Forty Times a Killer (3 page)

“I like peach pie,” Wes said. “And apple, if it's got raisins in it.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“And plenty of cinnamon.”

“She made pies like that.” Then quickly, before he could interrupt again, I went on. “I was there the whole month of June, then on the second of July, the day after my ninth birthday, the cabin got hit by a band of Lipan Apaches that had crossed the Rio Grande and come up from Mexico.”

“Damned murdering savages,” Wes said.

“The youngest of the Simpson boys fell dead in the first volley. His name was Reuben or maybe Rufus, I can't recollect which. The others, myself included, made it back into the cabin, though Mrs. Simpson's butt got burned by a musket ball as she was coming through the door.”

“Big target.”

“Yeah, I guess it was.”

“Hold on just a minute.” Wes grabbed the dead man by the ankles and dragged him into the brush. When he came back he said, “Then what happened?”

“Well, Mr. Simpson and his surviving sons held off the Apaches until dark when all went quiet. But they were afraid to go out for the dead boy's body on account of how the savages might be lying in ambush.”

“Damned Apaches. I hate them.”

“Well, just as the moon came up, we heard this snorting and snuffling sound, then a strange ripping noise, like calico cloth being torn into little pieces.”

“What was it?” Wes asked.

“It was Reuben or maybe Rufus being torn into little pieces.”

“The big boars have sharp tusks on them. They can rip into a man.”

“They ripped into the dead boy all right. Come first light all that was left was a bloody skeleton. But the head was still intact. The hogs hadn't touched it.” I stared at Wes. “Why would they do that?”

“I don't know, Little Bit. There ain't no accounting for what a hog will do.”

Wes stepped to the brush, then turned and said, “I'm taking this feller well away from camp. Your damned story about them hogs has me boogered.”

We rode into Longview at the noon hour under a sky that had been burned out by the scorching sun. There was no breeze and the air hung heavy as a damp blanket.

Few people were on the street, probably because the sporting crowd was still abed and wouldn't appear until the dark of night.

Casting no shadow, Wes and I rode to the livery stable, the two mustangs in tow.

Longview was a rough railroad town and the smart moneymen reckoned that the arrival of the iron rails would soon bring prosperity on a massive scale to all concerned. Half the buildings that lined the street were saloons. Gunfights were common and most days the town could be depended on to serve a dead man for breakfast.

No doubt about it, the booming town had snap.

The business district, a cluster of hastily built timber-frame buildings, surrounded the train depot. Wes said there was enough money in the district to bankroll his Wild West show with plenty to spare.

A painted sign hung above the door of the livery.

In person, Jas. Glee, prop. was a tall, loose-geared man somewhere in early middle age. A red beard, shot through with white, hung to his waistband. His eyes were large and expressionless, popping out of a cadaverous face like a pair of black plums.

He wore a threadbare shell jacket of Confederate gray with a corporal's chevrons on the sleeves and thus immediately jumped up several places in our esteem.

“A stall and hay is two-bits per day per hoss,” Glee said. “I'll throw in a scoop of oats for two-bits extry.”

Wes said that we'd spring for the oats.

Glee gave him a sidelong glance. “You boys staying in town long?”

“I'm visiting kin,” Wes said. “Depending on the welcome, it could be one day or ten.”

“Don't make it any more than one, John Wesley,” Glee said.

Wes was surprised. “How do you know my name?”

“Seen you a few years back when I was visiting with your ma and pa.”

Glee turned to me as though he thought there was something I ought to know. “The Rev. James Hardin is a fine man. And his wife Mary Elizabeth is a most singular woman and mighty purty.”

“Well, thankee kindly,” Wes said, answering for me. “When next I see them, I'll tell them what you said.”

“Yes, do that, and add my kind regards,” Glee said.

Was propped the Springfields against the side of a stall. “I'm open to offers for the mustangs and those two rifles.”

Glee cast his eyes over the horses, then the rifles. “A hundred is the best I can do. That's giving you thirty dollars apiece for the scrubs when they ain't worth any more'n ten. As for the Springfields, seems that everybody these days wants repeaters, so they'll be a hard sell.”

Wes scowled. “Hard sell, hard bargain.”

“Hard times,” Glee said.

“Done and done,” I said. The last thing I wanted was for Wes to fly off the handle and put a bullet into Jas. Glee, prop. Not in the man's own town.

“All right, a hundred it is, payable in gold coin.” Then, still smarting a little, Wes said, “Now what's all this about us staying only one day in Longview?”

“The law is after you, John Wesley,” Glee said.

Wes grinned. “The Yankee law is always after me.”

“Stay here. Let me put up your mounts.” Glee led the horses into stalls, forked them hay and then returned, his face grim. “John Wesley, this time it's serious. There's a state police lieutenant in town by the name of E.T. Stakes, known as Ned to them he considers friends. He's been asking about you, talking to your kin and the like.”

“Did he mention charges?” I asked.

Glee stared hard into Wes's eyes. “You want to hear this?”

Wes grinned. “Lay it on me, like I give a damn.”

“One count of hoss theft and three counts of murder. All four of them charges are hanging offenses in Texas.”

“Wes, maybe we should light a shuck,” I said.

“Hell, no we won't,” Wes said. “I'll find this Stakes feller and talk to him. If he's interested in polite conversation, then fine. If he isn't, well, Texas will be rid of another Yankee lawman.”

“Wes, if you kill a state constable, the law will never leave you alone,” I said. “They'll come after you until they catch you, or worse.”

“The young feller's right, John Wesley,” Glee said. “You can bed down here tonight and ride out at first light. I got a nice pot of beef stew on the simmer, if you'd care to make a trial of it, and I can find some whiskey if you're an imbibing man.”

Wes seemed to be thinking over that proposition, but he wasn't. “Who's the richest man in town?” he said after a while.

Glee's head jerked back in surprise. “Why, I guess that would be Sam Luck. He owns the bank, a couple saloons, a sawmill outside of town, and maybe a dozen other properties he's foreclosed on in the past twelvemonth.”

“Where can I find him?” Wes said.

Glee consulted the nickel railroad watch he took from his pants pocket. “At this time of day, he'll be taking lunch at the Excelsior Hotel.”

“Is this Luck feller a carpetbagger?” I asked.

“He's a black man and a close, personal friend of President Grant,” Glee said. “What does that tell you?”

“Yeah, well I can stand it,” Wes said. “I don't mind doing business with the devil if I can spend his money.”

“Sam Luck is a grinder, a real hard-ass,” Glee said. “He ain't likely to give a loan to a ranny he don't know.”

“I don't want to borry money,” Wes said. “I'm looking for business partners.”

I read the question on Glee's face and said, “John Wesley plans to start up a Wild West show.”

A second question overlaid the first on Glee's face, but then he articulated his puzzlement. “What the hell is a Wild West show?”

Wes said, “We'll tour the country and bring the frontier to the folks—drovers, Indians, cavalry rough riders, settlers, pretty saloon gals, shootin', scalpin'—you name it. Folks will sit in grandstands and watch.”

“And the folks will pay good money for this?” Glee said.

“Sure they will,” Wes said. “I'll get rich and so will my partners.”

“Hell, boy, all folks have to do is walk into the street to see a Wild West show the likes of what you're talking about. There's one in Longview every damn night of the week.”

Wes could look pompous at times.

He puffed up and said, “This is why you'll never be great, Mr. Glee. You don't see the big picture. My show will tour the east where folks walk into the street and all they see is high buildings and trolley cars. They'll pay through the nose to see the Wild West right in their hometown of Boston or New York or wherever.”

“You're serious about this, ain't you?” Glee said.

“Damn right I am,” Wes said.

“Damn right he is,” I said.

“Damn stupid if you ask me,” Glee said.

“Well, I'm not asking you,” Wes said. “Now I'm gonna see that black man and hope he's got a heap more business savvy than you.”

Glee shook his head and walked away. Then he stopped and said over his shoulder, “Think about the stew, huh?”

The Excelsior Hotel was a two story building with a generous porch supplied with bamboo and rattan rockers and wooden side tables. Swallows had built their nests in the corners and ollas, beaded with condensation, hung from the rafters to cool the sitters.

“Nice place,” I said as we stepped onto the porch. “It looks expensive.”

“Where else would a damned carpetbagger lunch?” Wes asked.

We stepped out of the day's intolerable heat into the shaded coolness of the hotel lobby.

A clerk stood behind the front desk talking with a plumed, beautiful officer resplendent in the blue, silver, and gold dress uniform of the U.S. Cavalry. The fussy, bespectacled man shifted his attention from the officer to us, as dusty, shabby and trail-worn a pair as ever was. “What can I do for you”—he gave a moment's pause—“gentlemen?”

“I'm here to see Sam Luck.” Wes would not put
Mister
in front of a black man's name.

The uppity clerk did. “Mr. Luck is lunching.” He had a funny left eye that turned inward toward the bridge of his nose.

“I know.” Wes could see that the dining room opened onto the lobby and he stepped toward the door.

“Wait. You can't go in there,” the clerk said.

The beautiful officer stroked the blond, dragoon mustache that fell in waves to the corners of his mouth and his nose wrinkled as he regarded us.

Perhaps he believed that we'd spent the night in a pigsty somewhere.

Wes ignored the clerk and strode quickly into the dining room, me limping after him.

The place was full of big-bellied men in broadcloth, their women in silk, and cigar smoke hung in the air like a blue fog. I identified the fragrances of steak, lamb chops, and sizzling bacon and my hollow stomach rumbled.

Wes stood still for a moment, looked around, then yelled, “Sam'l Luck! Show yourself, Sam'l!”

I cringed with embarrassment as every face in the room turned to us. A few seemed mildly amused, but the majority were openly hostile and stared at us with a mix of disapproval and disdain.

“I'm here to see Sam'l Luck,” Wes called out again.

After that, things got rapidly out of hand.

The beautiful officer marched into the dining room, a riding crop in his hand. He grabbed Wes by the shoulder and yelled, “Out you go, my buck.”

“You tell him, Custer!” a man yelled. And people laughed.

“Who the hell are you?” Wes said, his eyebrows drawing together.

Custer knew he had a captive, adoring audience and made a grandstand play. “General George Armstrong Custer,” he grandly announced. “And I'm the equal of an 'undred, nay, a thousand, of you.”

As he knew it would, this bold statement drew a round of applause and cheers, and, amid the loud huzzahs, I heard yells of, “Give him hell, General!” and “Remember the Washita!”

Wes hated Yankee soldiers, was widely believed to have shot several, and he took a set against Custer. His hands blurred and an instant later the muzzles of two blue Colts pushed into the blue belly of Custer's frockcoat. “Back off, soldier boy.” His voice was as cold as death.

Looking back, I have to give Custer credit. The man had sand. He wasn't too smart, but he had bark on him and he didn't even blink.

“Pull those triggers and you'll hang like the damned Rebel dog you are,” he said.

“Might just be worth it,” Wes said, smiling.

Oh sweet Jesu!

John Wesley's knuckles were white on the triggers and America was about to lose a hero.

“General Custer!” A small, frail black man stood up at his corner table. In the sudden hush that followed, he said, “Please allow the gentlemen to draw closer to me without harm or hindrance.”

He'd phrased that request so that Custer could extricate himself without losing face.

But I still don't know how things would have ended had a pale young waitress,
in extremis
, not dropped a tray of dirty dishes that clattered and crashed onto the wood floor.

The sudden clamor broke the spell that had plunged the room into silence.

Custer took advantage of it. He lowered his riding crop and said to Wes, “I'll deal with you later, sir.” Then he swung on his heel and stomped away, his spurred boots chiming.

Wes grinned, spun his Colts, and let them thud into their shoulder holsters. “There goes a lucky man.”

Custer wasn't the only one who loved to make a grandstand play.

 

 

Sam Luck, for indeed that was the identity of the delicate little black man, waved us over to his table.

Wes sashayed across the room like a new rooster in the hen house and basked in the crowd's attention.

He didn't deign to hear, or chose to ignore, the hear-hears after one fat Yankee with broken veins all over his nose and cheeks called out, “We should hang the rascal.”

But when Luck ushered us into chairs, the diners settled down and the normal buzz of conversation and the clink of cutlery resumed.

I'd formed a picture in my mind of what Sam Luck would look like, a big-bellied, shiny-faced black man in a loud checkered suit smoking a fat cigar the better to show off the diamond ring on his little finger.

He was none of those things.

Luck was tiny, spare, dusty and worn, like a leather-bound book on a disused library shelf. His skin was coffee-colored, his eyes small and dark as raisins, and his mouth was a thin gash, tight, hard, and mean.

The black broadcloth he wore, once expensive, was much frayed and stained and his linen was yellow with age.

Withal, he was a very unimpressive figure . . . but for the most singular scar that marred his forehead. The letter
R
had been burned into his skin with a hot iron. The brand was fairly small—I could have covered it with a silver dollar—but it was sharp and deep.

I recognized it for what it was, of course.

The
R
marked Luck as a runaway slave who'd once tried to flee his lawful master and was thus never to be trusted again. It was a Mark of Cain that he'd once richly deserved.

Luck made no effort to offer us coffee, but did listen intently to what John Wesley was saying to him about the Wild West show. All the time, the black man's thin fingers crumbled the bread roll on his plate.

When Wes finished speaking, Luck said, “The officer you threatened with death is General George Armstrong Custer. He's leaving for Kansas today to take command of the Seventh Cavalry.” Luck's brief smile was the flash of a knife blade. “I rather fancy that the gallant Custer will soon provide enough action against the savages for a dozen Wild West shows.”

“My point exactly,” Wes said. “I want to bring that kind of frontier excitement to audiences back east and even beyond, to Europe.”

When he put his mind to it, Wes could talk like a lawyer, even to a Negro.

Luck brushed bread crumbs off his lap and without looking up said, “No one has come up with an idea like yours before, Mr. Hardin, and it just might work.”

“It can't fail,” Wes said.

Luck raised his eyes. “Any business can fail. I just lost money on a Mississippi plantation that I was sure I could resell at a profit. Somebody burned down the big house and I was left with six hundred acres of land, half of it swamp.”

Wes wouldn't say it, but I did. “Sorry to hear that.” My face was empty.

Again Luck's smile was slight and fleeting. “Yes, I'm sure you are.”

“Well,” John Wesley said, “what do you think of my proposition?”

“It interests me, young man,” Luck said. “I believe your Wild West show idea has potential.”

“Good,” Wes said, beaming. “How much do you want to invest?”

“Not so fast. First I want to see a business proposal from you.”

“What's that?” Wes asked.

Luck steepled his fingers and cocked his small head to one side. “You will draw up a cover letter, executive summary, business and market feasibility analyses and studies, financial data, and supply me with the
curriculum vitae
for all the members of your management team.”

“Hell, is that all?” Wes blinked like an owl.

“For the time being, yes,” Luck said. “Have it on my desk by the end of next week.”

Wes nodded, then turned to me. “You heard the man, Little Bit. Have all that stuff on his desk by the end of next week.”

My face said, “Huh?” but I heard the croak of my voice say, “Sure thing, Wes.”

“Very well, our business is concluded,” Luck said. “Now, if you gentlemen will withdraw and allow me to finish my lunch?”

Wes rose to his feet and I did the same.

“Don't worry, we'll get you all that . . . stuff,” Wes said.

Luck nodded. “Good. In the meantime stay clear of Custer. He can be a dangerous enemy.”