the Hot Kid (2005)

Elmore Leonard

*

Chapter
1

Carlos Webster was fifteen the day he witnessed the robbery and killing at Deering's drugstore. This was in the fall of 1921 in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

He told Bud Maddox, the Okmulgee chief of police, he had driven a load of cows up to the yard at Tulsa and by the time he got back it was dark. He said he left the truck and stock trailer across the street from Deering's and went inside to get an ice cream cone. When he identified one of the robbers as Emmett Long, Bud Maddox said, "Son, Emmett Long robs banks, he don't bother with drugstores no more."

Carlos had been raised on hard work and respect for his elders. He said, "I could be wrong," knowing he wasn't.

They brought him over to police headquarters in the courthouse to look at photos. He pointed to Emmett Long staring at him from
a
$500 wanted bulletin and picked the other one, Jim Ray Monks, from mug shots. Bud Maddox said, "You're positive, huh?" and asked Carlos which one was it shot the Indian. Meaning Junior Harjo with the tribal police, who'd walked in not knowing the store was being robbed.

"Was Emmett Long shot him," Carlos said, "with a forty-five Colt."

"You sure it was a Colt?"

"Navy issue, like my dad's."

"I'm teasing," Bud Maddox said. He and Carlos' dad, Virgil Webster, were buddies, both having fought in the Spanish-American War and for a number of years were the local heroes. But now doughboys were back from France telling about the Great War over there. "If you like to know what I think happened," Carlos said, "Emmett Long only came in for a pack of smokes."

Bud Maddox stopped him. "Tell it from the time you got there."

Okay, well, the reason was to get an ice cream cone. "Mr. Deering was in back doing prescriptions--he looked out of that little window and told me to help myself. So I went over to the soda fountain and scooped up a double dip of peach on a sugar cone and went to the cigar counter and left a nickel by the cash register. That's where I was when I see these two men come in wearing suits and hats I thought at first were salesmen. Mr. Deering calls to me to wait on them as I know the store pretty well. Emmett Long comes up to the counter--"

"You knew right away who he was?"

"Once he was close, yes sir, from pictures of him in the paper. He said to give him a deck of Luckies. I did and he picks up the nickel I'd left by the register. Hands it to me and says, 'This ought to cover it.' "

"You tell him it was yours?"

"No sir."

"Or a pack of Luckies cost fifteen cents?"

"I didn't say a word to him. But see, I think that's when he got the idea of robbing the store, the cash register sitting there, nobody around but me holding my ice cream cone. Mr. Deering never came out from the back. The other one, Jim Ray Monks, wanted a tube of Unguentine, he said for a heat rash was bothering him, under his arms. I got it for him and he didn't pay either. Then Emmett Long says, 'Let's see what you have in the register.' I told him I didn't know how to open it as I didn't work there. He leans over the counter and points to a key--the man knows his cash registers--and says, 'That one right there. Hi
t
it and she'll open for you.' I press the key--Mr. Deering must've heard it ring open, he calls from the back of the store, 'Carlos, you able to help them out?' Emmett Long raised his voice saying, 'Carlos is doing fine,' using my name. He told me then to take out the scrip but leave the change."

"How much did he get?"

"No more'n thirty dollars," Carlos said. He took his time thinking about what happened right after, starting with Emmett Long looking at his ice cream cone. Carlos saw it as personal, something between him and the famous bank robber, so he skipped over it, telling Bud Maddox: "I put the money on the counter for him, mostly singles. I look up--"

"Junior Harjo walks in," Bud Maddox said, "a robbery in progress."

"Yes sir, but Junior doesn't know it. Emmett Long's at the counter with his back to him. Jim Ray Monks is over at the soda fountain getting into the ice cream. Neither of them had their guns out, so I doubt Junior saw it as a robbery. But Mr. Deering sees Junior and calls out he's got his mother's medicine. Then says for all of us to hear, 'She tells me they got you raiding Indian stills, looking for moonshine.' He said something about Junior setting a jar aside for him and that's all I heard. Now the guns are coming out, Emmett Long's Colt from inside his suit . . . I guess all he had to see was Junior's badge and his sidearm, that was enough, Emmett Long shot him. He'd know with that Colt one round would do the job, but he stepped up and shot Junior again, lying on the floor."

There was a silence.

"I'm trying to recall," Bud Maddox said, "how many Emmett Long's killed. I believe six, half of 'em police officers."

"Seven," Carlos said, "you count the bank hostage had to stand on his running board. Fell off and broke her neck?"

Chapter
4

"I just read the report on that one," Bud Maddox said. "Was a Dodge Touring, same as Black Jack Pershing's staff car over in France." "They drove away from the drugstore in a Packard," Carlos said, and gave Bud Maddox the number on the license plate. Here was the part Carlos saw as personal and had skipped over, beginning with Emmett Long looking at his ice cream cone. Then asking, "What is that, peach?" Carlos said it was and Emmett Long reached out his hand saying, "Lemme have a bite there," and took the cone to hold it away from him as it was starting to drip. He bent over to lick it a couple of times before putting his mouth around a big bite he took from the top dip. He said, "Mmmmm, that's good," with a trace of peach ice cream along the edge of his mustache. Emmett Long stared at Carlos then like he was studying his features and began licking the cone again. He said, "Carlos, huh?" cocking his head to one side. "You got the dark hair, but you don't look like any Carlos I ever seen. What's your other name?"

"Carlos Huntington Webster, that's all of 'em."

"It's a lot of name for a boy," Emmett Long said. "So you're part greaser on your mama's side, huh? What's she, Mex?"

Carlos hesitated before saying, "Cuban. I was named for her dad."

"Cuban's the same as Mex," Emmett Long said. "You got greaser blood in you, boy, even if it don't show much. You come off lucky there." He licked the cone again, holding it with the tips of his fingers, the little finger sticking out in a dainty kind of way. Carlos, fifteen years old but as tall as this man with the ice cream on his mustache, wanted to call him a dirty name and hit him in the face as hard as he could, then go over the counter and bulldog him to the floor the way he'd put a bull calf down to brand and cut off its balls.

Fifteen years old but he wasn't stupid. He held on while his heart beat against his chest. He felt the need to stand up to this man, saying finally, "My dad was a marine on the battleship Maine when she was blown up in Havana Harbor, February fifteenth, 1898. He survived, was picked up in the water and thrown in a Spanish prison as a spy. Then when he escaped he fought the dons on the side of the insurrectionists, the rebels. He fought them again and was wounded at Guantanamo, with Huntington's Marines in that war in Cuba where he met my mother, Graciaplena Santos."

"Sounds like you daddy was a hero," Emmett Long said.

"I'm not done," Carlos said. "After the war my dad came back home and brought my mother with him when Oklahoma was still Indian Territory. She died having me, so I never knew her. I never met my dad's mother, either. She's Northern Cheyenne, lives on a reservation out at Lame Deer, Montana," saying it in a voice that was slow and calm compared to what he felt inside. Saying, "What I want to ask you--if having Indian blood, too, makes me something else besides a greaser." Saying it in Emmett Long's face, causing this man with ice cream on his mustache to squint at him.

"For one thing," Emmett Long said, "the Indin blood makes you and your daddy breeds, him more'n you." He kept staring at Carlos as he raised the cone, his little finger sticking out, Carlos thinking to lick it again, but what he did was toss the cone over his shoulder, not looking or caring where it would land. It hit the floor in front of Junior Harjo just then walking in, badge on his tan shirt, revolver on his hip, and Carlos saw the situation turning around. He felt the excitement of these moments but with some relief, too. It picked him up and gave him the nerve to say to Emmett Long, "Now you're gonna have to clean up your mess." Except Junior wasn't pulling his .38, he was looking at the ice cream on the linoleum and Mr. Deering was calling to him about his mother's medicine and about raiding stills and Emmett Long was turning from the counter with the Colt in his hand, firing, shooting Junior Harjo and stepping closer to shoot him again. There was no sign of Mr. Deering. Jim Ray Monks came over to have a look at Junior. Emmett Long laid his Colt on the glass counter, picked up the cash in both hands and shoved the bills into his coat pockets before looking at Carlos again.

"You said something to me. Geronimo come in and you said something sounded smart aleck."

Carlos said, "What'd you kill him for?" still looking at Junior on the floor.

"I want to know what you said to me."

The outlaw waited.

Carlos looked up rubbing the back of his hand across his mouth. "I said now you'll have to clean up your mess. The ice cream on the floor."

"That's all?"

"It's what I said."

Emmett Long kept looking at him. "You had a gun you'd of shot me, huh? Calling you a greaser. Hell, it's a law of nature, you got any of that blood in you you're a greaser. I can't help it, it's how it is. Being a breed on top of it--I don't know if that's called anything or not. But you could pass if you want, you look enough white. Hell, call yourself Carl, I won't tell on you."

Carlos and his dad lived in a big new house Virgil said was a California bungalow, off the road and into the pecan trees, a house that was all porch across the front and windows in the steep slant of the roof, a house built a few years before with oil money--those wells pumpin
g
away on a half-section of the property. The rest of it was graze and over a thousand acres of pecan trees, Virgil's pride, land gathered over the years since coming home from Cuba. He could let the trees go and live high off his oil checks, never work again as long as he lived. Nothing doing--harvesttime Virgil was out with his crew gathering pecans, swiping at the branches with cane fishing poles. He had Carlos tending the cows, fifty, sixty head of cross-Brahmas at a time grazing till they filled out good and Carlos would drive a bunch at a time to market in the stock trailer.

He told his dad every time he went to Tulsa some wildcatter would offer to buy his truck and trailer, or want to hire him to haul pipe out to the field. Carlos said, "You know I could make more money in the oil business than feeding cows?"

Virgil said, "Go out to a rig and come back covered in that black muck? That sound good to you? Son, we can't spend the money we have."

Oklahoma became a state in 1907--Carlos was one year old--and they started calling Tulsa "The Oil Capital of the World." A man from Texas Oil came down from the Glenn Pool fields near Tulsa and asked Virgil if he wanted to be rich. "You notice that rainbow in your creek water? You know that's a sign of oil on your property?"

Virgil said, "I know when the Deep Fork overflows it irrigates my pe-can groves and keeps out the weevils."

Still, he wouldn't mind some extra money and leased Texas Oil the half section they wanted for a one-eighth share and a hundred dollars a year per working well. The discovery hole hit a gusher a quarter mile into the earth, and Virgil found himself making nine to twelve hundred dollars a day for most of the next few years. Texas Oil offered to lease his entire spread, 1,800 acres, and Virgil turned them down. Seeing gushers spewing crude over his pecan trees didn't give him the thrill it did Texas Oil. When Carlos got back from a haul Virgil would be sitting on that big porch with a bottle of Mexican beer. Prohibition was no bother, Virgil had a steady supply of the Mexican beer and American bourbon brought here by the oil people. Part of the deal. The night Carlos witnessed the robbery and killing he sat with his old dad and told him the whole story, including what he'd left out of his account to Bud Maddox, even telling about the ice cream on Emmett Long's mustache. Carlos was anxious to know if his dad thought he might've caused Junior Harjo to get shot. "I don't see how," Virgil said, "from what you told me. I don't know why you'd even think of it, other than you were right there and what you're wondering is if you could've prevented him from getting shot."

Virgil Webster was forty-seven years old, a widower since Graciaplena died in ought-six giving him Carlos and requiring Virgil to look for a woman to nurse the child. He found Narcissa Raincrow, sixteen, a pretty little Creek girl related to Johnson Raincrow, deceased, an outlaw so threatening that peace officers shot him while he was sleeping. Narcissa had lost her own child giving birth, wasn't married, and Virgil hired her on as a wet nurse. By the time little Carlos had lost interest in her breasts, Virgil had acquired an appreciation. Narcissa became their housekeeper now and began sleeping in Virgil's bed. She cooked good, put on some weight but was still pretty, listened to Virgil's stories and loved and appreciated him. Carlos loved her, had fun talking to her about Indian ways and her murderous kin, Johnson Raincrow, but never called her anything but Narcissa. Carlos liked the idea of bein
g
part Cuban; he saw himself wearing a panama hat when he was older, get one side of it to curve up a little.

He said to his dad that night on the dark porch, "Are you thinking I should've done something?"

"Like what?"

"Yell at Junior it's a robbery? No, I had to say something smart to Emmett Long. I was mad and wanted to get back at him somehow."

"For taking your ice cream cone?"

"For what he said."

"What part was it provoked you?"

"What part ? What he said about being a greaser."

"You or your mama?"

"Both. And calling me and you breeds."

Virgil said, "You let that bozo irk you? Probably can't read nor write, the reason he has to rob banks. Jesus Christ, get some sense." He swigged his Mexican beer and said, "I know what you mean though, how you felt."

"What would you have done?"

"Same as you, nothing," Virgil said. "But if you're talking about in my time, when I was still a U
. S
. Marine? I'd of shoved the ice cream cone up his goddamn nose."

Three days later sheriff's deputies spotted the Packard in the backyard of a farmhouse near Checotah, the house belonging to a woman by the name of Crystal Lee Davidson. Her former husband, Byron "Skeet"

Davidson, deceased, shot dead in a gun battle with U
. S
. marshals, had at one time been a member of the Emmett Long gang. The deputies waited for marshals to arrive, as apprehending armed fugitives was their specialty. The marshals slipped onto the property at first light, fed the dog a wiener, tiptoed into Crystal's bedroom and got the drop on Emmett Long before he could dig his Colt from under the pillow. Jim Ray Monks went out a window, started across the barn lot and caught a load of double-ought in his legs that put him down. The two were brought to Okmulgee and locked up to await trial. Carlos said to his dad, "Boy, those marshals know their stuff, don't they? Armed killer--they shove a gun in his ear and yank him out of bed."

He was certain he'd be called to testify and was anxious, couldn't wait. He told his dad he intended to look directly at Emmett Long as he described the cold-blooded killing. Virgil advised him not to say any more than he had to. Carlos said he wondered if he should mention the ice cream on Emmett Long's mustache.

"Why would you want to?" Virgil said.

"Show I didn't miss anything."

"You know how many times the other night," Virgil said, "you told me about the ice cream on his mustache? I'm thinking three or four times."

"You had to see it," Carlos said. "Here's this bank robber everybody's scared of, doesn't know enough to wipe his mouth."

"I'd forget that part," Virgil said. "He shot a lawman in cold blood. That's all you need to remember about him."

A month passed and then another, Carlos becoming fidgety. Virgil found out why it was taking so long, came home to Narcissa putting supper on the table, Carlos sitting there, and told them the delay was caused by other counties wanting to get their hands on Emmett Long. So the matter was given to the Eastern District Court judge to rule on, each county laying out its case, sounding like they'd make a show out of trying him. "His Honor got our prosecutor to offer Emmett Long a deal. Plead guilty to murder in the second degree, the motive self defense as the victim was armed, and give him ten to fifty years. That would be the end of it, no trial needed. In other words," Virgil said, "your Emmett Long will get sent to McAlester and be out in six years or so."

"There was nothing self-defense about it," Carlos said. "Junior wasn't even looking at him when he got shot." Carlos sounding like he was in pain.

"You don't know the system," Virgil said. "The deal worked 'cause Junior's Creek. He was a white man Emmett Long'd get life or a seat in the electric chair."

Another event of note took place when Carlos was fifteen, toward the end of October and late in the afternoon, dusk settling in the orchards. He shot and killed a cattle thief by the name of Wally Tarwater. Virgil's first thought: it was on account of Emmett Long. The boy was ready this time and from now on would always be ready. He phoned the undertaker, who came with sheriff's people and pretty soon two deputy U
. S
. marshals arrived, Virgil knowing them as serious lawmen in their dark suits and the way they wore their felt hats down on their eyes. The marshals took over, the one who turned out to be the talker saying this Wally Tarwater--now lying in the hearse--was wanted on federal warrants for running off livestock and crossing state lines to sell to meat packers. He said to Carlos to go on and tell in his own words what happened.

Virgil saw Carlos start to grin just a little, about to make some remark like "You want it in my own words?" and cut him off quick wit
h
"Don't tell no more'n you have to. These people want to get home to their families."