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Short Stories & Tall Tales
A Good Name
By Bob Burnett
The boy, Will McRae, was first to see the rider on a sorrel horse trotting up the wide valley, still a half mile south and sitting erect in the saddle. “Rider comin’,” he said.
The Dutch oven had cooled to the touch and one warm biscuit remained. The boy held the biscuit with his front teeth while he wiped out the inside of the Dutch oven with a piece of sacking. He knocked the ashes out of the lid and replaced it, setting the oven away from the dying campfire. Squatting and wrapping the sacking around the handle, he pulled the frying pan away from the edge of the coals and sopped up a bit of remaining bacon grease with the biscuit, then wiped out the frying pan with the sacking and put it aside with the Dutch oven. Absently, he munched on the greasy biscuit as he watched the approaching rider.
During the two months he had worked as camp tender for this crew, this was the first strange rider he had seen. The only member of the crew not present in camp was Billy Beebe, who had ridden out two weeks before and had yet to return. Even at this distance, Will McRae could tell it was not Billy. Beebe rode slouched in the saddle and the rider coming up the valley rode ramrod straight.
The Waxman brothers, Lon and John, had been dozing on groundsheets under thin blankets in the deep shade of the big cottonwood, using saddles for pillows, hats over their faces against the morning light. Tired after a night in the saddle, they grunted and stirred to life at the boy’s warning.
The Missouri Kid leaned against the wagon, wiping his Colt with an oily rag. He pulled cartridges from his belt loops and fed them into the cylinder as he gazed at the coming rider. He always practiced his draw with an empty weapon, and he practiced his draw for several hours every day. To the boy it seemed like the Colt leaped from holster to hand in the blink of an eye, like nothing he had ever seen.
The Waxman brothers stood, brushed themselves off, strapped on their gun belts, and eased their Colts loose in their holsters. Looking down the valley at the rider, they walked over to the Kid. The rider had slowed his horse from a trot to a walk, moving slowly through the scattered Longhorns so they would not spook. The cattle moved aside, watching the rider, then returned to their grazing on the rich early growth prairie grass.
“Reckon that’s Beebe?” Lon Waxman asked. The boy could tell the Waxman brothers apart only because John Waxman had a long scar under his right eye and Lon did not. Otherwise, they appeared identical. The brothers both treated the boy kindly, but only Lon seemed to go out of his way to be friendly. Lon joshed with the boy and treated him more as he would a kid brother than a camp tender and cook working for wages. Billy Beebe and the one they called the Missouri Kid mostly ignored the boy, speaking only when they wanted something.
“I doubt it,” John replied. “Beebe favors a tall sombrero and this feller is wearin’ a flat black hat.”
“Could have got himself a new hat.”
“Doubt it. Not a flat crown black hat. Not somethin' Billy would wear.”
The three men and the boy watched the rider approach. The Missouri Kid rolled a cigarette and stuck it in the corner of his mouth without lighting it. When the rider was about three hundred yards out the Kid said, “He’s a stranger. Never saw him before.”
Away from the herd, the rider lifted his sorrel to a trot. The three men in the camp edged apart until a dozen feet separated them.
The boy felt their tension. He moved to stand beside the cottonwood where he thought to hide in case of trouble. Orphaned at thirteen, Will had worked two years as a stable hand and hostler in Waco before Lon Waxman offered him a job as camp tender and cook. Lon said they were gathering a herd and would drive it to Wyoming territory to start a ranch.
It took a couple of weeks for the boy to realize that the herd grew by a dozen or so each time the men rode out, usually at night.
He told himself that even if they were rustlers, he was not. He was the camp tender, working for twenty-five a month and found. He convinced himself that whatever trouble they had was none of his business. So why am I scared now? he wondered.
The rider trotted his sorrel to within fifty feet of the camp, and then slowed to a walk. He stopped twenty feet from the three waiting men, turning his horse a quarter-turn left so his right side, with his holstered Colt, was toward the waiting men. He sat with his reins held in his left hand, resting on his pommel. His right hand cupped on top of his left. His back was ramrod straight as he looked over the camp and at each man in turn. His pale blue eyes roved restlessly and his mouth was like a knife slash under a hooked nose. His shaggy hair and whiskers showed streaks of gray. It looked like he not shaved in a week or more.
“You’d be the Waxman brothers,” he said, his voice a deep rumble.
“Depends on who’s asking,” Lon said.
“Name’s Peabody. Texas Ranger. Beebe told me where I’d find you after I persuaded him some.”
“I heard the Rangers was disbanded by the carpetbaggers,” John said.
“Old habits die hard, Waxman,” the rider said. “I spent so many years as a Ranger I can’t hardly think of myself as otherwise. I’ll introduce myself again. Deputy Sheriff Bill Peabody, McLannan County Texas. That good enough for you? Whether I’m a Ranger or Deputy Sheriff, I still ride for the law.”
“I ain’t so sure we’re even in McLannan County,” John said.
“I am," Peabody said. "I know exact where you are, and more important, I know where you been and what you done. Who are you?” he said, looking at the Missouri Kid.
“They call me the Missouri Kid.”
“I suppose some do, some don’t. I doubt your momma named you the Missouri Kid. What’s your given name?”
“My name is my business and none of yours. Where’s Beebe?”
“Last time I saw Billy Beebe he was restin’ quiet in a jail cell. Doc pulled three slugs out of him. If he lives, he’ll stand trial for robbery and murder. As to your name, I have papers on the Waxman brothers and I’ll be takin’ them to Waco so they can get took on down to Uvalde for trial. Tell me who you are or else you’ll have to ride along with us until I can figure out if’n you’re wanted or not.”
“Long ride to Waco,” the Kid said, tipping his hat back with his right hand and taking a Lucifer match out of his shirt pocket with his left. The boy had watched him practice this move day after day; striking the match with his left thumbnail, raising it toward the unlit cigarette hanging in his mouth, while the right hand dropped back down from his hat to his side and flipped the Colt out of his holster quick as greased lightning.
The boy knew that the Ranger was about to die, but as the Missouri Kid’s Colt started to come clear of leather the back of his head exploded, blowing his hat off in a spray of blood and brain matter. The Missouri Kid fired once, through the bottom of his holster and into his own foot. He crumpled like a puppet with the strings cut.
The Deputy Sheriff Bill Peabody, formerly of the Texas Rangers, sat with his Colt cocked, looking at the Waxman brothers. Both stood frozen in place, the gunplay so sudden they had no time to react. Gunsmoke drifted away on the gentle breeze.
“Damn me!” John Waxman said. “You are some sudden, Ranger. I’m gonna move my left hand now, real slow, and I’m gonna drop my gun belt. I ain’t ready to die today.” The Ranger nodded and Waxman unfastened the belt and let it drop.
“Me, too,” Lon Waxman said. Slowly he let his holstered Colt fall to the ground. “You said you had papers on me and my brother. What they want us for?”
“That drummer you robbed down by Uvalde described you boys to a T. Said he thought he was seein’ double, ‘cept that one had a scar on his cheek. Any other warrants for you, I don't know of them. I expect you’ll spend some time behind bars down at the Huntsville Pen, mayhap even a few years, but that ain’t a crime they’ll hang you for.”
“I reckon we’ll go along peaceable.”
“Either of you know this man’s real name?” the Ranger asked, indicating the dead man. He lowered the hammer and slipped the Colt back into his holster.
“No. Just said to call him the Missouri Kid. He had him an idea that he was some kind of bad man. He was mighty quick with that Colt.”
“Not near quick enough nor slick enough. Fool showed me plain as day he was gonna draw. Dumb as a box of rocks. Some folks just get in a big hurry to die and I reckon he was one of them. Well, we’ll leave him here. It don’t matter to me if he had paper out on him as I don't ride for rewards. He ain’t gonna be up to no more mischief. Pack your possibles and saddle up, boys. We’ll ride over to Waco and put you in jail there until them from down south come for you. As jails go, it ain’t half bad. Sheriff’s wife does the cookin’. You’ll get fat, if’n you stay very long.”
“I got a Henry rifle by my bedroll,” Lon said. “Wouldn’t want you to mistake my intentions when I roll up my soogan.”
“I got one, too,” John said. “The Kid probably has his stuck in his bedroll as well.”
“Glad you said somethin’. Hate to shoot a man on a misunderstanding. Son,” Bill Peabody said to the boy, “why don’t you gather up them three rifles and put them in the wagon. While you’re at it, pick up their Colts as well. Get temptation out of the way.”
The boy did as he was told, gathering the weapons and placing them in the wagon. The former Ranger watched as the brothers rolled up their bedrolls. They selected and saddled two horses from the picket line, leaving the other five horses two Percheron draft horses, two bay saddle horses, and a black gelding saddle horse tied.
The lawman looked at the boy, now squatting next to the cottonwood tree. “You got a name?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir. Will McRae is my name.”
“I think I know you. Wasn’t you hostlin’ at Jordan’s Livery in Waco?”
“Yes, Sir, up until two months ago when Lon hired me. He said they was buildin’ a herd for a Wyoming ranch. Offered me twenty-five a month and found to cook and keep camp for them.”
“Paid you yet?”
“No, Sir.”
“You know they been throwin’ a long loop.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Figured it out after I got here, but I ain’t stole nothin’. I don't ride out with them. I tend the camp and cook and that’s all.”
“What you need to know, son, is that your age won’t mean nothin’ to them ranchers if’n they find you with rustled cattle, and they won't care whether you been ridin' out at night or just keepin' the camp. They’ll swing you from that cottonwood as quick as they would a grown man. You ride with thieves; they’ll hang you as a thief.”
“You gonna take me to jail?” Will McRae asked.
“No. You don’t belong in jail, boy, but you need to learn some better judgment. When you see folks do something wrong, you face up to them if you can or else ride away. I'd not expect you to face up to the likes of these three, but you should have cut loose from them when you figured out that they was breakin' the law. If you lay down with dogs, you'll get up with fleas. Never do nothin’ you wouldn’t want your folks to see on the front page of the newspaper.”
“My folks been dead over two years. Pa got kilt in the cotton mill in Waco. Ma come down with a fever shortly after that and just up and died.”
“That’s hard. But you know what I mean. All you got, all that ever amounts to a tinker's damn in your life, is your good name. Lose that, you got nothin'. You still got some growin' to do, judgin' by the size of your hands and your feet, but you near about got your man size. The difference 'tween a man and a boy don't have nothin' to do with size or age. The difference is that a man thinks afore he acts and a boy acts afore he thinks. Time to conduct yourself like a man. You know what I'm tellin' you?"
"Yes, Sir. I think so."
"You spend time around the likes of this bunch and sooner or later you'll be just like them. Hang around in a barber shop and sooner or later you'll get a haircut. You already convinced yourself that you ain't a rustler since all you did was tend camp, but the law don't see it that way. Was I here to arrest them for rustlin', why I'd take you right along with them. I reckon you know right from wrong, Will McRae. Time to stand up for what you believe.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“And, if you get in a bind if you are doin’ right and not wrong and get in a bind you send for me. My name is Bill Peabody and I been a Ranger since who flung the chunk, never mind that the carpetbaggers took over the Rangers, run off all the good men, and hired a bunch of scalawags. I still ride for the law. You do right and I’ll side you. You do wrong and I’ll hang you, no matter what badge I wear.”
The boy could think of nothing to say in response.
The former Texas Ranger rode to the picket line where the Waxman brothers were preparing to mount. “Got a bill of sale for them horses and the wagon?”
“Yeah, except for the Kid’s horse, that black there. The other horses and the wagon was bought honest and I got bills of sale in my saddle bags,” Lon said.
“Got cash money to pay the boy what you owe him for wages?”
“I got about a hundred dollars.”
“Give the boy fifty for wages and give him the bills of sale for them two saddle horses, the two draft horses and the wagon. Turn that black loose and run him off. It’s probably stole from somewhere and that boy shore don’t need that kind of grief in his life. You do that and treat that orphan boy right, we’ll ride out of here, and I’ll not see the rustled stock. You done wrong by that boy, Waxman, stickin’ his neck into a noose without tellin’ him.”
“I never figured to get caught. I intended no harm to the boy. He's a good boy.”
“I reckon. You get straight with the boy, and then we’ll ride. One thing, boys. You cause me any trouble, any trouble at all, or make any move to get away from me I’ll gut shoot you and leave you to die slow. Understood?”
Both nodded their understanding. Lon Waxman rode to the boy, paid him and handed him the bills of sale. “This will give you a stake,” he said. “Keep what you want of our stuff and sell the rest. Be a while afore me and my brother will worry about havin' stock. Best you load up, hitch up, and light a shuck out of here afore somebody spots you with them cattle. You need to get a whole lot of gone betwixt you and this part of Texas. I’m sorry for draggin’ you into this without tellin’ you what was what.”
“Thanks, Lon. Hope they don’t keep you locked up too long.”
The rustler laughed and spun his horse, joining his brother and former Texas Ranger, now Deputy Sheriff, Bill Peabody. They trotted south, down the long wide valley toward Waco.
Will McRae watched the three riders cut through the herd, scattering the Longhorns, and he was suddenly at a loss for what to do. He looked around the camp, picked up some loose trash, then took a shovel out of the wagon, dug a hole and buried the small amount of trash. The camp fire was out, but he shoveled dirt over it to be sure he left no fire. He loaded supplies, food and ammunition into the wagon. The Waxman brothers’ holstered Colt six-guns and the three new Henry rifles he rolled up in the Missouri Kid’s bedroll, and then placed the package under the wagon seat.
The Kid’s saddle went in the back of the wagon. The canvas tarp that served as a camp tent became a cover for the wagon bed as it had before. All that remained was the Missouri Kid’s body. Will stripped off the Kid’s gun belt and placed it under the wagon seat with the other guns. Checking the Kid’s pockets, he found twenty-seven dollars, a small folding knife, and a Mexican 10 peso coin.
He considered leaving the Kid for the coyotes and other critters, but that seemed wrong. The Ranger said he should do the right thing and not do anything he’d be ashamed to see in the newspaper. He decided he’d not want it known that he’d gone off and left a man unburied, even if he was a rustler.
Ma would have said that everybody deserved a Christian burial. She gave one to Pa although she no longer had any use for him, what with his constant drinking, sour attitude, and angry talk. He whipped on Ma a couple of times until she took a skillet to him and that stopped that. Still and all, when Pa was killed Ma buried him proper and had a preacher read over him. When Ma died, Will had her buried proper and had a preacher read over her although it exhausted their meager savings. Well, there was no way to get a preacher to read over the Missouri Kid, but Will McRae figured he knew how to dig a hole and could read the Good Book well enough if he picked a piece without too many big unfamiliar words.
Will selected a spot away from the trees where the ground seemed softer and he was unlikely to hit tree roots. After marking the outline with the edge of his shovel, he dug steadily until he was standing waist deep in the grave. Taking a booted foot under each arm, he dragged the Missouri Kid to the edge of the grave.
The Kid’s boots were almost new. Maybe too big, but better than mine, Will thought as he pulled off the boots and tossed them toward the wagon.
He thought about taking the Kid’s pants, but the Kid had soiled himself and they stunk pretty bad so he just rolled the body into the grave, tossed his bloodied hat in on top, and shoveled the loose dirt back in to fill the grave.
Taking an ax, he cut an ash sapling to about four feet in length, and used the side of the ax to drive the stake into the soft dirt at the head of the grave. He cut another piece of ash and, using a pigging string, tied the crossbar. He looked at the crude cross and thought, It ain’t straight, but then neither was the Kid.
After his mother was buried, the only things Will McRae took from the hovel where they lived were his few clothes, an old Walker Colt his father had brought home from the war, and his mother’s family Bible in which were recorded births and deaths of her family back two generations. Having only a pencil, he asked the preacher to record her death in ink.
The clothes he'd had were long since outgrown and worn out and replaced, the Colt he had sold for three dollars to pay for food before he hired on at the livery, but the Bible was still his constant companion. He practiced his reading in it almost every day, although he had difficulty with many of the words. He now took it from his possibles bag and walked to the new grave.
Not knowing what to read over the Missouri Kid, Will simply opened the book and read the first thing that caught his eye. "A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver and gold." Ain’t that somethin’? he thought. That’s near about what the Ranger told me. So far, I still got my good name. So far.
"I'm sorry you done wrong, Kid," he said, looking down at the mounded earth over the grave. "I reckon your mamma will never know what became of you so you brought no shame to her for how you died. You was so proud of that handle, the Missouri Kid, and now nobody will even know what became of you by your real name. You won't get your name in the newspaper. Maybe that's a blessing."
Digging through the supplies, Will found a stub of a pencil and took a piece of paper out of John’s tally book to write a note:
This here is the Misuri Kid. He was a cow thef what
got kilt by Texs Rangur Bil Peebody. Two more was
took to the Wako jail by the Rangur. I aint no thef
and am headed out of here fer Kansas in my wagon.
Will McRae
Will McRae found a tobacco can, emptied it, and placed the note inside. He turned the can upside down and wedged it over the grave marker, to hold in the note and keep out the rain. Somebody may care who is buried here, he thought, even if I don't know his real name.
Taking one last look around, he tossed the Kid’s boots in the back of the wagon, and then turned to the picket line. Will led the horses to the stream and allowed them to walk in the shallow water and drink their fill.
The two saddle horses, both bays, were as fine as any horses he'd seen while working at the livery stable, deep of chest and strong of limb, fit horses to carry a man far and fast. They were far better horses than any cowhand could afford, and he now realized that should have given him some sort of warning sign about the Waxman brothers. Next time he'd pay attention and think it out before he jumped into something. The Ranger had said that a man thought before he acted while a boy acted before he thought. Just like he had acted on taking this job before he thought about it.
The Percheron draft horses were a matched pair of blacks with a white star and four white stockings, huge animals more suited to pulling a heavy Studebaker freight wagon than the light farm wagon. Like the saddle horses, they showed excellent blood lines and should have made him consider the men who owned them.
He slipped the harness over their tall backs, backed each into the wagon and hitched up with practiced ease. He attached lead ropes to the hackamores of the two saddle horses, tied them to the back of the wagon, mounted the wagon seat, lifted the reins, and clucked to the team. They started right off at a trot, heading north.
Will McRae was not certain where he was going, but he did not look back. He still had his good name and was determined to keep it. Besides that, with what Lon had given him he felt rich.
He thought maybe someday he'd come back to Waco and say thanks to Ranger Bill Peabody.
After about a mile, he started to whistle a happy tune.
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