Shawn O'Brien Manslaughter (28 page)

When he was older, though still a young man, serving as a deputy marshal for the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, James Mann would ignore irritating questions.

“Why do you carry that cannon of a rifle?”

“You got some prejudice against short guns?”

“Reckon you'll run into any elephants down in the Winding Stair Mountains?”

He seldom carried a revolver on his hip, and when he did, Mann hardly ever pulled that Colt from its holster. Yet always—
always
—he had that Winchester 1886 rifle. It chambered the .50-100-450 round and .50 calibers favored by a few old buffalo hunters in single-shot rifles, but rarely found in lever-action repeaters.

Mann's Winchester '86 looked older than it actually was, the stock and forestock battered and badly scratched, the barrel losing some of its bluing. Yet it was always clean.

Always loaded.

And quite often cocked.

A drummer who had traveled all the way from North Haven, Connecticut, once offered Mann a Marlin '89 . . . free, with a year's supply of ammunition. Mann turned him down cold.

When Mann won a turkey shoot, Buffalo Bill Cody said he would pay $1,500 for that rifle and give Mann a brand-spanking new one in return. Mann thanked Colonel Cody for the offer, but said he liked his rifle just fine. He was used to it. It was like family.

Truth was, that rifle
was
family. Blood kin.

He did, however, answer one question. After testifying in one of Judge Rogers's trials—Rogers having replaced Isaac Parker a few years back—Mann had retired to the Texas Corner Saloon on Garrison Avenue. Alone. The rifle lay on the table next to a pitcher of beer.

The owner of that watering hole, Katie Crockett, dropped into the seat across from Mann. “Rough day at the courthouse?”

“No more than usual.”

By that time, practically everybody from western Arkansas to the Chickasaw Nation had heard about the trial, how the defense attorney had accused Mann of abusing his power, using a .50-caliber weapon on a seventeen-year-old kid, forcing the doctor to saw off the boy's right leg, which had been shattered by two shots from Mann's Winchester. Never mind that that boy had killed five people in cold blood and had been trying to make Mann number six.

Katie drew a long finger down the Winchester's barrel. “You and this gun . . .”

He poured her some of the beer.

She shook her head. “I don't see how it's all worth it.”

“What?”

“The abuse you get for carrying it.”

He lifted his stein in salute. “It's worth it.”

“Why?” Katie asked.

He drank some beer, and she figured he would just shrug off her question the way he always did when anyone asked him what made that beat-up rifle so special.

But he put the stein on the table, wiped his mouth, and locked his eyes on Katie's for a moment, before falling onto that well-used, often-criticized Winchester. “My uncle,” Deputy Marshal James Mann said softly, “went a long way to get this rifle. For me.”

“Kris,” James said to his sister, shaking his head. “I'm too old to play that game.”

“You're yeller!” his kid brother Jacob said with a challenging sneer.

Beside him, his twelve-year-old sister dangled the Montgomery Ward & Co. catalog, showing off imported China fruit plates like she was clerking at the mercantile in McAdam, which passed for a town in the Texas Panhandle.

Eight-year-old Jacob lost his sneer. “Please,” he begged.

James Mann stared at him then at Kris, before dropping his gaze to the
McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader
. He was making his way through the book for the fourth time, and, honestly, how many times did his ma and pa expect him to read a scene from George Coleman's
The Poor Gentleman
? Besides, Ma was shopping in McAdam, and Pa was working on the Fort Worth–Denver City Railroad up around Amarillo. The Potter County seat wasn't much more than a speck of dust on a map, but Amarillo boasted a bigger population than McAdam.

Since James had finished his chores and had been assigned the grim duty of keeping his younger siblings out of trouble, that child's game seemed a whole lot more appealing than reading
McGuffey's
.

He slammed the book shut, hearing Jacob's squeal of delight as he slid the
Reader
across the desktop, and pushed himself to his feet. “No whining when you don't get what you want!”

Following Kris and Jacob, he pushed his way through the curtain that separated what Ma and Pa called the parlor, and into what they called the dining room. Another curtain separated the winter kitchen, and beyond that lay his parent's bedroom and finally the room he shared with his brother and sister. All were separated by rugs or blankets that Ma called curtains and Pa called walls.

The Mann home, a long rectangle built with three-inch siding and three-inch roof boards, stretched thirty-four feet one inch long and eight feet, nine inches wide, while the ceiling rose nine feet from the floor. The only heat came from the Windsor steel range in the kitchen. The only air came from the front door, which slid open, and the windows Pa had cut into the northeast corner of the parlor and the southwest corner of Ma and Pa's bedroom. At one time, the home had hauled railroad supplies from Fort Worth. The wheelbase and carriage had been removed from the boxcar, although the freight's handbrake wheel and grab irons remained on the outside . . . in case someone needed to climb up on the roof to set the brake and keep the Mann home from blowing away.

Jacob was young enough to still find living in a converted boxcar an adventure. At sixteen, James Mann had outgrown such silly thoughts, although he was about to take part in a game he hadn't played with Kris and Jacob in years.

The door had been left open to allow a breeze, for the Texas Panhandle turned into a furnace in August, and the nearest shade trees could be found in the Palo Duro country, a hard day's ride southwest.

Kris and Jacob already sat at the rough-hewn table, the thick Montgomer y Ward catalog in front of them. James took his seat across from them, giving his younger siblings the advantage. He would be looking at the catalog pages upside down, but, well, he didn't plan on winning anything. It wasn't like anything they allegedly won would actually show up on Christmas morning. It was simply a kid's game.

They called the game “My Page.” Shortly after Ma picked up the winter catalog at the nearest mercantile wherever they were living, the Mann children would sit at the table, and see what they might ask Santa Claus to bring them. They'd open the book, slap a hand on a page, shout out, “My page!” and pick something they might want.

It had worked a lot better, or at least a little fairer, before Jacob had been born, when either Kris or James would actually get a page. By the time Jacob became old enough to play, James figured he had grown too old to play. Besides, his reflexes had always been quick—almost as fast as his namesake uncle's—so he had left the child's game to Kris and Jacob. And let them complain and argue and eventually get into a brother-sister fight because Kris had slammed her hand on the page with the Kipling books on purpose, knowing how much Jacob loved Kipling even if Ma was already reading to him.

“You only get five gifts,” Kris explained, “so you better watch what you go for.”

Like anyone really wanted to find a turkey feather duster or whitewash brush under the tree on Christmas Day.

James turned in his seat, looking through the open door at the flat expanse of nothingness that was the Texas Panhandle. Out there, you could see forever, to tomorrow, to the day after tomorrow, to Canada, it felt like. He wanted desperately to light out for himself, but Ma wouldn't have any of that. She wanted her oldest son to go to college, maybe wind up teaching school. She certainly didn't want him to wind up in that fading but still wild town called Tascosa, north of Amarillo, and work cattle for thirty a month and found. Nor did she want James to follow in his Uncle Borden's boot steps, serving as an express agent, risking his life riding the rails with payrolls and letters and such. Borden, the oldest, worked for the Adams Express Company and usually found himself on Missouri-Kansas-Texas trains, but he had gotten James's father, Millard, the job on the Fort Worth and Denver before Jacob, or even Kris, were born.

James could remember little of Wichita Falls, the town near Fort Worth, other than it had been poorly named. It usually had little water to begin with, let alone enough to make a waterfall.

Three years later, the line had stretched out to Harold, just some thirty-four miles. In '86, when Millard had been promoted to assistant foreman, the line had grown to Chillicothe. A year later, it had reached the Canadian River, and the Manns had made themselves a home out of a boxcar five miles from the town of McAdam. Eventually, the rail line had moved into New Mexico Territory and joined up with the crews laying track from Denver and Millard bossed a crew working on a new spur line.

James would not have minded working for the railroad one bit, even if he had to swing a sixteen-pound sledgehammer in the Texas heat. Yet what he really wanted was to follow his Uncle Jimmy's line of work. Riding for Judge Isaac Parker's deputy marshals in Arkansas and the Indian Nations, bringing bad men to justice, seeing some wild country. It sounded a lot more promising, a lot more adventurous, than rocking along in a locked express car as a train sped through the night. It certainly held more promise than bossing a bunch of thick-skulled Irishmen who sweated out the whiskey they had consumed the night before at some hell-on-wheels while lugging two hundred-pound crossties for the rail pullers and gandy dancers.

But there he was, practically a man, babysitting and about to play “My Page.”

“I go first,” Kris said.

“No,” Jacob whined. “I wanna.”

“Too bad.”

“But . . . Ja-aaames!”

Shaking his head, wishing he had stayed in the parlor with his Reader, James refrained from muttering an oath. “Let Jacob go first.”

Kris frowned. “How come?”

“He's the youngest.”

“You're just saying that because he's a boy. Like you.”

“I'm a man,” James declared.

Jacob and Kris giggled, and Jacob pulled the book closer to him. Kris relented, and Jacob opened the catalog. He went deep, probably toward the tables and such, if James remembered correctly, let the pages flutter, and released his hold.

It fell open to two pages of baby carriages. Jacob was ready, hand about to slam down, but he stopped himself from making a critical mistake and risk winding up with a canopy top baby carriage with brushed carpet and matching steel wheels.

No one moved. James was about to slide the catalog toward his sister, when Kris's hand slammed down on the page without the advertisement in the corner.

“My page!” she yelled.

“You want a baby carriage?” Jacob turned up his nose.

“For my doll.” She pulled the catalog closer, whispering, “Let's see.” She studied the three rows of offerings, before pointing to one at the bottom corner.

Jacob shook his head, but James pulled the catalog toward him, turned it around, and studied it . . . like old times, when he was a boy. “Twelve dollars and fifty cents?” He smiled.

“It's silk laced,” Kris said.

“For a doll?” Jacob sighed. “Girls!”

“Well . . .” James slid the catalog back to his sister.

She quickly turned it around, opened it, let some pages fall, and dropped the corner. Capes and cloaks. No one made a move. August came too hot for anyone to think about winter clothing, although they had seen just how harsh Panhandle winters could be.

It was James's turn. Purposely, he let his pages open to the index.

“Aw, c'mon!” Jacob pulled the book to him. Collars and suspenders. No interest.

Kris's turn. James saw what he was looking for and made a quick grasp, laughing when Jacob's hand landed on page 131 as James moved his hand to his hair, and scratched his head.

“My page!” Jacob shouted. He lifted his hand, realizing where his hand had dropped. “Dang it!” He glared at his brother. “That's not fair.”

Kris was laughing so hard, tears formed in her eyes. “What are you going to ask for, Jacob, the rose sprays or the straw hats?”

“But them is girls' hats!”

“You'll look good in that one.” She pointed to one with fancy edges and trimmings. Available in white, ecru, brown, navy blue, and cardinal.

“Fine.” Jacob said. “I'll take the orange blossoms.”

“You getting married?” James asked.

Kris pulled the catalog, opened the pages, let one end fall. James decided he might as well play along, so he wound up asking for a dozen packages of Rochelle salts—which made Jacob feel better.

So the game went. Jacob wound up with a Waltham watch, and it did not matter to him that Kris said it was a ladies' watch. He liked the stars on the hunter's case, anyway. Kris got a roman charm shaped like a heart with a ruby, pearl and sapphire. Jacob picked a leather-covered trunk—“Sultan” according to Montgomery Ward & Co. He could use it as a fort or place to hide. Kris chose a ladies' saddle, just beating Jacob to the page.

“You ain't even trying!” Jacob complained to James.

“I'm trying,” James protested. “You two are just too fast for me.”

“All you got is some salts.”

“I like salt.”

The next round, James wound up with a Cheviot suit. He opted for the round cornered sack suit in gray plaid made of wool cassimere. He let Jacob beat him to one of the pages of saddles, and exploded in laughter, as did Jacob, when Kris tried to get a piece of wallpaper, thinking it was fancy lace, but the breeze came in strong and flipped the pages to where Kris wound up with a Spanish curb bit.

“You can use it with your saddle,” James told her.

“You just need a horse,” Jacob added.

It was James's turn. He stood the book up on its spine and just pulled his hands away, watching the catalog pages spread, flutter, and fall. It landed open. Jacob's hand headed for one of the pages as James saw the muzzle-loading shotguns on one upper page. He spotted the Winchester repeaters on the facing page and couldn't help himself. His hand shot out, barely landing on the page just ahead of Jacob's hand, and he heard himself calling out, “My page!”

“Dang it!” Jacob pulled his hand back. “I wanted that rifle!”

“You're too young to have a rifle,” Kris said.

James withdrew his hand, and stared at where his hand had fallen. He felt guilty, but only slightly. “I'll let you shoot it,” he offered.

“Which one?” Kris asked, even though she had no use for guns.

James's finger tapped on the bottom of the page, and Jacob pulled the catalog toward him, leaned forward, and read, “Winchester Repeating Rifles—Model 1886.”

Kris leaned over. “That's twenty-one dollars,” she sang out. “And you scold me for wanting a twelve-dollar baby carriage?”

“That's the factory price,” James corrected. “The catalog doesn't charge that much.” He pointed to the second row of numbers. “Fourteen dollars and eighteen cents.” He had been studying that catalog, poring over that page, since Ma had brought the book home from McAdam Mercantile a week ago.

Reaching for the catalog, wanting to see, to dream some more, he thought of what it must be like to hold a rifle like that in his hands. All Pa owned were a Jenks carbine in .54 caliber that his father had carried during the Civil War and a Colt hammerless double-barrel shotgun in twelve gauge. Pa had let him fire the shotgun, even let him go hunting for rabbits and quail, but never the rifle. Pa didn't own a short gun, but Uncle Jimmy did, preferring the 1873 model Winchester.

“Promise I can shoot it?” Jacob demanded.

James choked off a laugh. He had as much chance of getting a large-caliber repeating rifle at Christmas as Kris had of getting a $12.50 baby carriage for her doll. Besides, she was getting too old to play dolls. And he was too old to play that silly game.

“They's lots of models.” Jacob put his elbows on the table, chin atop his fingers, and studied the catalog page. Only one illustration but about a dozen typed descriptions. “Which one you want?”

James knew exactly and found himself reaching across the table and pulling the book toward him.

A voice outside startled him. “What are y'all younguns doing?”