There was muttering among them, uneasiness, too. They did not like it, but there might be only one man, and I saw a rifle move.
My Spencer was low across the saddle and on the body of a man standing nearest the door, with a streak of light from a shutter falling across him. I could see a vest pocket and the gray of a lighter shirt, and when that riffe moved I shot him in the stomach.
Along the front of the orchard to the right of me there was a rippling spatter of sound, of hard sound, and I saw men falling and then I was riding in. Going in I held on a man’s skull knowing it was a chancy shot, but liking the target, and saw the man go down as the Spencer fired not three feet from his skull as I rode up to him.
The night was roaring with gunfire, and the Barlow men scattered and fell, and rose to rush on and staggered, then fell again. It was sudden, and it was complete and we saw one wounded man rolling on the ground trying to put out the fire the bullet had started on his shirt front. That black powder had a way of throwing grains—I’d seen men tattooed with it.
Their camp was beyond the big house and we rode through the trees on a dead run, weaving among them, shouting rebel yells and shooting at everything that moved in the flickering light among the tree trunks and the shrubs and the moonlight.
Then we saw their fire and a man running from it, and Bill Longley fired and the man stumbled and sprawled forward, falling in flight like a partridge landing, and then he started to get up and three bullets nailed him to the dark earth where he dug in his fingers and died, red blood joining the black earth beneath him.
“Good shot,” I said, “we’ll go goose-hunting this fall.”
We swung down and Bickerstaff turned Bill’s dead man over and there were finger-nail scratches on his face. This could be the man who had raped and killed the woman of whom we’d heard, or some other woman.
There were two Dragoon Colts in the camp and a Henry rifle which was brand- spanking-new, two old muskets and a Ballard rifle. There was also coffee, sugar, rice and some baked bread. We took it all, being hunted men who found it hard to get food. One of the Colts I took myself and tossed the other to Longley. Lee took the Ballard rifle.
When we walked our horses back across the lawn there was a moment when I drew in my mule to look up at the big house. “A long time ago,” I told Lee, “they used to dance here. On the nights when they’d have a ball sometimes I’d watch from out in the trees. Folks would come up in their fine carriages, and they’d get out and go up the steps, and there’d be music from inside the house.”
“Never see the like again,” Bob Lee said soberly. “It was another world.”
It was true enough, but I who had been no part of it regretted it.
The door was open when we pulled up and Katy was kneeling beside the body of a man who was badly hurt. She stood up as we drew near. “Will you help me get this man into a bed?”
“He was goin’ to bust in on you, ma’am,” Bickerstaff said. “He’s better off dead. That’s a mean man you’ve got there.”
“You should have killed him then. I’ll let no man die at my door, not even a wolf.”
We carried him in and bedded him down, and Katy put water on the fire. We’d come off well, not a scratch among us, for our attack had been too sudden and they’d had no time to do anything but get off quick, unaimed shots in hopes they’d land.
Under the trees we found three dead men to add to the one killed by the door, and another badly wounded. At least two more men were wounded and out in the grass, and the way I figured it there was another dead man out there, and we’d best go hunting him.
“Sam Barlow won’t like it,” Matt Kirby was lighting his pipe. “I tell you he won’t.”
“He’ll come,” Bickerstaff said. “He’ll come soon, I’m thinking.”
“Then he’d better make it soon,” I told them, “because if he doesn’t I’ll go hunting him.”
“Keep the shovel after we’ve buried these others,” I said, “because I’m going to dig Barlow a grave at the Corners. I’ll dig the grave and put up a marker and leave it open for him.”
Longley chuckled. “Now there’s a thought, and I’d give a year of my life to see his face when he heard of it. I’ll throw dirt from that grave myself, Cullen, and be proud to hold the shovel.”
The wounded man looked at Cullen Baker. “You’ll dig the grave for your own body, whoever you are. Barlow will kill you for this.”
“Whoever I am? The name is Cullen Baker, and I’ll have the hide of any man who raises a hand against Katy Thorne.”
Startled, the wounded man turned his head sharply toward Katy. “You’re a
Thorne?
” He was shocked. “Relative to Chance?”
“His sister-in-law.”
“Good God!” The wounded man’s fear was a frightening thing. “Barlow will have my hide for this!”
“Barlow is a friend of Chance, is that it?” I asked.
Katy glanced at me sharply, but the wounded man merely stared at the ceiling and would say nothing more.
We dug the grave by moonlight as one should dig the grave of such a man, and we finished as the moon was setting behind the trees, and over the open grave we posted a marker with the words burned deep with a branding iron.
HERE LIES SAM BARLOW
COWARD
THIEF
MURDERER
KILLED BY CULLEN BAKER
Before the sun was three hours old the marker at the Corners had been seen by a dozen men and, the love of a good story being what it is, before sundown they were telling it in Lufkin to the south and Boston to the north. And in the swamps along the Sulphur where hard men relished a hard joke, the men in the hide-outs were chuckling and awaiting the fireworks.
And in the Big Thicket the story came to Sam Barlow, and they tell me his fury was a thing to see. They tell me that he raged and ranted and swore, but in the end he settled down into something cold and dangerous, and the men who heard such things and carried the news warned me: “Be careful man, he must kill you now or leave the country. He’ll be coming north when you least expect.”
And in the clearing back of my cornfield at Fairlea I practiced with the Colt, and it came to my hand with smoothness now, and it came with ease, and the muzzle found the target like a living thing. They could come when they wished, for I was ready now.
Chapter 4
M
Y CORN WAS growing tall when I rode again to the house of Katy Thorne. It had become a place I could not leave alone, nor my quiet talks with her, nor the good coffee in the candlelight. There was a softness in me that I’d nigh forgotten, and I’d sit tipped back in my chair watching her move about the room, listening to the rustle of her skirts, and at times talking to Aunt Flo.
It was a strange thing for me, a hard man grown accustomed to hard ways, to talk with this maiden lady and to Katy, but the house had a warmth for me that I liked. I knew I was not the only visitor, for Katy Thorne had a way with people, and even Chance came at times, although unwelcome I knew. And there was another, a man I’d not met, named Thomas Warren, and a teacher in a school not far away.
He was a stiff young man who rode uncomfortably in the saddle and who had a high-nosed way about him that drew some joking from the boys in the swamps who had seen him about. Yet he had much talk of books that Katy hungered for, and it was something I could not give her. I read whatever came to hand, but it was little enough, and mainly old newspapers and sometimes a magazine.
It was growing faintly yellow around the trees when I came again to the house of Katy Thorne. It was early, but there was smoke from the chimney, and knowing Aunt Flo was a late riser I surmised it must be Katy herself who was up and about.
She saw me coming and opened the door. “Put your horse away. I have breakfast ready.”
It was a welcome thing, for I had worked until after dark the night before, and was too tired to prepare food for myself, so I’d dumped water over me from the well and sponged off and gone at once to bed.
These days I was staying at times in the old family house, but not often, and usually in the swamps, but I was a man wary of surprise, and not wanting to travel the same trail too often, so I shifted about and kept myself out of the way and out of sight.
There had been no trouble yet with the Reconstruction people, although there was talk of my arrest for taking the guns from Colonel Belser, in Jefferson. There’d been a note I sent him in which I protested any claim he had to the weapons, for his men taking mine from me.
There was a small shed in the orchard where I stabled my horse these days, and kept oats or corn for it, and some hay. There were two doors at opposite ends and the place was hidden in vines and behind a row of trees, and not many knew it was there. A great wisteria vine had grown over it, and the place had not been used in so many years that even those who knew the place had almost forgotten it.
Katy was at the door when I came, and there was worry in her eyes. “They may come for you, Cullen. It is a worrisome thing. Thomas was saying the other night that people want you arrested.”
“People?”
“Some of those he speaks to, the farmers north of here, and the Reconstruction people.”
“I’ve no doubt of it. There will always be some who will not like me. It is the old story of the dog with the bad name. There are some who blame me for anything Barlow does, or anything done by drifting renegades. I am sorry, Katy, but I warned you of what people would say.
She smiled at me. “Since when has the countryside told a Thorne who is acceptable and who is not? You will come when you like, Cullen, and stay as long as you like.”
“Well, then. You’ve no worry right now about them coming upon me. There’s a man on the highroad and another in the lane. We’ll have warning enough.”
Aunt Flo was in the bedroom with the wounded man. His recovery had been slow, and for a time it was doubtful that he would recover at all. Now, slowly, he was coming around.
Katy noticed the guns at my belt. “Must you always wear those?”
“Would you have me ride without them, Katy? They’re as necessary to me as hairpins to you, or the ring on your finger, more so, because they are my life itself. I live by them, and perhaps shall die by them, but while I live they must never be far from my hand.
“There’s a fine, strong feeling in the butt of a gun, Katy, for it’s a man’s weapon, but a gun is meant for death, and is not to be treated lightly or as a toy. A gun is like a woman or a horse, and not to be handled by a man who doesn’t understand it.”
“You understand women, then?”
“Only that like a fine pistol they must be handled gently or they’re apt to explode.” I grinned at her. “You know the swamps are no place to learn of women.”
“How about those Western lands? I’ve heard stories of you out there, and in the Mormon country. Did you have three wives out there?”
“Not one, Katy. Not even a small, quiet one. I’d a horse and a gun and little else.”
She was pouring coffee then and she put down the pot and said, “Cullen, why don’t you leave here? Why don’t you go some place you won’t be needing a gun? Are you always to live like this?”
“Can I give up all this, Katy, and make Pa’s life a useless thing? And if I run this time, who is to say when I shall have to run again? And when shall I stop running? My father played to ill luck all his life, yet at the end he had this land, and little as land in Texas is worth, it was all he had, and it was left to me. And here I shall stay.”
“There is hatred for you here, Cullen. Even the good people fear you. No matter what is to come, I am afraid they would never trust you or want you here.”
The gloom was on me then for I knew the truth of what she said, and felt deep within me a sense of being fated for ill things.
“They are right to want to kill me,” I said at last, “for there is a difference in me, and deep within every animal there is a need to kill what is different. There is always the feeling that what is different may expose them all to danger.
“When I came here as a stranger they attacked me because I was a stranger and seemed vulnerable. They belived me weak because I was alone, and I was not weak for the very reason that I was alone.”
“You must leave. It is the only way.”
“Maybe they are right to kill me,” I repeated, captured by the trend of my thinking. “Wild animals often kill animals that are different, a white wolf among gray wolves must be a terrible fighter to survive, for their instinct is to kill, perhaps because a white wolf can be seen farther and may bring danger to the pack.”
“Will Sam Barlow come looking for you?”
“He will. He must come. Stay clear of me, Katy. I’m a man who attracts trouble. And I must stay away from you, for I’ll surely bring grief to you, and danger.”
“You have saved me from danger.”
“Yes…and if I am killed I want you to have Fairlea, and the crop I planted there.”
She looked at me in sudden surprise. “You’ve planted a crop? How could you?”
“It was the first thing I did. When I came back here it was to make a new life, and I have not wished for trouble. They brought it to me, Chance first, and then Barlow, and those others with the loose tongues who talk of me as an outlaw and a bad one.
“The love of the land is in me, Katy, and it is all I have. Without it all I have is a horse and a gun and a will to fight. I’m as free as one of those soldiers of fortune of the free companies who sold their services to kings in the old days. Yet if there is anything will save me from what I am, it is the land. I am a man of blood and fury, Katy, perhaps it’s the Black Irish in me, and if there is peace for me it will be on the land.”
“If you harvest your crop, what then?”
“I’ll store it for feed, and then with some of the others we’ll round up wild cattle from the thickets and drive them off for sale in the north. With what cash I get I shall buy a stallion and a couple of good mares and start breeding horses. It is a thing I have been wanting to do.” Pausing, I stared at the candle flame. “And I’ll do it, too, if I am not killed.”
“That isn’t like you, Cullen, to speak of dying.”
“It is though. I live with it. I am not one of those fools who believe it is always the other man who is killed by accident or a gun. I know it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone, at any time. Anyone who takes an unnecessary risk is a fool, and I don’t want to die when I haven’t lived.”
“Go away, Cullen,” she pleaded, “go West, or anywhere. You would not be running away, and if you live you will have defeated them. And what does it matter what they believe, anyway?”
At the door, when it was almost noon, I told her, “You shouldn’t waste time on me. I’m no good.”
“If you think that,” she replied sharply, “others will think it. Respect begins with self-respect.”
“You know you’re right?” I told her. “You’re damned right.”
At the shed I led out the horse I was riding today, giving my mule a chance to rest. The mule was tough and seemed willing to go for hours on little food and less sleep, but nothing can stand up to that, and I must be in shape for a fast and long run, so the mule took turns now with a spare horse of Bickerstaff’s.
When I reached Jack English who waited in the lane, we rode to the highway to join Bill Longley. We had agreed on a meeting with some of the others, and had gone but a short distance when Bob Lee came up to us with Matt Kirby.
There was news. Barlow had been riding again, and in the north. A farmhouse near Linden had been looted and burned and the stock driven off, but then there was an exchange of shots with some farmers who banded together and Barlow retreated, unwilling to fight when there was loot to be had without fighting. And the troops when called out had found nothing.
Three men had ridden up to Lacy Petraine’s house and had ridden around drunk and yelling, but when they tried to force a way in a man suddenly appeared around the corner of the house and spoke to them. Turning to look two of them died in a blast of gunfire, and the third was carried away, seriously wounded.
“And you know who it was? John Tower is working for the widow.”
Three men downed in the dark, and two of them killed outright. It was good shooting. And by John Tower.
He was a man to remember.
While they talked that over I walked away from them. Back in the field out of sight I waited until a frog croaked and then drew. The heavy Colt snaked out in a swift, fluid motion and was there in my hand, hammer eared back and ready to shoot. Lowering the hammer I tried it again. Yes, I was fast. Was I fast enough?
Gloomily, I strolled back to where they sat under the trees within a step or two of the road. What were we doing here, hiding in the brush like animals? Weary, unwashed and beat, rarely a chance to sleep in a bed, rarely a well-cooked meal like today. They were always telling the foolish romantic stories of outlaws and men on the run…the writers of such stories should try it some time; they should try living in swamps, living with sweat, dirt and death.
“I believe,” I told them, “that Chance Thorne is getting information to Barlow.”
“Who would believe you?” Bob Lee asked. “They were saying today that you were raiding fifty miles south of here.”
“Then we’ll go into town and show them we’re here, and raiding nowhere. We’ll make liars of them.”
Colonel Amon Belser was the first man we saw. “They say I am out raiding,” I told him. “You see me here, and an unlathered horse.”
Belser was stiff with anger, for he knew the townspeople were watching, secretly amused. They did not like me, but I was one of their own, and they liked him even less.
“I shall live to see you hang, Cullen Baker!” Belser said. My being here in town made him furious. It was a challenge to the authority he was proud of. “I shall be the first to put a hand on the rope!”
He might be, at that. These days in my dark moods I’d have bet no man that I’d not stretch rope before it was over, only the ones who took me for the hanging would leave some dead behind.
“Colonel,” I put both hands on the pommel of my saddle. There were a dozen townsfolk within the sound of my voice, and I wanted them to hear. “Colonel,” I said, “if you are in this county or any county that borders it one week from today you’ll get what you deserve. It’s time we ran all you carpetbaggin’ rascals out of here.”
“Now see here!” Belser protested. “I—”
“You heard me, Colonel. One week.”
He stood there, his face white and he was a mighty worried man. “You’ll come to nothing, Cullen Baker,” he said. “The very people who think you a hero now will be hunting you down as soon as we are gone.”
And when we rode out of town I knew what he had said was true. Folks had never liked me here, and they did not like me now, although because they thought of me as resisting the carpetbaggers they were making me a talked-of man, but once it was over…well, they’d be the same then, and they’d start remembering that I’d been a tough lad to deal with.
With the word I’d given Belser I could expect an all-out hunt for me, and no matter what I did I was going to need money. Living in the swamps I’d needed little. A man could hunt himself a living out there, and the boys who had many friends were always coming back with supplies, but the money I’d brought home with me was about gone. Now, if ever, was the time to go after those wild cattle.
It would serve another purpose, too. They would be searching the swamps for me and I’d be down in the Thickets. But I must tell nobody my plans until the last minute.
I
T WAS HOT and still in the Thickets. In a week of desperately hard work we had rounded up but three hundred head of wild cattle. They were big and mean, most of them, and we’d had our troubles. A man doesn’t know how he can sweat until he starts working cattle in the brush. Sometimes for days there wouldn’t be a breath of wind, and they grow horseflies down there half as big as sparrows. We worked like dogs, nothing less, and now we had three hundred head together and we were talking it over.
“Barlow’s holding about two hundred head of stolen cattle,” Longley suggested. “We could go take them from him.”
That Longley. He was already ready for trouble. And he was a salty youngster, too.
“We’ll take them, Bill,” I told him, “but that money won’t be ours. Some of the folks that lost those cattle will be wanting the money.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the money or the cattle,” Longley said. “I was thinking about taking them away from Barlow.”