Ride With the Devil (17 page)

When Lee’s army quit the field at Gettysburg, Culpepper didn’t return to Virginia with him. Instead, he went west. He didn’t completely abandon the Confederate cause; he just chose his battles more carefully, selecting to fight with those organizations that could provide him with a little more incentive.

When the war ended, hundreds of thousands of Confederate soldiers returned to the South to find their fortunes expended and their homes gone. Culpepper, by contrast, headed for Texas with a substantial poke he had acquired during his guerrilla activities.

One of the reasons he went to Texas was so that he would be with other southerners, men who would recognize his service but would not be aware of all of the details. He was quick to point out that he had participated in such battles as Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Gettysburg, but said nothing about the guerrilla operations of the last two years, including the source of his poke.

Just two weeks before the end of the war, Culpepper had stolen a Confederate money shipment of fifteen hundred dollars in U.S. currency.

It was not until Vox came to him with the information that Ed Delaney planned to kill him that Culpepper felt threatened. Forewarned is forearmed, he thought, so he arranged
to set up the horse-stealing incident. That was all he needed to take care of that little problem.

“I know you was the one,” Delaney told Culpepper seconds before the noose was put around his neck. “I know you was the one, and when you get to hell, I’ll be waiting for you.”

“Mr. Culpepper?” the conductor said, taking Culpepper from his thoughts and memories.

“Yes?”

“We’ll be arriving in Marva in about ten minutes, sir. I just thought you might like to know.”

“Thank you,” Culpepper said.

He wondered what would be waiting for him when he returned.

The name of the ranch, Bar-Z-Bar, was in wrought-iron letters, worked into a gate that arched across the road that led up to the ranch house.

It had been a hard, three-day wagon trip, and Ken was glad to see that his goal was finally in sight. He was driving the same Bar-Z-Bar wagon and team that Moses had brought into town, while his own horse, tied on at the rear, followed along behind. At least it would only take him two days to return home.

Ken slapped the reins against the back of the team, urging them on up the road toward the big white house that sat like a wedding cake on top of a small rise.

A rabbit hopped up in front of him, bounded quickly down the road, then darted off to one side just as Ken reached the front of the house. Before he could get down from the wagon, a man stepped out onto the front porch.

“Something I can do for you, mister?” the man called.

“Would you be Mr. Zigenhorn?” Ken asked.

“I am.”

“I have a letter for you from your foreman, Mr. Parker,” Ken said. Climbing down from the wagon, Ken walked over to the front porch and held the letter up toward the short, red-faced man.

“What do you have under the canvas?” Zigenhorn asked as he took the letter.

“The letter will explain everything,” Ken said.

Curious, Zigenhorn began reading. Then, when he realized what the letter was saying, he looked up sharply.

“You have them with you?”

“Yes, sir,” Ken replied. “I have all three of them.”

A black woman stepped out onto the front porch then. She was wearing an apron, and dried her hands with it as she looked at Ken. Recognizing him, a smile crossed her face.

“Sergeant Wright!” she said. She laughed. “I remember you. Starch in your shirt, none in your trousers. What are you doing here?”

“Sally…” Zigenhorn said. He cleared his throat. “I have some bad news for you.”

“Bad news?” Sally asked. She looked at Ken. “Sergeant Wright, do you know about this?”

Ken looked toward the ground. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said.

“No,” Sally said quietly, now realizing what they hadn’t yet told her. Seeing the wagon behind Ken, Sally jumped down from the porch and ran to it. “No,” she said a little louder.

“Mrs. Gillespie…Sally, I’m sorry to be the one to—” Ken started, but that was as far as he got before Sally lifted the tarp and saw three pine boxes. It was obvious to her what the boxes were.

“No!” she screamed. “Oh, Lord in heaven, no!”

Sally collapsed in front of the wagon. Startled, Ken rushed to her.

“Is she all right?” Zigenhorn asked anxiously.

“She be completely passed out,” Ken said.

“It’s probably the best thing for her right now,” Zigenhorn said. “Bring her in here.”

Ken scooped her up in his arms, then followed Zigenhorn into the house.

“In here, on the sofa,” Zigenhorn offered, pointing to his parlor.

Mrs. Zigenhorn came running in then. “Keith, what is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong with Sally?”

“It’s Moses,” Zigenhorn answered. “He’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“And so are Kendall and Dusty.”

“What…what happened?”

Zigenhorn handed his wife the letter.

“Oh, my,” she said after she read it. “What a terrible thing to happen. Are those people barbarians?”

“Not all of them are,” Ken said. “Just some.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m the blacksmith in Salcedo.”

“Sally recognized him,” Zigenhorn said. “She called him Sarge.”

Ken nodded. “Moses and I were in the Ninth Cavalry together.”

“Well, I thank you for bringing them all back to us,” Mrs. Zigenhorn said.

Kendall and Dusty were buried in the little cemetery in the nearby town of Risco. Because he was black, they wouldn’t let Moses be buried there, so Zigenhorn told Sally she could pick a spot on the ranch, anywhere she wanted, and they would bury him there.

“I know just the spot,” Sally said. “There’s a shade tree on a hill that looks out over the whole ranch. It was a place
where Moses used to go sometimes when he just wanted to think about things. I believe he would like to lie there.”

“Yes, I know the place you are talking about,” Zigenhorn said. “It is a beautiful spot. That’s just where we’ll bury him. And I’ll get the grave marker made up.”

Moses was buried the next day, and Ken stayed for the funeral, making only one request. He asked Zigenhorn if he knew of anyone who could play Taps for Moses. As it turned out, there was someone, a cowboy on the adjacent ranch, who had been a bugler in the army. Zigenhorn made the arrangements, and on the day of the funeral, the man showed up carrying his bugle under his arm and wearing an army uniform that was still recognizable but had clearly seen better days.

At the appropriate time, the bugler raised his instrument to his lips and began to play.

The notes rolled long and sweet from the bugle, reaching the nearby hills, then returning in a sorrowful echo.

Day is done

Gone the sun

From the lake

From the hills

From the sky

Soldier rest

Rest in peace

God is nigh.

Sally stood next to Ken, and at one point leaned on him, inviting him to put his arm around her to comfort her.

Moses’ two children, a boy, four, and a girl, two, looked on, disturbed by the fact, and not quite understanding why their mother was crying.

THERE HAD BEEN AN UNEASY PEACE IN TOWN FOR the few days between the hanging and Culpepper’s return. One of the first things Vox did was show Culpepper the editorial Cyrus had written.

“I thought about goin’ over there and smashin’ up his printin’ press,” Vox said. “But I decided we should prob’ly wait for you before we done anything like that.”

“Yes,” Culpepper said. “It’s just too bad you didn’t start thinking a little earlier. If you had, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“So, what do we do now, Colonel?” Bates asked. “I mean, we can’t just sit around here with our thumb up our ass while Cyrus writes stuff like this about us.”

Culpepper drummed his fingers on the newspaper article for a moment, then sighed. “We’ll do whatever we have to do,” he said. “But for now, I’ll go talk to Cyrus. Things would go a lot easier if we could get him back on our side.”

Cyrus had his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and he was cleaning his press when the little bell on the entry door tinkled. Looking up, he saw Culpepper, and for a moment he felt a little twinge of fear. But Culpepper was alone, and
Cyrus figured that if he had anything planned, he would have brought some of his deputies with him.

“When did you get back?” Cyrus asked. He poured some solvent onto his hands and used it to clean away the back ink.

“I rode down from Marva this morning,” Culpepper said. “Sounds like we had a little excitement here while I was gone.”

“Is that what you call it? Excitement?” Cyrus asked.

“No, I guess that’s not a very good word for it,” Culpepper agreed. “I read your editorial about the trial and the hanging,” he continued. “I want you to know that I’m sorry it happened, and I assure you it wouldn’t have happened if I had been here.”

“It was the same as your being here,” Cyrus replied. “Vox was your appointed man, and you left him in charge.”

“Yes, but that’s my point,” Culpepper said. “Vox was in charge, not I.”

“There is an old military adage…
Colonel
,” Cyrus said, emphasizing the word colonel. “You can delegate authority, but you cannot delegate responsibility. Surely you, being a military man, know that. The final responsibility for what happened was yours, whether you were here or not.”

Culpepper nodded. “Yes, I know,” he said. “Look, I’ve talked to Vox. In fact, I have talked to all of them. I realize they have been getting a little out of hand lately. But it won’t happen again. I would like to know what it would take to regain your support.”

“Right now, Colonel, the only way you can regain my support would be to first, disband the Regulators, then resign from your position.”

Culpepper shook his head. “No,” he said. “I won’t do that.”

“Suppose I put that in the form of an executive order?”
Cyrus said. “As mayor, I am telling you to disband the Regulators and resign your position.”

“You have no authority to issue such an executive order,” Culpepper said. “I have a contract. Neither you nor the town council can demand my resignation. Nor can you disband the Regulators, since I, and not the town council, put them together.”

“Did you have any further business with me, Mister Culpepper?” Cyrus said. This time he emphasized the word mister. “Because if you don’t, I have to get ready for my next edition.”

“Your next edition,” Culpepper said. “Yes. It would be unfortunate if something happened that prevented you from getting out another edition.”

“Are you threatening me?” Cyrus replied angrily.

“Let us say I was just making an observation.”

“Make sure you get coal oil on the printing press,” Vox said. “And on all the type. If his type is melted down into lead slugs and the press is burned up, the son of a bitch won’t be puttin’ out no more papers against us.”

Vox, Bates, and Jarvis worked quickly in the dark, splashing coal oil all over the inside of the newspaper office. Hooper stood at the front window, keeping an eye out.

“Seen anybody on the street?” Vox called.

“No,” Hooper replied. “It’s all clear.”

“All right, boys, let’s back on out of here and I’ll set a match to it,” Vox said.

“I can’t believe it,” Cyrus said. “What are you doing, Doc, letting me win this game so I’ll keep playing you? Check.”

“Mate,” Doc Urban conceded.

“Paddy, a round of beers, on me,” Cyrus said happily. “I won!”

“At the risk of giving you a big head, Cyrus, you are a worthy adversary,” Doc said. “You do win from time to time, you know.”

“Yeah, about one out of every ten games,” Cyrus said.

Darci brought beers over to Cyrus and Doc. “Congratulations,” she said.

“Fire! Fire!” someone shouted, running into the saloon.

“Fire? Where?” Cyrus asked, standing up quickly.

The citizen looked directly at Cyrus. “It’s your place, Mayor. The newspaper office is burnin’ like hell.”

“My press! My type!” Cyrus shouted, rushing outside with the others. They got no farther than the street before they realized that any attempt to save the building would be useless. It was totally invested, and the flames that licked high into the air were already painting the false fronts of all the other buildings on both sides of the street with a flickering orange glow.

The very next day after the fire, Cyrus Green called the town council into an unscheduled session to discuss what should or could be done about the Salcedo Regulators Brigade.

“Gentlemen, I thank you for coming,” Cyrus said after the meeting was called to order.

“Cyrus, I’m real sorry about the fire,” Maurice Baldwin said. Because this wasn’t their regular monthly meeting, Baldwin was wearing his apron, having come straight from his bakery. Around him there was the not unpleasant aroma of freshly sifted flour.

The others expressed their regrets as well.

“You got’ny idea what caused it?” Garland Castleberry asked.

“Is there any question?” Cyrus replied.

“Are you saying that Culpepper did it?” Castleberry asked.

“I have no proof,” Cyrus said. “But if I were a betting man, I would bet that he did it.”

“Who would you get to take that bet?” Paddy asked. “After that editorial you wrote the other day, I don’t think there is anyone in town who doubts that he did it.”

“Yes, well losing my shop is my problem,” Cyrus said. “The way I see it, we—that is the town—has an even bigger problem, and that is what to do about the Salcedo Regulators Brigade.”

“I say we get rid of them,” Baldwin said.

“I don’t know that we can do that,” Poindexter said. Though he worked as a hostler for the stage line, Poindexter was also the vice mayor. A political enemy of Cyrus Green’s, he had been very vocal in his opposition to granting Culpepper any authority back when the town council made the arrangement.

“I told you,” he went on, “back when we first started talking about giving this man as much power as we did, that it was all going to come back to haunt us some day.”

“You did at that, Mr. Poindexter, you did at that,” Cyrus agreed. “And I will gladly confess that you were right and I was wrong. In fact, I was the biggest drum beater for hiring him. But I ask that you put our political differences aside now, so we can concentrate on this problem.”

“Just so that everyone knows I’m not the cause of the problem,” Poindexter said.

“Abner, will you for chrissake quit politicking?” Baldwin said. “We all know you were against it. The problem now is, what do we do about it?”

“Well, it seems pretty obvious to me,” Castleberry said. The whole incident of the hanging had been particularly galling to Castleberry, because it had happened right in front of his store. “I say we fire them. We fire them all.”

“Ahh, gentlemen, there is the rub,” Cyrus said. He sighed. “We can’t fire them.”

“What do you mean we can’t fire them?” Castleberry replied. “You seen what they done the other night. Hell, not only did they string up those cowboys—right in front of my store, I might add—they slapped Paddy O’Neil around when he tried to stop ’em. If that isn’t cause to fire them, then nothing is. And not only that, they threatened to kill the judge, here, if he didn’t go along with them. Isn’t that right, Judge?”

Although Judge Watermeyer was not on the council, he often sat in on their meetings to provide legal counsel whenever required. When Castleberry reminded everyone how the judge had been frightened and intimidated, the judge looked toward his feet in shame and embarrassment.

“I should not have let them have their way,” Judge Watermeyer said.

“Hell, nobody is blamin’ you, Judge. You didn’t have no choice in the matter, we all seen that,” Baldwin said, picking up Castleberry’s argument. “But I agree with Mr. Castleberry. The way they treated the judge is just another reason why we need to get rid of them.”

“Look, Maurice, Garland, you both know that I agree with everything you have to say,” Poindexter said. “But this is exactly the situation I warned the council about when we did this. Cyrus is right when he says we can’t fire Culpepper. We did not appoint a town marshal. We entered into a contract, appointing Titus Culpepper as a private law enforcement agent. He is not an official municipal agent subject to our control, he is a private law enforcement agent, empowered to enforce the ordinances of the council. That’s why we can’t fire him.”

“Of course we can fire him. We hired him, didn’t we?” George Heissler, the druggist and a member of the council, said. “All we have to do is tell him that we no longer require his services.”

Cyrus shook his head. “I wish we could, but it’s not as easy as that.”

“What do you mean it’s not as easy as that?” Baldwin asked. “We are the town council, for crying out loud. It’s like George said, we hired Culpepper, so we can fire him.”

“No. As Abner explained, we entered into a legal contract with Culpepper granting him the authority to act as a law enforcement official. A binding contract. I don’t think we can just unilaterally dissolve that contract without facing a lawsuit. What do you think, Judge?”

Judge Watermeyer closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, and thought about the question for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he shook his head.

“I wish I could dispute you, but I’m afraid you are right,” he said. “If you withdraw from the contract, Culpepper will have grounds for a lawsuit against the town. He would not only retain his position, he would break the town treasury.”

“The son of a bitch has about broke us now,” Baldwin grumbled.

“By damn, we ought to be able to do something,” Heissler said.

“They are here until their contract expires, or until they commit an actionable violation of that contract, neither of which has occurred,” Poindexter said.

“Actionable violation? What is that?” Paddy asked.

“A criminal act would be an actionable violation,” Poindexter said.

“Well then, hell, we’ve got them, don’t we?” Baldwin said. “I mean look at what happened the other night. They shot down two men in the street, then they hanged the third. There’s no way on earth you could say that wasn’t a criminal act.”

“That was gratuitously malicious, an abuse of power, even an act of evil,” Watermeyer said. “But within the strictest interpretation, it did not violate the law.”

“Come on, Judge, how can you say that?” Cyrus asked. “They shot down two men in the street.”

“The cowboys admitted that the deputies were attempting to arrest them. Well, the one who was still alive admitted it, anyway. And the cowboys resisted arrest by firing at them.”

“What about the hanging?” Cyrus asked. “There was no way that was legal.”

“In a bizarre way, it was legal,” Judge Watermeyer replied. “The very fact that I pronounced them guilty and authorized the hanging makes it ‘technically’ legal.”

“Judge, I was there,” Baldwin said. “I seen the way they threatened you.”

“I may have been coerced into conducting the trial,” Watermeyer said. “But the trial was legal.”

“How can you say that was legal? You can’t hang a man for being drunk.”

“He was not hung for being drunk,” Watermeyer said. “He was hung for murder, which he committed by violently resisting arrest. In fact, he admitted that he was shooting at the deputies. If you kill a peace officer in the performance of his duty, then you are guilty of murder. There is no other way to interpret that, whether it was that mockery of the trial in the street or whether it was conducted in the finest courthouse in the land.”

“The deputies were shooting at them!” Baldwin said. “What the hell were they supposed to do, just stand there and be shot?”

“No. They were supposed to acquiesce to the arresting authority. If they had done that, they would have spent the night in jail and gone back the next morning. None of this would have happened.”

“All this because they had a few drinks in the Golden Calf,” Baldwin said in disgust.

“Look, as the town council,” the judge explained, “you are the ones who authorized the Regulators to enforce the laws and ordinances of this town. And as the town council, you are the ones who passed the ordinance against public drunkenness.”

“Yes, but nowhere did we pass an ordinance that says you can shoot a man down in the street for drunkenness,” Cyrus said. He held his hand out toward the judge. “And, before you correct me again, I know that when they resisted arrest it went beyond that. But in essence it was public drunkenness and that’s all it was.”

“What about the fire?” Castleberry asked. “Can’t we get them for arson?”

“Can we prove that Culpepper or any of his people set the fire?” Judge Watermeyer asked.

“Come on, Judge, you know damn well they’re the ones who did it,” Paddy said.

“I agree with you,” Judge Watermeyer said. “There is no doubt in my mind but that they are the ones who set the fire. But, I ask you again: Can we prove it? Do we have any physical evidence that points directly to them? Better yet, do we have any eyewitnesses?”

“No, no eyewitnesses,” Cyrus said.

“Cyrus, you will forgive me for pointing this out, but several times you have left a lantern burning in your office all night long, have you not?”

“Yes, but that’s never caused a problem.”