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Authors: Brett Cogburn

BOOK: Panhandle
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“Get those spurs off, they're too heavy.”
Andy quickly shed them and started once again to mount, but he stopped himself. He dug into his pockets and pulled out a handful of small change, and his pocket knife. Then he pulled off his belt and took his tobacco makings out of his shirt pocket.
“Here, Tennessee, hold these for me. I need to lighten up.”
I took his belongings while he swung a leg over Little Paint. We watched while he walked the horse out into a big circle and brought him back again. Little Paint seemed to be feeling good and traveling fine. Andy continued to walk him around while we waited.
Soon the people down at the start line parted and made a long alley of bodies opening up to the race course. That was our signal and we started in their direction. Several of the cowboys off roundup walked with us, and we were followed by Kate and a group of the “girls.” Before we had gone very far one of our crowd started playing “Dixie” on a harmonica. Billy loved that Rebel stuff, and even I felt as proud as if we were marching in a parade and going off to war.
As we passed the colonel's tent, the Mexican jockey came out on Baby and pulled in alongside of Andy and Little Paint. If something had happened and the race had never been run that day, it still would have been something to see those two horses together in one place. Baby looked like a queen with her neck arched proudly against the bit, her little nostrils flaring in her muzzle, and her feet moving over the ground like snowflakes in the summer.
Little Paint may have not been as professionally outfitted in race colors and shiny tack, but he knew he was “the man” on that afternoon. He wasn't as pretty as Baby, but he was ready and rearing to go, and the closer he got to the crowd the more his spring wound up, until he was going sideways. The sheer vitality of him leapt out at you. Anyone looking at him knew that he was a runner, and was ready to race.
As we walked I kept my eye on the people lining either side of our path. When we came to the track I saw the colonel waiting, and Harvey stood at his side. He didn't say a thing as we walked past, but I noticed Billy kept his hand near his pistol until we had reached the far side of the finish line.
The course Billy and the colonel had agreed on was three hundred and seventy-five yards of the first straightaway that the earlier races had been run upon. They had taken a team of horses and a homemade drag, made out of a large iron cauldron turned upside down, and knocked the top off the grass for the length of the three-hundred-and-seventy-five-yard race. Everyone had chipped in and walked over the track, removing the larger rocks, grass clumps, and clods. Two poles had been cut and placed in the ground on either side of the track at the far end. The horses were to start there and race back to the line the other horses had been starting from.
The crowd grew strangely quiet when the two horses paraded down the track, especially considering the level of excitement and the amount of whiskey consumed by many. Maybe everyone knew they were about to see something special, or maybe they were just catching their breaths for a bit.
They had moved Cap Arrington's wagon down to the far end, but he stepped out into the middle of the track and called for everyone's attention. All talking ceased while he spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen you are about to witness a match race at three hundred and seventy-five yards between Colonel Andrews's Baby and Billy Champion's War Bonnet,” Cap announced.
I turned to Billy in confusion. “What the hell?”
Billy looked equally as confused. The jockeys walked the two horses around Cap as he spoke, and as Andy came by we tried to motion him over to see if he knew what was going on. He grinned sheepishly. “They asked me earlier what we called our horse, and I couldn't help it. War Bonnet sounded better.”
We didn't have time to argue; what was done was done. Besides, if we murdered him we would be short a jockey. So that's how the famous race between Baby and War Bonnet came about. When folks talk about that race years later, and they mention War Bonnet, they have the imagination of an ignoramus kid to thank for it. But I have to admit, it did sound better.
Cap Arrington continued, “I will judge a fair start, and sound the gun when both parties answer at the mark. Scratches and false starts will be called back, and we will restart. Please keep back from the course and give them room at the finish line.”
He started to make his way up the track, and then stopped and turned back to face the crowd. “I'll personally shoot anyone who gets in their way.”
Being the old Ranger he was, everyone believed him.
Our bunch stood on the far side of the finish line opposite of the colonel and his gang. While two boys stretched a long length of ribbon across the finish line the colonel raised a glass he held up to us in salute. Billy returned the gesture with a tip of his hat.
We all waited expectantly as the two horses lined up. Both horses were a little high and were hard to get ready at the mark in coordination with the other horse. Finally, Andy and the Mexican started both horses side by side at the walk and approached the scratch line at the same time. It worked, and they only paused a split second before Cap fired off his pistol and they were running.
That race was one of the most glorious things I have ever seen, and a sprint race doesn't last but a few seconds. Both horses shot out of the hole and ran nose to nose, necks outstretched, bellies down, and tails a flying. The crowd was so loud in my ears that I hardly realized I was yelling myself.
They came to the finish line and for a minute I thought we were beat. Baby looked to have a nose on us, but in the last instant, thirty yards out, Little Paint, or War Bonnet if you will, seemed to drop even lower and gather more speed. When they came across the line it was War Bonnet by a nose.
We all ran onto the track jumping around like schoolchildren. And I'll be damned if I didn't hug H.B. and pat him on the back like I loved him. After a moment we realized that the race hadn't been called yet, and all of our attention turned to the two Army officers appointed to judge the finish.
Both of them stood conferring in the center of the finish line. They didn't keep us waiting, because they announced War Bonnet the winner by a nose. If we cheered wildly the first time, it was nothing compared to what we did then. Andy came back with our horse and bailed off right into our midst while Carlito took the bridle.
We were all dancing around and acting silly when H.B. quieted us. In the middle of the throng of people who had rushed on to the track he faced us all.
“Boys, we're loaded,” he said with tears in his eyes and a quivering lip.
We all shouted in agreement and started to celebrate again. He waved his arms frantically for us to quiet. “Boys, you don't understand. I said we're loaded. I took the money Wiren gave me to make payroll for the summer, and I bet her all.”
Billy shouted to the sky and grabbed up old Hell's Bells and lifted him plumb off the ground. We all beat on his back until he lost his pipe and his hat. Andy grabbed him by the ears and planted a big kiss on his grimy forehead. H.B. took a wild swing at Andy, but the kid was too fast and ran away.
Some of us were already heading out to collect on bets, and I was left standing alone for a moment in the middle of the track. A big Cheyenne came walking right up to me and it was Blue Knife. I danged near went for my gun, but I had bet it on the race. Before I could fight or flee he was upon me.
“That is a fast horse.” His face was unreadable, his coal-chunk eyes burning into the back of my skull.
I didn't know what to say. I just stood there like I was shot.
“You picked a strong Cheyenne pony. Won me lots of money.”
His face cracked into a big smile and he turned and walked away. I never said a thing, I just watched him leave with my mouth hanging open. It took me a moment to even untrack one step.
I had taken about two of those shaky steps when Andy came running toward me. I thought I heard him, but it took a second time for me to register what he was yelling.
“Dutch Henry and his boys have robbed the stakeholders and got off with all our money!”
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN
O
urs was a rags-to-riches story, and in the manner of the turbulent fortunes of the high-stakes gambling world, we didn't have long to enjoy our fortune before we were back in rags. We never even got one sniff of our winnings before some damned highwaymen held up the guards and took off with our stakes.
A holiday in cow country can be quite a fracas, but nothing could compare to the pandemonium that set in following the announcement that Dutch Henry's gang had taken off with most of the loot in camp. I guess a lot of the camp held a vested interest in the stakes. You would have thought that everyone was a winner, because all of them at the same time stormed the tent where the stakes had been held. What must have been fifty or sixty booted men tried to enter that tent at the same time. Despite the numerous assurances that not a red cent was left, everyone had to see for themselves.
Once the robbery was confirmed somebody gathered up the guards, shook them a time or two to get the straight of things, and in the matter of moments almost every man in camp was mounted and ready to ride. Most of us were impatient to go, and a little hard to rein in, but Cap Arrington took a stand before us.
“I'll shoot the son of a bitch who messes up the sign left by these bandits.” The old Ranger was tugging on his mustache with one hand, and the other rested on the butt of his holstered pistol.
We gathered in a rough semicircle before him to listen.
“They're just getting farther away while we sit around here and jaw,” somebody in the crowd all but shouted.
Cap's beady-eyed gaze raked the group to discover who had spoken up. “I've already put scouts on the trail.”
Billy was sitting his horse beside me. “This is about the sorriest-looking posse I've ever seen.”
Looking around me, I had to agree with him. A lot of the cowboys, and more than a few others, had bet their saddles and pistols on the race. It seemed that Dutch's boys had taken all the shooters with the rest of the loot. To top things off, they ran a rope through the swells of every saddle held in the stakes, and drug the whole pile of hulls across the prairie while they fled. As a result half the boys in the posse were bareback and unarmed.
“Those Cheyenne don't look anywhere near as ridiculous riding bareback.” I pointed to the wild group of braves that was then racing up to go on the warpath with us.
Billy looked over at one of the fellows beside us who was sitting bareback on an exceptionally thin horse. The man was squirming around uncomfortably and had one hand between his crotch and the high, thin blade of his horse's withers.
“That's because folks that ride bareback all the time just naturally know not to pick a raw-backed horse,” Billy said.
“Our bandits are definitely a bold, sassy bunch to have pulled this off,” I said.
“From what I've heard about Dutch Henry, he's got balls as big as church bells.”
Without evidence it seems that Dutch Henry was nominated for the theft as the only outlaw in that neck of the woods with enough stature to have pulled it off. He was a salty German who had scouted in the Indian Wars. He had some grudge against the military at Ft. Elliot, and a strong dislike for Indians. Naturally, he and his gang had been waging a horse thieving war against the U.S. Army and the surrounding tribes for many years. He claimed to leave white civilians alone, but a long list of thievery and murder was attached to his name.
“That damned Dutchman is going to be a handful if we corner him,” an old-timer beside us said.
Cap must have heard him. “Dutch Henry's retired. We're just going after some outlaws of the average sort.”
The whole posse grumbled a little under their breaths. It seemed that most of our group preferred the thought of being robbed by such a notorious character as Dutch Henry, instead of any old run-of-the-mill bandits.
“Cap's right. I know for a fact that the Law caught Old Dutch and hauled him to Dodge City.” H.B. spit for emphasis any time he thought he had said something important.
I studied the tobacco juice staining his whiskers. “Is he in prison?”
“No, Dutch is wily enough to know you won't get far in the outlaw business without the best lawyers money can buy.”
“If he ain't in prison, where's he at?”
“He moved on to other parts. This damned country is getting too civilized for an outlaw to operate with the proper aplomb and bold manner which he was accustomed to.”
Somebody listening behind me scoffed at H.B.'s tale. “Bat Masterson shot Dutch dead at Trinidad, Colorado in '78. My uncle saw it happen.”
H.B. cast a frown back over his shoulder at the man who'd contested his story, but seemed content to let it rest. I listened to men behind me continuing the discussion for a bit.
I leaned over and spoke quietly for only H.B. to hear. “I was up in that country in '78, and I didn't hear anything about a shootout between those two.”
H.B. grunted and growled around the pipe clenched in his teeth. “Famous folks all have more than one version of their life story.”
“You men pay heed to me and we'll catch these robbers,” Cap said loudly.
The mass of mad men was about to grow mutinous if held back any longer, and Cap had to take an occasional step back to keep their nervous horses from trampling him. I guess he saw the blood in our eyes, because he cut short his instructions on the professional manner of catching bandits.
“Just remember, don't go shooting these bandits if you can help it. Let the Law deal with them.” Cap hurried for his horse.
“That just means he doesn't want us killing them before he can hang them,” Billy said.
Cap stuck a foot in the stirrup and loped off toward the Sweetwater with all of us at his heels and threatening to run him down. Being in the lead must have been important to him, because he sure had to get his horse up to speed to stay ahead. We were an impatient bunch used to dealing with our own troubles after our own fashion, and we didn't need anybody on a white horse on yonder hill to wave us on with the brim of his hat and a few fighting words.
We followed a line of torn-up ground where the outlaws had drug the saddles. Here and there was a chunk or a piece of some poor fellow's kak, and you could hear the groans of misery go through our posse like a dose of salts.
A couple of the Cheyenne scouts were waiting for us on the bank of the Sweetwater about four miles down the creek. They had found where the outlaws had crossed and, figuring a bunch of dumb white men couldn't track an elephant through a snow bank, a few of them were waiting to guide us.
One of the Cheyenne told us that the outlaws had dumped our saddles in the creek. Just like that, several of our own jumped down and hit the water. It was swimming depth out in the middle, and they looked like a bunch of ducks bobbing up and down. Before long, one of them came up to the surface and shouted that he had a hold of the rope that the saddles were strung together with.
Soon, more of them were in the water and had taken hold of the rope. After several minutes of choking and straining they managed to work their way closer to wading water. Somebody rode out and took the end of the rope, dallied it to his saddle horn, and spurred up the bank. Something broke loose, and as a result, only about half of the saddles ended up on dry land. The rest of them were left to posterity in the bottom of the creek, despite the repeated attempts of some of the boys to salvage them.
There was a mad scramble as those who had ridden bareback sought their saddles from the muddy pile of offerings. You can understand that not all of them came out of that scrap with a saddle, and even the ones who did weren't necessarily carrying the saddle they had lost. If you couldn't find your own saddle, you might get lucky and commandeer one belonging to somebody who wasn't present. For years afterward men were still swapping saddles trying to find their own.
We loped off that day from the Sweetwater leaving several of our men behind to continue their futile river salvage operation. A few of the men who had firearms but no saddles lent out their weapons to those who were blessed with a saddle. If our numbers were somewhat lessened when we left the Sweetwater, we were at least better armed.
I couldn't blame most of the bareback brigade for staying behind, and I myself would have had to have lost a kid sister or something to go along without my tack. You can't begin to imagine the indignant nature of riding along bareback with a group of properly equipped men.
Our posse was somewhat better equipped when we left, but there remained several men riding bareback, and you could easily spot the men lacking firearms by the shameful looks on their faces. You would have thought they had been forced to troop across the country naked or something. Then again, when you're used to having a pistol on your hip to flop around and fondle as a sure sign of a swinging dick, removal of said item is bound to cause discomfort.
Right then I thought that it was safe to say that those bandits had made a grave mistake due to a miscalculation of human nature. The stealing of a citizen's money is bound to cause a certain amount of desire to chastise and punish the guilty party, but the bandits had acted in such a way as to cause a degree of bloodthirsty need for revenge never seen in simple matters of financial loss. To force a man to pursue his losses in a fashion where he feels naked and missing his parts before his clothed and properly equipped comrades is a sure way to get hanged.
The trail led straight west, mile after mile, hour after hour, and every time our horses' hooves hit the ground somebody was either propping themselves up off a galded crotch, or reaching for the comfort of a pistol that wasn't there anymore. And with each and every step of the way, they got madder, and the thoughts of many in our posse dwelled on the torturous manner with which they would deal with the bandits once they captured them. It was more than justice that we demanded; it was revenge. Yeah, it was going to be a short trial, a quick verdict, and those money-stealing, ass-torturing, emasculating sons of bitches were going to hang—if we could catch them.
The afternoon of the second day, the trail split between the headwaters of McClellan Creek and the Mulberry. The Cheyenne scouts determined that there were five men in the outlaw gang. Three of the men had headed northwest toward the Canadian, while the other two had turned off to the southwest. A quick powwow was held and it seemed that Arrington had received the Army's assurance that they would proceed at haste westward up the Canadian looking to cut the sign of the outlaw gang. Riders had also been sent to Tascosa to notify authorities in that locality of the possibility of our bandits passing through in the near future. It appeared that the three outlaws who had turned north were riding into our support, while the two who had ridden away from the Canadian had the greatest chance for escape.
Arrington quickly divided our posse. One group, led by Colonel Andrews, was to pursue the three outlaws headed for the Canadian as closely as possible, and strengthen their numbers by rendezvous with the soldiers if feasible. The Cheyenne went with the colonel, as they claimed the country to the southwest had always been bad medicine for them, fit for nothing but Comanches and Mexicans.
Meanwhile, Cap would lead the other party in pursuit of the two outlaws who had headed southwest. All of our Lazy F crowd, including myself, went with Cap at his request, because of our supposed knowledge of the country where we were headed. For my own part I didn't know squat about that country except for the fact that most of the water out there was bad when you could find any. Billy informed me that there was plenty of water all the way to New Mexico if you knew where to look, but even he made no claims about taste.
Cap Arrington was reputed to be of the old frontier mold, but despite his survey of the country beyond the headwaters of the Red and his much publicized discovery of the Lost Lakes, he had come near freezing and starving to death himself and a whole company of Rangers the winter before on the Yellow Houses. Even though many of the men had worked some of that country, and were at least familiar with parts of it, H.B. just had to volunteer. He assured us that, should we need his services as a scout, he had once carried the mail and two gallons of whiskey from Mobeetie to Roswell. No matter the quality and quantity of the whiskey, he was sure he had a good feel for the country.
It seemed that our knowledge of the terrain and its finicky waterings would counterbalance the cunningness of the outlaws and lead us to their inevitable capture. However, I was beginning to get the feeling that we were going to eat a whole lot more dust before that happened.
We lost the trail several miles down the Mulberry, but continued on, looking to pick it back up. Our way led us down the creek to where the JA boys were building a set of pens on the flats there. A crew was digging postholes, and a wide, stocky man with a set of white whiskers put down his crowbar and walked out to meet us. Even after Cap informed him of our mission to apprehend the outlaws the man continued to eye us with more than a little disdain. Either he seemed to doubt our ability to capture bandits, or he suspected our party of being equally guilty of similar crimes worthy of legal sentence. He would do nothing for several minutes other than cuss and spit.

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