Butch Cassidy the Lost Years (3 page)

So I wrote down “Jim Strickland,” and then I read what I'd written to Abner. He managed a weak nod and said, “That'll be fine. You're a good man . . . Jim.”

I don't know if he just ran out of breath before he said the name, or if he was telling me in his own way that he knew it wasn't real and didn't care.

He held out his hand and said, “Gimme the pencil. Afraid I'm gonna get blood on it.”

“Don't worry about that,” I told him.

He took the pencil. I held the book where he could sign his name on the page. His hand was shaking some, but I could read his signature. I didn't think anybody would dispute the bill of sale, since he didn't have any family, and anyway I wasn't sure I would ever use it. While the idea of settling down held some appeal, I didn't know if I could do it. I'd been on the drift for a long time.

When he was finished his hand fell back in his lap. He said, “You better . . . get after 'em now. They got a shack . . . couple miles north of here. Ain't much more than a lean-to . . . built against a little rise. Don't trust 'em . . . they're tricky bastards. I never should've . . . give' 'em any warnin' . . . Should've just started shootin' first myself. You might want to . . . bear that in mind.”

“I sure will, Abner,” I told him. “You better get some rest now, hear?”

“You think you could . . . see your way clear to leavin' that flask with me . . . while you go after those skunks?”

“Sure, I can do that.” I pressed the silver flask into the hand that had held the pencil. He had dropped it on the ground beside him.

“Much . . . obliged.”

He seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes open now. His head rested against the dirt wall behind him. His chest still rose and fell, but slow, slow.

I knew if I piddled around a little before riding out after the Daughtrys, Abner would be dead and I could forget the whole thing and go find the ranch house. His horse was long gone, doubtless having run off after the shooting, but I could pack his body in on my extra animal. I could even toss that bill of sale into the fire and watch it burn. A part of me wanted to. If I'd wanted to live the life of a rancher, I could've stayed in Utah when I was a kid.

Anyway, I couldn't rightfully condemn the Daughtry boys for rustling. My own past was not without blemish in that respect, and I never cared for the idea of being a hypocrite.

But shooting an old man in cold blood . . . well, I had to admit that rubbed me the wrong way. I didn't really know a blasted thing about Abner Tillotson, but I like to think I'm a pretty good judge of character, and my instincts told me he didn't deserve to go out like this.

I folded the page with Abner's signature on it and stuck it in my hip pocket. Then I went over to my horse and put the book back in the saddlebags. I looked at Abner but couldn't tell if he was breathing or not.

“I'll be back, Abner,” I told him anyway.

Then without thinking too much about what I was doing, I untied the reins, swung up into the saddle, and rode off into a dark, bone-chilling night in search of a trio of murdering rustlers.

CHAPTER 2

I
f you were to ask me about the coldest I've ever been, you probably wouldn't think that it would be when I was in Texas, what with me spending so much time in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and places like that. But all these years later, even on the hottest day of the summer, a shiver still goes through me when I think about that night ride across the Texas plains.

I left the packhorse in the gully with Abner. I left the fire burning, too, which went against the grain because of the danger of prairie fires. My hope, though, was that it would keep the scavengers away from him for a while. Maybe I would get back before the fire burned down completely.

He had said the Daughtry place was a couple miles north of the gully. It was too dark to be sure how much ground I was covering, but I was counting on spotting a lighted window to steer by. Until then I had to rely on instinct to keep me going in the right direction.

After a while, just when I started to worry that I was lost and wouldn't even be able to find my way back to the gully, a faint yellow glow appeared in the distance ahead of me. It was tiny at first but got bigger as I rode toward it. Eventually I was able to tell by its roughly rectangular shape that it was the window I'd been looking for.

From what Abner had told me, I felt confident that I was approaching the Daughtry place. He hadn't mentioned anybody else living around these parts.

With the wind blowing out of the north the way it was, I didn't think they would hear my horse's hoofbeats. Just to be sure, though, I reined in when we were about fifty yards away. I didn't see anything close by where I could tie the horse, so I let the reins dangle and left him ground-hitched. I pulled the Winchester from the scabbard and started toward the light on foot.

When I got closer I could make out more of the details, even on that dark night. The shack looked like a jumble of boards piled against the face of a little bluff. It had a tin and tar-paper roof with the iron stovepipe sticking up through it. With the bluff to block the wind and a fire going in the stove, it might be halfway comfortable in there, I thought.

Off to the right was a shed that actually looked more sturdily built than the shack. I saw several bulky shapes huddled together in there. I guess the Daughtrys knew how important it was for a man to take care of his horse. Beyond the shed was a corral. The stolen cattle stood stolidly inside it with their back ends turned toward the wind.

It would have been easy enough to kick the door down and go in shooting. They wouldn't know I was anywhere around until it was too late for at least one of them, and probably two. Maybe, if I was really lucky, all three of them. I mulled it over for a minute or so and came mighty close to doing it that way.

But something stopped me. As I mentioned, I've had what you might call a checkered past, but for most of that time, even in my wildest years, I had managed not to kill anybody. There had come a point where that changed—sometimes there's just no other way out, and to be honest, there are some evil bastards in the world who just need killin'—but I still didn't want to ventilate anybody who didn't have it coming.

As I stared at that lighted window, I realized that I didn't know for an absolute certainty it was the Daughtr ys in there. Even if it was, I didn't know who else might be in the shack with them. Wives, kids, maybe even an old dog or two. I didn't want any of them getting in the way of a stray bullet.

What I needed to do was draw them out some way, and I thought I saw a way to do it.

That stovepipe poked up through the tar paper fairly close to the bluff. I circled around and climbed the bluff well away from the shack. Even though I was only about eight feet higher than I had been, the wind felt even harder and colder up there. I tried to ignore it as I cat-footed toward the shack.

When I was behind that haphazard assemblage of lumber, I took off my coat. Under it I wore a thick flannel shirt and a pair of long underwear, but the wind cut through both garments like they weren't there. Shivering and trembling, I hung the jacket on the end of my rifle barrel and extended it toward the stovepipe. It almost reached. I gave the Winchester a flick of my wrist. The jacket jumped in the air and settled over the top of the pipe.

It wasn't blocked off as well as if I'd been able to get out on the roof and stuff something down the pipe. From the looks of that roof, though, if a pigeon landed on there it might fall through. Doing it this way, some of the smoke was going to escape, but I thought enough of it would back up into the shack to do the job.

I crouched there on the bluff waiting for something to happen. I didn't have to wait long. Somebody started yelling and cussing inside the shack. The door slammed open and three men stumbled out, coughing.

The Winchester held fifteen rounds, so I figured I could spare one. I put it into the ground near their feet, making them jump. They had made the mistake of all standing close together instead of spreading out, which told me they were pure amateurs when it came to being ambushed. I didn't want to give them a chance to realize that mistake, so I yelled, “Stand right where you are! I'll kill the first man who moves!”

Well, they moved, of course. They twisted around toward the sound of my voice. One of them even started to reach under his coat. He stopped when I worked the Winchester's lever and he heard that sinister, metallic
clack-clack.

It was a dramatic touch and I shouldn't have done it. I should have already had a fresh round chambered. I have a liking for those little flourishes, though, and even though I've been told that they'll get me killed someday, a man's got to entertain himself from time to time.

Still coughing from the smoke that followed them out the door, one of the men shouted, “Who in blazes . . . are you?”

“Never mind about who I am,” I yelled back at him. “Is your name Daughtry?”

“What the hell business is that of yours?”

I pointed the rifle at him and said, “Just answer the question.” I tried to make my voice as cold and deadly as the wind.

“I'm Ned Daughtry,” the man admitted. “These are my brothers Clete and Otto. You satisfied now, you son of a bitch?”

“Anybody else inside?”

A wracking cough bent the man forward. When it was over he said, “No, just the three of us.”

“In that case,” I told him, “Abner Tillotson says you should all go to hell.”

That threw them. One of the others said, “Who's Tillotson to you?”

“A friend,” I said. What else could you call somebody who was giving you a ranch?

That decided it. They knew they'd gunned Abner, and they knew I'd come gunning for them in return. Wasn't nothin' left but to get to it.

So that's what I did.

I already had the Winchester pointed at one of them, so I went ahead and shot him as soon as they started to reach. The slug bored through him at a downward angle, bent him back, and dropped him to his knees. I worked the lever as I swung the rifle and fired two more rounds as fast as I could crank them off. Muzzle flashes lit up the night, but despite them I still couldn't see much. They returned fire. I went to one knee as a bullet whistled over my head.

For a couple of heartbeats the night was filled with fire and lead from both sides of the fight. A second Daughtry brother stumbled and fell. I tried to locate the third one so I could shoot at him some more, but he was gone.

I couldn't see him, but he might be able to see me. I flattened out on top of the bluff.

A part of my mind kept up with the shots even though I wasn't really thinking about it. So I knew I'd fired nine times and had six rounds left. That ought to be plenty, I thought, but first I had to have something to shoot at.

I couldn't see anything, couldn't hear anything except the wind. But I knew somewhere out there was a fella who wanted to kill me, and I didn't like the feeling. Not one bit.

He was a slick bastard. Got around behind me somehow. If he hadn't stumbled a little in the dark and made a tiny noise, he might've plugged me. As it was, I rolled over just in time to feel his shot whip past my ear and hit the ground instead of blowing off the back of my head.

A Winchester's not real good for close work. I got a shot off, but it must've gone wild because he was on me, kicking me in the side and screaming curses at me. I dropped the rifle, grabbed his leg, and heaved on it. He fell and landed on top of me, and we both went off the edge of the bluff and dropped two feet to crash onto the shack's roof.

It was just as flimsy as it looked. We broke through it and fell another few feet, landing on a table this time. He was still on top of me, and the impact was enough to knock the breath out of me for the second time tonight. I was half-stunned and my muscles didn't want to work, but I forced them to anyway. I shoved him off the table onto the floor.

The smoke had cleared out some with the door open, but there was still enough of it in the air to sting my mouth and nose and eyes as I rolled off the table the other way. I put one hand on the table to steady myself as I looked around for a weapon of some sort. My rifle was still up on the bluff, and I didn't know if the last Daughtry had managed to hang on to his pistol when we fell through the roof.

He had. The damned thing blasted again as he rose up on the other side of the table. But he hurried his shot and it went into the wall behind me. I didn't give him a chance to get off another one. I grabbed the handiest thing I could and flung it at him.

That was a kerosene lantern sitting on a shelf against the wall. It hit him and broke, and fire leaped up on his chest and set his beard on fire. He got so worked up about that, yelling and jumping around, that he forgot about trying to shoot me again. I leaped onto the table and pushed off of it into a diving tackle that took him off his feet. The back of his head hit the hard-packed dirt floor with a sound sort of like what you hear when you drop a watermelon. He didn't move after that, just lay there with the fire consuming his buffalo hide coat, his beard, and his face.

I knew that was really going to stink, so I picked up the revolver he'd dropped, tucked it behind my belt, and grabbed his ankles so I could drag him outside.

I hadn't forgotten about the other two brothers, so as soon as I had the burning one out of the shack, I dropped his legs and drew the gun, even though I didn't know whether it still had any bullets in it. Turned out it didn't matter, because neither of the other Daughtrys were moving and never would again unless somebody picked them up and carried them. I didn't intend to waste that much effort.

From the corner of my eye I saw some other flames and looked up to see that the heat from the stovepipe had finally set my coat on fire. I let out a heartfelt, “Son of a
bitch!
” That coat was a good one, and without something to break the wind I might still freeze before morning.

Stay here tonight, I told myself. The shack was pretty drafty, but there was a fire in the stove. I could make my way back to the gully in the morning.

But by then coyotes and maybe even wolves would've been at Abner's body for sure, and they might have gone after my packhorse and supplies, too. Sighing, I looked around the inside of the shack for something I could wear.

I found another buffalo-hide coat. It stunk to high heaven when I shrugged into it, but it was better than nothing. I found a box of cartridges, too, and reloaded the Colt I had picked up.

I stood by the stove for a few minutes to warm up as much as I could before venturing out into the night again. When I knew I couldn't postpone it any longer, I climbed up onto the ridge, got my rifle, and then went in search of my horse.

He had wandered off but hadn't gone far with his reins dangling like that. The whole affair had spooked him some. I hadn't had him long enough for him to be used to such violent ruckuses. Hell,
I
wasn't used to such ruckuses, and I'd been in the middle of plenty of them over the years. I had to whistle a little tune and talk soft to him for a few minutes before he settled down enough for me to catch him.

Maybe he just didn't want somebody wearing a coat that stunk that bad on his back.

Soon I was riding south again, hoping I could find the gully where I'd left Abner Tillotson and my other horse.