtry place. I didn't have any trouble finding it. It didn't look any better in broad daylight. The three bodies lying scattered around in front of the shack didn't help its appearance any, especially since the buzzards and coyotes had already been at them. In fact, a couple of the black-winged scoundrels abandoned their feast and flapped off lazily as I rode up. They squawked in annoyance at me. I ignored them and rode on to the corral.

Abner had said the brothers were hazing off a dozen of his cows when he came upon them. I counted the critters in the corral and came up with eighteen. I couldn't be sure where the other six came from without examining the brands, but I figured there was a good chance they were Fishhook stock, too, so I opened the corral gate and drove out the whole bunch. They were mine now.

That left the three horses in the shed. There was no telling when somebody else would come along. Might be days or weeks or even months. I opened the gate on the front of the shed and let them out, too. I didn't want to be caught with horses that had belonged to three dead men, so I took off my hat, waved it in the air, and yelled at them until they ran off. It was a hard thing, turning them loose to fend for themselves that way. But life has a habit of giving us hard choices sometimes.

I drove the cows back to the Fishhook. This couldn't be all of Abner's herd—my herd, now—but I didn't know yet where he had grazed the others, so I let them stop along the creek. There wasn't much grass there, but enough to keep them from straying, I hoped.

With that chore taken care of, I spent the rest of the day exploring the ranch, including all the buildings around the main house. I didn't know the boundaries of Fishhook range, but I rode a good distance north, south, east, and west, making a big circle around the place. I had the Winchester with me, plus the Colt revolver I had taken from the Daughtry brother who'd kicked me in the side.

I found another couple hundred head of stock scattered along the base of the hills to the south. They were branded with a crooked mark I took to represent a fish hook, plus the letters
AT
. I might change the brand later on, I thought, to something that fit better with the name I had chosen, Jim Strickland. Or I might not. It all depended on how ambitious I was feeling. After I'd been here a few months I might decide to sell the place and move on. But I wanted to give it a fair chance, although I had already honored the deal I'd struck with Abner. All three of the men responsible for his death were dead.

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.