The Pistoleer (23 page)

Things came to a head one drizzly evening after they’d crossed into Kansas. Manning rode out to help a night guard round up a couple of steers that had wandered off from the herd, and when he got back to camp he found Dolph slapping and shoving on Little Eddie Moorhouse, the youngest hand in the outfit. Gip was trying to get between them, but Joe Shadden kept grabbing him away and telling him to mind his own goddamn business. Manning ran up and shouldered Joe off Gip just as Dolph knocked Little Eddie down into the cookfire. Little Eddie screamed and rolled out of the flames, and some of the hands rushed up and started tearing his smoking shirt off him. Joe pulled his boot knife and swiped at Manning and nicked him on the collarbone. Gip and Dolph pulled pistols and Gip shot Joe in the arm just as Dolph blew a hole through Gip’s floppy rain slicker. Before Dolph could fire again, Manning shot him through the heart. And then, while Joe was struggling to pull his pistol with his bad arm, Manning shot him square in the brainpan.

Manning turned the herd over to one of the other hands, and him and Gip got the hell away from there. They about rode their horses to death getting to Abilene. They’d sent a telegram to Doc Burnett in Fort Worth telling him what happened. “There’s some in the outfit who’ll tell the truth about it,” Manning said, “but there’s as many who’ll lie and say I shot them in cold blood.” He figured the news had likely reached Wichita by morning and already been telegraphed to Abilene.

“Hickok’s sure to have papers on me,” Manning said. “If I’d been thinking clear, I wouldn’t of come here. I probably ought to head east right now and make my way back home by way of Arkansas.”

Hell no, Wes said, there wasn’t any need to do that. He had an understanding with Hickok. He’d see to it Manning got squared with him.

“
You
can square me with Wild Bill Hickok?” Manning said.

“Hey, cousin, me and Bill’re the best of friends,” Wes said with a sly smile. “But now listen, you boys give your gunbelts to Johnny here and he’ll hold them for you out at his camp. I can square you with Bill, but if he sees you packing iron in town he might not bother asking questions before he pulls the law on you.”

“What the hell?” Manning said. “
You’re
packing.”

Wes stood up and put on his hat. “Yes indeed,” he said, and gave Manning a wink, “but I’m special.” He truly enjoyed being the fair-haired boy with Hickok. “You all stay put till I get back.”

The Clements boys ordered oysters and eggs and the biggest steaks in the house, then tore into it all like they hadn’t eaten in a week. Pretty soon Wes was back, smiling bigger than before. He’d spotted Hickok in the Alamo, he said, but didn’t want to disturb him at his poker, so he’d gone to see Columbus Carol in the Bull’s Head and explained the situation to him. Carol promised he’d talk to Wild Bill and square Manning with him.

“See, cousin?” Wes said, punching Manning on the arm. “Everything’s all took care of.”

After eating, we all had a so-long drink together in the Applejack, then Johnny and Jim and me went back to our Cottonwood camp to wait for the rise in beef prices we’d been told would happen in the next few days.

N
ext morning, Manning showed up to get his guns from Johnny. He was packing a Colt he’d got from Wes before leaving town. He sat down for a cup of coffee and told us it had been a hell of a night in Abilene, though he hadn’t seen much of it because Hickok had arrested him after all. He’d spent several hours in the hoosegow, passing the time with a medicine salesman accused of poisoning six citizens who’d drunk some of his special elixirs, and with a beat-up cowboy who’d rode his horse into a saloon and up on a faro table—which had made everybody laugh except the faro players, who pulled him off his cayuse and punched him bloody before one of Hickok’s deputies showed up and hauled him off to jail. Anyhow, Wes had finally finagled Manning out of jail some way or other and then quick hustled him out of town.

We all wanted to hear more details, of course, and we tried to impose on him to stay with us till the next day, but he said he was itchy to get back to Texas. “I reckon Wes’ll be along sooner or later,” he said, “and he can tell you the story a lot fuller than I can. “ So we gave him provisions and wished him well, and off he went.

And early next morning here comes Wes on the fly—riding in his damn nightclothes, I ain’t lying—and with the law hot on his tail.

W
hen the wire arrived from Wichita ordering the arrest of Manning Clements for the murder of two trail hands in South Kansas, it so happened that Clements was in town—him and his brother Gip—and had been for at least a couple of days. Bill got steamed when he read the telegram. “I guess the whole town’s heard about this,” he said, “knowing Bloomers.” Bloomers was the telegrapher—and a flannel-mouth gossip. He was faster than the
Chronicle
when it came to spreading news.

Tom said he’d just seen Clements eating supper with Hardin at the American House, and he knew for a fact that Gip Clements was playing cards in the Applejack. Tom was one for keeping track of things. Bill let out a heavy sigh and cussed under his breath. We all knew what was eating on him: Hardin hadn’t held to their bargain. If he’d come to Bill and asked to square his cousin, they likely would’ve worked something out so that Bill could keep from arresting Clements without looking bad. But now the whole town for damn sure knew we had a paper on Clements, and Bill had to arrest him or look like he lacked the grit. “Goddamn Texas trash,” he muttered. The more he thought on it, the more it hacked him. He told Tom to keep an eye on Gip Clements in the Applejack, then took me with him over to the American House. At the front door of the place, he told me, “Either one even looks like he’s moving for a gun, give him both goddamn barrels.” I mean, he was
hacked.

Hardin was smiling till he caught the look on Bill’s face. He glanced at me standing by with the shotgun and asked Bill if I was on my way to a duck hunt. Bill just glared at him and said, “It’s buckshot loads, hoss.” Then he asks the other one, “Are you Manning Clements?” Clements nodded. “I have a paper on you,” Bill said. “You’re under arrest.”

Hardin got agitated, of course, but didn’t seem too inclined to do anything about it, not with my shotgun pointed at him from the hip. I wish he had. If he’d so much as dropped his hand off the table I’d of blown him in half—and if I’d done
that,
I’d be remembered a lot different, you bet.

“Didn’t Columbus see you about squaring Manning?” he asked Bill.

“Sonbitch’s been in the Alamo since yesterday morning,” Bill said, “too damn drunk to lift his head off the table. If you wanted this fella posted, why didn’t you see me yourself?”

The conversations in the dining room had dropped to nervous whispers. A lot of big-eyed faces were turned our way. They hadn’t expected such an entertainment over their supper beefsteak. The restaurant manager was standing by the rear door, looking scared and fairly worthless. Hardin asked Bill if they might talk in private. Bill told me to keep my eye on Clements, then the two of them went into a back room. While they were gone Clements told me he was unarmed and wouldn’t try to escape, so why didn’t I sit down and take it easy, have some coffee, try the apple pie. He wasn’t a bad fella, you ask me.

When Bill and Hardin came back out, they’d made another deal. It was the best solution they could come up with to protect Bill’s reputation and Hardin’s cousin, both. Hardin sat down next to Clements so he could talk low and explained the setup to him. Bill was going to put him in jail, then give Hardin the key at midnight so he could let him out—and then Clements would leave town immediately. Clements didn’t look real pleased with the plan, but he didn’t say anything. Hardin stood up and patted his cousin on the shoulder. “Eight o’clock, then,” he said to Bill, “at the Alamo,” and Bill nodded. Then Hardin went off to arrange to have Clements’s horse ready for him, and me and Bill and Clements headed off to jail.

But first Bill took him into the Bull’s Head saloon and bought him and me a drink. He wanted the Texans to see Clements in his custody. He wanted to remind them who the cock of the walk was in Abilene. The looks we got were red as hate, and the meanness in the room was like a bitter smoke. I gulped down my drink and held the shotgun tight, the barrels low and ready. Ben Thompson kept scowling at us from his table and muttering to the men sitting with him. At the end of the bar, Phil Coe looked unhappy. The grumbling around us got louder and full of threat. Bill acted like he didn’t hear a bit of it. Even Clements looked more worried than him. Bill smiled at himself in the back-bar mirror and casually sipped his whiskey with his left hand. When we left, the place was in a rage.

B
ill played a few hands of solitaire at his desk while Tom and me stood at the door and listened to the yelling and cussing over in the saloon. Suddenly the Catfoot jumped out of the shadows at the end of the gallery and grinned to see how he’d caught me and Tom by surprise. The Catfoot was Bills best pair of ears in town. He’d been an army scout in the southwest territories and a friend of Kit Carson’s. He claimed he’d snuck up within arm’s length of many an Indian without ever being seen. By the time he took up scouting for Bill in the alleyways of Abilene, his drinking habit had robbed some of the sureness off his feet, but he was still the best sneakabout in town. He wore moccasin boots and dark clothes and a black kerchief around his head instead of a hat, making him look injun. Since first meeting Bill he had let his graying hair grow down to his shoulders too. He flat idolized Wild Bill and would do any fool thing he asked. What he’d been doing just now was mingling with the crowd in the Bull’s Head, and he’d come to report to Bill what he’d heard. It hadn’t required any sneaking about. The way he’d crossed over to the jail was just to show off.

He told Bill the Bull’s Head boys were boiling mad about Clements’s arrest. They were saying Bill had put the arm on him only because he was a Texan. Besides, they knew Wes was squared with Bill and they figured the fix ought to include his cousin. The way they saw it, being squared didn’t mean jackshit to a man if it didn’t include his kin. “Phil Coe said Clements oughtn’t to be arrested in Abilene anyway,” the Catfoot said, “not for something he done someplace else. And Ben, he said it goes to show no Texan can take your word for anything.”

“Piss on Ben Thompson and the damn dog he rode in on,” Bill said. He sent the Catfoot back to the Bull’s Head and told Tom to go round up two more deputies. He wanted four shotgun guards in the jail in case the Texans tried to break out Clements.

A few minutes later I saw Hardin go in the Bull’s Head. The shouting and carrying on got louder for a time, then eased off some. Tom returned with Mike Williams and Steve Wheeler and everybody loaded their scatterguns with buckshot. A half hour later Hardin left the saloon, and here came the Catfoot back again.

He said there were forty Texas hard cases in the saloon ready to help spring Clements. They were arming from a wagonload of weapons a Comanchero friend of Thompson’s had brung into the alley. Thompson had been all for storming the jail right now, but then Hardin showed up and got them to hold off. He told them about the deal he’d made with Bill to spring Clements, but most of the Texans didn’t believe Bill would hold to it, not even Phil Coe. Hardin told Coe he’d send him the key to Clements’s cell at midnight and he could let him out himself. “If Coe don’t get the key by twelve,” the Catfoot said, “that wild bunch is gonna come storming.”

A few minutes before eight, Bill stood up and stretched. He checked the loads in both navies, then adjusted his tie and put on his hat. “When Coe comes here with the key,” he told Tom, “don’t fuss with him, just hand Clements over.” He was being casual but it was all show. The situation had put him in a corner and was agitating him no end. Behind his easy smile he was in a fury.

So off Bill went to meet Hardin at the Alamo. Tom and me sat out on the jailhouse gallery, watching the street and listening hard, ready to run to help him at the first gunshot. The saloon lights blazed into the street. The crowd in the Bull’s Head kept growing, and the music and the yahooing was louder than ever. Nothing like the possibility of mob action to put a bunch of peckerwoods in a high-time mood.

L
ater we heard all about how Bill and Hardin had done the town together. They made a big show of being pals and took turns buying a round for the house every place they went. Their gambling luck was pure gold. They won over a thousand dollars apiece on that spree. You ask me, such a profitable streak of luck ought to’ve pretty well made up for whatever agitation Bill’s pride had to endure that evening. But unfortunately—especially for the Catfoot—Bill didn’t see it that way.

S
ometime around eleven a big hack stopped in front of the Bull’s Head and about seven or eight painted cats lit off it, teasing each other and laughing loud, all of them drunk and bold as brass. They spotted me and Tom watching them and started whistling and cooing and having sport with us. I didn’t really mind their attention, but Tom got hacked about it. He always was a little stiff-necked about the soiled sisterhood. I believe his people were hard-shell Baptists.