Killing Halfbreed (5 page)

A man has to have a purpose in life, or he finds himself drifting dangerously.  I knew my purpose, but I couldn't accomplish it, which was almost as bad.  Frustration was building.

I found myself drinking the hard stuff more and more often.  I knew Jinny didn't like it, but she didn't say anything.  It was the only way I knew to take my mind off the driving need to find Ben.  At night, my frustrations seemed to magnify themselves.  More and more, I found myself resorting to the saloon for relief.

Liquor has been the ruin of many a man, but I wasn't the type to fall into that sort of trap. Yet, if I wasn't drinking, I’d play cards all night, which made me that much less useful the next day at work.

The days passed with an ever-loving, eternal slowness that tormented me, and they began blurring into one another.  Before I knew it, six months had gone by, and I with nothing to show for it.

Nothing was a hard result to take.

I found the lack of information about Ben and Jessica highly unusual, especially in such a small town where everybody makes everybody else's business their own.  Apparently, neither Ben nor Jessica had made a habit of coming to town much, which made me wonder where they’d gotten their supplies.  You can't survive very long without restocking supplies.

No, it was obvious people just weren't talking, and I didn't know how to get them to start.

One day, I finally got a small break.  I ran into Michael Byers, the county’s newspaperman.  Either he knew a lot more about local goings-on than everybody else, or he was just more loose-lipped.

Byers was an intelligent man.  He wore small, circular spectacles which made him look a bit Ben Franklinish, but younger and thinner, and not so odd-looking.  He was reluctant to open up at first, but after some prodding, he ended up telling me quite a bit.

           
"Sure, I remember your brother.  I remember the first day he came to town, actually. Most newcomers to these parts come in off the stage, but he rode in, dusty from the northern trail.  He staked out and claimed some prime land east of here in a little secluded vale.

“Hard worker, that one, or at least that's what people said.  Why, it wasn’t long before he'd built himself a little cabin and sent for his wife.  When she arrived, it was pretty clear he was in it for the long haul."

"Well, if that's the case, then why doesn't anybody around here remember him when I ask?  What are they hiding?"  I asked.

"I don't know if they're hiding anything.  Scared maybe, or just unsure what to make of you."

"Why would they be scared?"

"Your brother didn't exactly have it easy around Cottonwood, so he eventually stopped coming to town.

“You see, before he ever arrived, there were the Big Three: Logan, Dunagan, and Hartford.  They have run this valley for years.  They were running it before this town was even built.  Those three came west together, got started together, and built this community together.  They didn't take kindly to some upstart coming in late in the game and claiming land, especially if he was butting in on their water."

"Their water?  Did they own the land my brother
claimed?"

"No, but they felt like they did.  Kind of held it in common, unofficially, of course.  There are only four major water holes in these parts, and you can’t run a cattle ranch without water.  Tom, Jim, and Bill each claimed and staked out one for their ranch, but the fourth they kept as a common watering hole between the three of them to prevent feuding.  That is, until your brother claimed it.

“They didn't like that at all and let him know it every chance they got.  Now, he claimed it fair and square, it was all legal, and they were kicking themselves for never having done it themselves.  But again, they'd always been afraid of causing a water war.  It had never occurred to them that someone else would ever have the gall to come in right under their noses and build.  But your brother sure did, by gosh!"

"Did they need that water?"

"Yes and no.  I guess the truthful answer is not really. They just felt like they did.  Wanted that extra security in case their own springs dried up, know what I mean?  In all fairness, your brother offered them free use of it.  His herd wasn't big enough to use all the water there anyway.  They still didn't like it though, not having the water under their control.

“They put a lot of pressure on him, and he just kind of stopped coming to town.  So did his wife.  Jessica was her name, right?  Things cooled off for a little while, but then the rustling started.  That's been going on for the past year or so.

“The Big Three were all convinced your brother was behind it.  All three of their ranches were losing cattle, but he wasn't.  Plus, being a newcomer and all, suspicion naturally tended to fall on him, of course.  They were determined to run him out of the valley.  Even went out to his ranch several times with the sheriff, looking for evidence.  Never found any.

“That's about all I know.  Didn't even know your brother was missing until you got to town, much less his wife. Right sorry to hear about that."

           
Byers seemed sincere and honest, so I took him at his word.  He wanted to run an item in the paper about their disappearance, but I figured it was a waste of time.

At least now I understood Ben’s situation, and why someone might have wanted to get rid of him.  I still had no idea who, though I had three big suspects.

The rustling continued, and I hoped
that
would, if nothing else, clear my brother's good name since Ben wasn't around any longer to blame for it.  I heard some rumors that Bill Hartford was saying Ben was hiding out in the hills and rustling from there.  That got me pretty steamed, but there wasn't anything I could do about it, so I just had to stew.

Next, I began hearing the ranchers believed I was in on the rustling too.  All of a sudden, I felt what Ben must have felt.  It's a terrible thing to be accused of a crime when you're innocent.

Townsfolk became more and more hostile toward me.  Hope of anyone helping me find Ben quickly faded. 

Though nothing could unfocus my mind from my main purpose, I wasn't making any headway.  Most nights found me in the saloon, playing cards, drunk, loud, and generally feeling sorry for myself.  Feeling sorry for Ben, for what had happened to him, and for myself for not being able to do anything about it.  Mad and hurt because people were accusing me of crimes I hadn't committed and never would.

I was growing desperate.  I wanted to kill somebody so bad, I could taste it.

Not just anybody. The person who’d hurt Ben.  I wouldn’t let myself believe he was dead, but the thought kept slipping through.  Every night, I’d fight the same battle.  Those two halves of me would rise up to wrestle one another, one side urging me to kill, kill, kill...the other whispering patience.  Each night, though, that whisper grew a little fainter.  My wildness was winning...and I was glad for it.

Then, one night, Tom Logan burst into the saloon and called me a rustler to my face.

And I was drunk.

I know my time is coming soon.

Who is this man? This man beside me.

"Thief"

                - Third Day

Voices drifted down the dark hall from the front of the jail.  One of them belonged to Sheriff McCraigh.  I didn’t know the other.  Whoever it was conversed briefly with the sheriff in the front room and then they moved into his office.  After a short while, I heard muffled laughing through the wall, not mere chuckles mind you, but deep, hearty guffaws.

Glad to know someone had something to laugh about. 
Odd to think life would go on without me tomorrow.  People would just keep on laughing, crying, loving, living, and dying, and they’d soon forget all about me.

Shortly thereafter, the stranger left the jail.  Somehow, I understood the sheriff had been mocking the stranger, not laughing with him.

What did I care anyway?  None of this mattered any more.  I’d give anything to erase yesterday from history, but you can’t do that in life, can you?

I lost myself in my thoughts for the next hour or so.

Suddenly, an ear-jarring clanging on my cell bars startled me out of my reverie.

“Got a visitor for you, Talbot!”  The sheriff rattled the bars of my cell with a rusty, iron rod.  Standing next to him was a man I didn’t know.  The kindness on his face was in stark contrast to the dislike and anger on the sheriff’s.

Must be a reverend, or priest or something.
  He wore that dark religious garb with a square peck of white in the center of his collar.

McCraigh unlocked the door and let the minister into my cell.  “Holler when you’re ready to go, Preacher.”  He slammed the door shut behind him and left.

I studied the man, but said nothing.  I wasn’t in the mood for visitors, much less a preacher.  His hair was splotched grey in some places and white in others.  What was left of it anyway.  He had a rounded paunch, and a face to match, a face which hinted at an underlying kindness uncommon to most.

“What can I do for you, Preacher?”

“Name’s Reverend Theodore Jay.  Thought you might have a last confession or want some company before tomorrow.”

“Not exactly in the mood for company, an' I don’t see much point in confession.”

“Aren’t you worried about the state of your soul?”

I held my silence.

“Do you feel ready to face God tomorrow, son?”

“Listen, Preacher, I ain’t got nothing against the likes of you, but my mama taught us ‘The Good Lord helps those who help themselves.’”

“Jake...you don’t mind if I call you Jake do you?  Good.  Jake, that philosophy is quite a common one.”

“Always worked for me.”

“Many people think that’s a Bible saying, but it isn’t.  That idea is actually the
opposite
of everything God teaches us in His Scripture.  He doesn’t want us to rely on ourselves, He wants us to be depend completely on Him.”

“Look,” I interrupted, “I’ve been on my own for most of my life, and that’s the way God left me.  He certainly didn’t keep me out of
this
mess, now did He?  Way I figure it, the only one who can help me is myself.”

“How are you going to help yourself out of the hanging tomorrow, Jake?”

“Good question.  If you’re so keen on depending on God, why don’t
you
go and ask Him to get me out of this mess?  Maybe then I’ll believe all those stories about how He’s up there, watching and caring and such.  In the meantime, I’ll keep looking for answers here on earth I can grab onto with my own two hands.”

The minister shook his head sadly.  “You just don’t realize how...”

“I’m in no stinkin’ mood to have no theological argument, all right!  Go down to the saloon if you want to preach.  I need to be alone.”

“All right.  I’ll be praying for you, Jake.”

He left and Sheriff McCraigh went with him, slamming the front door to the jail as they went out.  McCraigh was going home for the night, I supposed.

I had to focus on more important things.  Surely there was a way out of this jail.  Maybe some loose boards.  I glanced around, trying to concentrate on escaping, but found my mind floating all over the place.

The sheriff returned about an hour before daylight.

Here I was, a man facing his last hours, yet I had nothing better to do with my time than keep track of people’s comings and goings.

Before I knew it, dawn was cracking through the tiny window of my cell.  With the new sunlight came the cries of a couple roosters and the voice of that same stranger who’d come a few hours earlier in the middle of darkness.

This time, the sheriff’s mocking tone was gone and he seemed to treat the stranger with more respect.  They receded into the front office again and out of my earshot.

I strained to make out what they were saying, desperate to break the accelerating cycle of useless thoughts racing through my head, alternating between guilt, spite, and helpless dread.  Soon, my mind had drifted elsewhere again.