Gun Work: The Further Exploits of Hayden Tilden (16 page)

Carlton grunted and twisted in his seat as though someone had hit him in the side. “I remember that son of a bitch. He murdered Deputy Marshal Jimbo Jones.”

Swords nodded. Snatched his hat up and began picking at the horsehair band. “Two of 'em met up and set to playin' cards in a disreputable joint up in McAlester. Evening went along fine enough until Jimbo accused Big Bob of markin' the deck. Guess Bob must've known for damned sure he was overmatched in the lead-slinging game, so he hopped up and headed for the joint's door.”

“Came back a few minutes later with a ten-gauge Greener, as I recall,” Carlton said.

Nate gritted his teeth. “Sneaky bastard didn't even bother to go back inside. Jimbo was shuffling the deck for the next hand. Had no idea what was about to happen. Ole Bob leaned over the batwings and fired both barrels into the back of Jimbo's head. Killed Jimbo and two others sitting at the table. When the smoke finally cleared, wasn't anything left of poor Jimbo's noggin but the neck bone. Heard tell as how the man's brains decorated everything and everybody within ten feet—including the two other dead fellers.”

“Well, fellers in attendance of that cowardly deed testified for the grand jury that it was the most brutally bloody act they'd ever witnessed,” I said.

Swords thumped at specks of dust on his hat brim. “Yep. Well, I caught up with that man-killin' son of a bitch in a cane break down on White Grass Creek, 'bout two miles north of the Red River. After I shot him twice, dragged Big Bob's sorry ass back to Fort Smith, and threw him in jail. Jury convicted the back-shootin' skunk. Damned if he didn't bypass Judge Parker and have his crooked lawyers file an appeal with the president. Got a new trial, and I'll just be kiss my own ass if those bastards on the jury didn't set him loose again. And they did it all after he'd already been convicted once and sentenced to hang.”

Carlton crossed a booted foot onto his knee and set to spinning the rowel of one spur. “Went out and committed an act most considered worse than blowin' Jimbo's head off, didn't he? Killed somebody else, as I recollect.”

Swords stared out the day car window at the lightning and coming rain. “Ole Bob celebrated his freedom by gettin' good and drunk over in Pocasset. Raged up and down their main thoroughfare firing off his pistol. Number of people tried to stop him. But before they could chase him down, he ran his horse over a child that had the misfortune to stumble into his drunken path. Kid's dress got tangled up around one of his animal's feet. Way I heard it, when they finally got Bob's horse off that ill-fated little girl, she didn't have an unbroken bone in her body.”

“Yeah,” Carl said, “but them Pocasset folks didn't bother to send for a deputy U.S. marshal, or any of the Light Horse Police. If memory serves, they snatched Big Bob off his mount and strung his sorry ass to the nearest cottonwood tree.”

Angry grin bled onto Nate's lips. “Yep. And that's why I'm more than pleased to accept your invitation to be a part of the Brotherhood of Blood. If Bob Stackhouse had swung from Maledon's Gates of Hell gallows the way he should've in the first place, that child he stomped to death would still be alive. Figure if killin' one of the sons a bitches we go out after saves another child's life, it'll sure as hell be worth it.”

Conversation faded and eventually died off after that. Train wheeled along into the deepening darkness of the gathering storm. Sensation felt similar to going down a well. But it didn't really matter, 'cause now Nate had climbed on board and knew the whole story.

Felt better than I had since the day Billy Bird died. Even relaxed to the point where I nodded off. But every once in a while that train would jerk me back to semi-wakefulness. Sensation of pimpled flesh and wary expectation would surge up my neck again. Tried my best to push it away, but something dark, unexplainable, unknowable kept gnawing at me. Tried to put a finger on the problem, but never could. Just knew that something didn't feel right. Something didn't fit. And that Carl, Nate, and I might well be headed for a dangerous surprise.

DARK, VICIOUS STORM hit Fort Worth like a watery-walled sledgehammer just about the time we pulled up to the passengers' loading platform of the Texas & Pacific depot. Was still late afternoon but might as well have been midnight. Raindrops the size of .45-caliber bullets came down in buckets—big, wide-mouthed buckets. Deluge turned every street I could lay an eye on, from our limited vantage point, into a sloppy, muddy, fast-moving, miniature river.

As we stepped from the day coach's platform, an ever deepening darkness, tinged with oppressive gloom, closed around us like a clenched fist. Quickly retrieved our animals and headed up Houston Street in the midst of the worst downpour I'd seen in years—anywhere, anytime. Rushing water came up to our animals' fetlocks. Hit Sixth Street and headed east to Main. Squall got so violent we stopped at the first wagon yard and stable we spotted. Could smell the dry hay and dirt of Turnbow's Livery and Wagon Rental when we rode up to the wide-open double doors.

Bandy-legged gent, who sported a bedraggled, snow-white beard, one pale, dead eye, and a corncob pipe, greeted us. Stood just inside the barn door, one side of his jaw chomped down on the pipe stem, offered up a snaggle-toothed, lop-sided grin and said, “Helluva nasty evenin', ain't she, boys? Best climb on down, put 'em up. No point ridin' around in this stuff. Get yourselves inside out'n this weather 'fore all three of you're wet'rn a trio of drowned rats.”

Carl hopped off his mount. Hurried out of the downpour. Handed his reins to the geezer. Went to slapping water off his slicker with his hat. Said, “Damn, this another one of them biblical floods or somethin', friend? Or maybe it's just one of them things you Texans brag about doin' bigger'n three times better'n anyone else ever could. Whichever she might prove out, thought I'd seen it rain a time or two till we got here.”

Geezer shuffled-footed and kept grinning. Man had considerable more in the way of gums than teeth. He gathered the reins of all our animals, then let out a sharp, cackling, satisfied chuckle as he led them into three nearby stalls. Finally stopped laughing, then went to talking. Had that quirk of personality that set a person to thinking, pretty quicklike, that unless encouraged to do so, he would never stop of his own accord.

“Aye God, gents, when we git a frog strangler like this 'un a comin' straight outta the west, she can last for days. Three hunnert and sixty days of the year Fort Worth's so dry the catfish in the Trinity River are covered with ticks. Then, outta nowheres, we git one a these here gully whumpers.”

Nate unbuttoned his slicker and flapped it back and forth like wings. “Gully whumper, huh? Don't think I've ever hear that 'un before.”

“Oh, yeah,” the coot said. “I've seen 'em where they gets to goin' like God went and pulled the cork. Matter of hours, one like this 'un here can dump enough water to fill up every puddle, pond, and lake in North Texas. But, hell, she'll prolly be gone by tomorrow morning. Two or three days of sunshine, plenty of wind up from the south, and it'll be drier'n the dust in a dead man's pockets.”

Hostler set to stripping everything off Gunpowder, kept a frenzied lip going a mile a minute while he worked. “This 'un reminds me of a clod floater we had back in '72. Was the year our only bridge across the Trinity, one out 'hind the courthouse, went 'n washed away—along with what little there existed of the northwest end of town. 'Course, she weren't muchuva bridge in the first place, or town for that matter. Bridge was just a buncha logs laid atop one another. Town warn't much more'n a collection of badly constructed, clapboard houses here and there. Spent two months wadin' over the river after that. Feller I know what had a flat-bottomed boat made a fortune ferryin' folks back and forth. Some hellacious days, back then.”

By the time the codger reached Carlton's bangtail, a sorrel gelding my friend affectionately referred to as Shooter, our host had filled our ears to overflowing with an astonishing amount of Fort Worth history and folklore. Longer I listened, the more I came to believe that the majority of his good-natured harangue might or might not have borne the slightest drop-dead resemblance to anything like the unvarnished truth.

He was about to start on Nate's jughead when I stopped him by saying, “You, by any chance, have a hack for rent that sports some kind of top on it, old-timer? Something that would keep the rain off your riders.”

Pulled the pipe from the discolored indentation in the corner of his mouth. Man's tobacco-stained lip appeared to have molded itself around the pipe's stem over a lifetime of smoking. He tapped the end of the stem against one of his two or three remaining yellow-brown teeth. “Yep. Sure 'nuff. Got a good 'un. Most times rent it out for funerals. Transport the loved ones to the grave site what cain't be provided for by local undertakers, you know. Be my pleasure to drive you boys anywhere in town my very own self. Hell, won't even charge you fer the ride, bein' as how you're puttin' yer animals up with me and all.”

Carl said, “ 'S a short trip, old-timer. Just up to Second and Rusk.”

“Wish to Jesus you boys would stop callin' me
old-timer
. Name's Turnbow. Fletcher Turnbow. Mighta noticed my name on the sign over the door when you came up. Know y'all prolly think I'm so old I 'uz around when Hell was frosty and jackrabbits still had horns and could fly. Got a few years on me for sure and true, but I ain't exactly hung up my gee-tar yet. Most folks calls me Fletch. You can, too, if you like.”

Behind a widening grin, Nate said, “Fine by us, Fletch. Think you can run us up to . . .”

Turnbow threw Nate's saddle atop a set of stall rails. Over a stooped, bony shoulder he said, “Marshal's office, right? You boys got that narrow-eyed, lawdog look all over you. Seen it soon's you strolled into the light. Get y'all headed that direction quick as I can take care a these animals. With me, the animals always comes first, business after.” He jerked a thumb toward the open entryway. “Might as well have a sit over yonder by the door. If'n you want to, that is. Coffee's cookin' on the stove in the corner. Go right on ahead and pour yourselves up a steamin' cup. 'S good coffee. Guaranteed finest kind. Have the beans shipped to me special from New Orleans. Roast 'em myself. Tried Arbuckles, and it's good, but this stuff's a bunch better. People come from all over town just to get a taste of my coffee.”

We'd almost dried out when Turnbow wheeled his hack out for us. Carriage was damn near the size of a Concord coach. Sported two enclosed seats for passengers and a completely separate one for the driver. The fancy, oversized cabriolet had a leather roof and drop-down curtains for the windows, along with an abundance of hand-polished silver trim. Fancy fenders over the wheels looked to have just been cleaned and waxed. His over-the-top ride even had a pull-down hood to keep the water off the driver.

Nate looked surprised. Ran a finger along a glistening piece of silver on one door. Glanced up at Turnbow in the driver's seat. “Being a poor boy from the backwoods of Arkansas, don't think I've ever ridden in anything quite so grandiose, Fletch. This here's the kind of ride I'd expect to see the governor of Texas or maybe the president of the United by-God States coming down the street in.”

Turnbow's tooth-poor smile grew with the pleasure of hearing such compliments. “Ain't she a daisy? Bought 'er off an undertaker down in Waco what went outta business. Still find it hard to believe that an undertaker could go outta business. Hell, people's always dyin', ain't they? He called this here wagon a family coach. Claimed as how it'd actually seat eight people. Don't know 'bout that though. Most I ever had ride in 'er were six. Even with that load of gear you brought, should have plenty a room. Hop on in. Get y'all on up to the marshal's office in less than ten minutes. You boys'll be drier'n a buncha frogs under a cabbage leaf when we arrive.”

While the three of us were familiar with virtually all of Fort Worth, as result of our previous visits, it proved difficult, at best, to recognize much in the way of landmarks due to the deluge. About the only things I could see from the windows of Turnbow's coach were the flickering, reddish-yellow lamplights that fell from the windows of various saloons, restaurants, sporting houses, dance halls, and gambling joints. Could barely make out the dull, muted glow of a streetlamp once in a while. Here and there, I did manage to spot the occasional shadowy figure propped against a porch pillar, or sitting cross-legged on a bench beneath a protective cover of some kind. Barely detectable glow from a hand-rolled tended to give them away.

True to his word, Fletcher Turnbow delivered us right up to Marshal Sam Farmer's front door in record time. We hopped down onto the boardwalk and hustled up under the jail's sheltering veranda. Barely got damp in the process, in spite of a sheet of rainwater that rolled off the roof like someone in Heaven was pouring it out of a boot.

Our talkative driver peeked from beneath his impressive coach's leather hood, smiled, then shot us a dead-eyed wink. “Figure you can make it from here to any of the better hotels and not get too wet. Just keep to the boardwalks, boys. Need anything else, send someone down to the yard. Plenty of easily hirable drunks, layabouts, and never-sweats around. Get to you quick as I can.” Then he waved, turned his team, and disappeared just a few feet away behind a curtain of falling water and near impenetrable, inky darkness.

Pushed our way into Marshal Sam Farmer's office. Dropped our gear on the floor inside the door. Across the room, half a dozen of Fort Worth's finest were gathered around a checkerboard in a corner next to the cell block entrance.