|
Short Stories & Tall Tales
Redemption
William S. Hubbartt
“Ok Clay, here ya go. Four rocks, forty yards,….now!”
BAM,…BAM,…BAM,…BAM
“Dangit, I missed the last one,” said Clay as he spun the Army Model 1860 Colt into his holster. “But I done better ‘n’ you, Kenny.”
“I’d a had four if’n I hadn’t slipped in the grass here,” replied Kenny.”I done four last time.”
Shooting river rock pebbles placed on a fallen tree down by the creek south of Sedalia, Missouri was one way to pass the time in the summer of 1865. When you’re 17 years old, you try hard to prove you’re a man, and one way is honing your skills with a Colt.
The civil war was over, and those boys who went off to war came back men. You could recognize them around town now. It was more than just the remnants of the blue uniform. It was their bearing, their calm confident demeanor, their scars and bandages. They were heros.
Clay Cannon and Kenny Mason were too young to go off to war, not that they didn’t try. But the local recruiter knew the boys, and knew their parents. Both of the dads, Cannon and Mason went off to fight in the great war. Mason was a casualty in the first charge at Shiloh, and Cannon died at Gettysburg, defending against Pickett’s charge. Clay and Kenny were rejected by the Army; their duty was to family, and care of the family farms. Then, when the war was over, a captain came by the house, and told Clay’s ma how his pa had died a hero. He left the pistol, a cap and a bloody shirt. Now, after finishing daily chores, Clay used that pistol every day.
Clay had tended to the farm, but his heart wasn’t in it. If he wasn’t down by the creek shooting, he and Kenny would go over to the Sedalia rail yards where the cattle were sorted and loaded for shipment to the east. Sometimes, Clay and Kenny would pick up some work moving the herds from the lots to the rail cars. A good night resulted in coins in their pockets, some whiskey to warm their belly and listening to the stories of the cowboys.
“Didja hear that, Clay? They get $7 a head,” said Kenny. “Man, we work a month and don’t even see that.”
“Yeh, that’s a lot,” said Clay. “Oohh, I don’t feel good, that batch of whiskey tonite musta been sour, uh, uh, eayaa,…” as he turned and upchucked whiskey all over his boots.
“Get over it man. Hey! I got it. I got it.” Kenny’s shaking Clay on the shoulder to wake him from the drunk stupor. “That pen in the back, there’s some twenty head there, didn’t get loaded. Let’s break ‘em out of there, and drive ‘em to the next station, and sell them to the yard master there. They’ll never be missed here. C’mon, Clay, c’mon.”
They led the herd out the gate and down a back path, east towards a watering station called Smithton. They had barely gone a mile when Kenny heard yells and a shot from the pursuing stockyard cowboys.
“He-yaa, he-yaa,” Kenny yelled as he fired a shot back at their pursuers. The cattle began to stampede. Clay kicked his mount in the ribs to keep up with the now charging cattle. Suddenly, a carriage loomed, sitting in a crossing roadway, right in the path of the charging herd. Clay could only pull back on his reins and guide his horse to the roadside as the herd charged directly into the carriage.
In an instant, the cattle charged into the carriage, up-ending the wagon and its occupants, a man and a young boy. Painful screams were heard through the stomping of hooves. Clay looked on momentarily, considering what aid he might offer, when a shot from the pursuing cowboys splintered a nearby branch and splattered his face with wood chips. Clay kicked his horse again and escaped through the woods, leaving a tangle of human and animal bodies, and carriage parts.
Clay circled back in a westerly direction, not stopping in Sedalia. There was no way that the man and boy could have survived. Clay knew that he could not face the fear and the shame of causing the deaths of two innocent people. The boy’s look of fear, and the screams of pain were etched in his memory as he continued riding through the night. Though tired, he pushed on to the next day, until he found a clearing next to a creek bed just east of Kansas City. He hobbled the horse and lay on the ground under an oak tree, instantly falling asleep.
“Oh, oh, Papa, save me!” Clay woke with a start, sitting up and looking around. There were no cries now, but the image of the boy terrorized by a trampling herd of cattle remained in his head. Looking around, Clay saw orange clouds overhead and a red sun peering through the trees, and long shadows telling him that nightfall approached. Then his stomach growled and he realized that he hadn’t eaten in two days. He mounted up and rode into Kansas City.
He found a saloon in the stockyard district. Cattlemen and cowboys were ending their workday with a few drinks, making deals for the next day or sharing stories of the cattle drives and work on the lots. He ordered a whiskey, smelled meat cooking in the back, asked for a steak, and found a small table along the wall. As he ate, he overheard some of the conversations.
“Hey Clem, I’m here to collect on that drink you owe me.”
“Yeh,…yeh. Hey Sammy. Need a whiskey for my man Nate, here. …Yeh, that rot-gut stuff, since I’m buying.”
“Say Clem, you hear ole man Jackson died? Rustlers stampeded a herd right into his carriage. Too bad, he was an all right boss man.”
“What?... When? Where?
“Over Sedalia way. Coupla days ago. Damn near killed his kid, too. Little Johnny. Hear he’s tore up real bad. Don’t know if’n he’ll make it.”
“Rustlers, you say? They catch ‘em?
“I hear tell one was shot dead on the spot. Local Sedalia kid name of Mason. Other one got away.”
Clay suddenly felt sick. He set down the knife and pushed the whiskey back to the other side of the small table, and hung his head in disbelief. The cattleman Jackson dead, Kenny dead, and little Johnny like to die. The boy’s fearful face flashed once again in his memory. Clay stood, turned his back to the men at the bar and walked slowly with rounded shoulders and lowered head out the door of the saloon.
Clay drifted aimlessly for several days through eastern Kansas, from one town to another. Several days later, he walked into the Thirst Quencher Saloon in Emporia. It was a Saturday evening, and from the laughter and sounds of the voices, it was clear that these men had a head start on the weekend. Clay stepped up to the bar, reached into his pocket, pulled out his last two bits and ordered a whiskey.
In the midst of the laughter and boisterous talk, words suddenly became angry as two men jostled.
“Harmon, I told you to get out of town by sundown.” The Emporia sheriff had stepped through the door, his hand close to holstered Colt.
“I’m collecting a debt. This here horse thief owes me,” answered Harmon, his hands at the ready.
“Who you callin’ a thief? Them’s fightin’ words,” said the accused thief.
In an instant, the thief’s hand jerked towards his pistol. Harmon was quicker, and with his left hand slapped the gun away from the accused thief, causing him to lean between Harmon and the sheriff standing near the door. Two shots rang out. The thief arched his back and groaned, and in an instant, the sheriff was seen kneeling at the door way holding his stomach, blood seeping between his fingers.
Everyone froze. Harmon had used the thief as a shield to stop the sheriff’s bullet, while he shot the sheriff. With his gun still drawn, Harmon started to step around the body of the thief, now laying at his feet.
“You all just stay put an’ I’ll be making my way out that door,” said Harmon.
No one moved. Then, a voice came from the end of the bar. “Hold it mister, you’re not shooting a sheriff and walking out that door.” Clay took a sideways step into the middle of the room blocking Harmon’s exit.
Harmon turned his pistol towards Clay. “What’s this kid doing in here? Come in for yer sasparilla, kid?” A nervous cough was heard in the back of the room. Men behind Clay and Harmon shuffled quickly away from in the line of fire.
Clay held his ground. “You’re not walking outta here after shooting the sheriff.”
“If I was fishin,’ sonny, and pulled you up on my hook, I’d throw you back in to grow a little,” said Harmon with a cocky smile. His gun moved slightly with his swagger. There was a chuckle at the back of the bar, drawing Harmon’s attention.
BAM.
A dull, look of surprise came to Harmon, as he looked back to see Clay’s gun smoking in his hand. Harmon’s mouth dropped open, and pink bubbles formed at his lips. His gun fell to the floor, and then Harmon knelt slowly and fell face first to the floor.
“Mighty fine shootin’, young man,… Ya got grit,… an some common sense,” said the sheriff, now slouched in a chair, pressing a bandana tightly into his wound to stem the bleeding. “ I could use a deputy around here, specially while I’m on the mend. You interested?”
Clay holstered his gun, and remembered a few moments ago, how he had paid his last two bits for a whiskey. “I recon I am, Mr. Sheriff, sir. I done spent my last two bits when I rode into town.”
“Yer hired. An’ don’t call me sir. Name’s Andy. Now, one of you men fetch the doc and get me over to the office, I need to swear in this deputy.
Sheriff Andy was laid up, under the doctor’s care with strict orders to take it easy until his wound healed. Clay was sworn in, pinned a deputy badge on his shirt and assumed the duties that very day. Clay’s courage and fast shooting, ridding the town of a trouble-maker, earned immediate respect locally. Clay had found a new home.
With civil war now over, and Kansas being a new state, the prairie towns like Emporia sitting along the westward trails began to grow. Westward travelers were passing through, cattle drives were sometime routed through, and some folks would homestead in the area rather than pursue dreams further westward.
Clay learned quickly that work as a sheriff was not easy. While many folks would respect the authority of the badge, there was an occasional young tough who thought he was faster or bigger or just drunk enough that he was looking for a fight. Clay found that, with some skill, and common sense, he could talk down most troublemakers and send them on their way to sleep off their drunk, or convince them it was wiser to leave town. Several had challenged Clay, and found the hard way that Clay’s fast accurate shooting left them with a busted gun and missing finger, or a broken right arm.
One day as Clay walked the streets on his daily rounds, the stage rolled into town. Clay watched as an attractive woman stepped from the stage, and then turned to assist a young boy, hobbling with wooden crutches. The woman was strikingly beautiful, in a Kelly green taffeta ankle length dress, fashionably spread by four petty-coats with a matching elbow length gloves and topped with a broad brimmed hat. The boy,…the boy was the child injured by the stampeding cattle in Sedalia! What could they be doing in Emporia, Clay wondered.
Over the next several days, Clay caught glimpses of the beautiful woman with her crippled child around town. The lady was that talk of town, particularly among the men who hung out at the Thirst Quencher Saloon. Clay learned from others that the widow Jackson and her son had moved to Emporia to manage ranch property that had been part of her dead husband’s estate. Each week, they arrived in town, in an open wagon, conducting business at the general store. Their paths had not crossed, and, while not avoiding them, Clay made no effort to encounter the woman and boy.
One morning, Clay was in the stable, preparing his mount for a ride out to a nearby creek to check on a report of cattle rustlers in the area. The quiet of the morning was broken with a woman’s scream, sounds of a scuffle, a gun shot, a call for help, and then the pounding of horse hooves, heading out of town. Clay ran to the street and saw three riders racing out of town, each carrying some kind of bundle in one arm.
“Help! Sheriff! There’s been a robbery!” James, the store clerk stumbled into the street, holding a bloodied arm. “They robbed the safe, and took the widow Jackson and her boy!”
The boy’s crutch lay on the ground, near the wagon, and the widow Jackson’s hat was in the street. Clay ran back to the stable for his horse, yelling over his shoulder to the clerk, “I’m going after ‘em. Tell Sheriff Andy.”
Clay could see three specks and a small cloud of dust rising from the Kansas plains, about a quarter mile ahead. By now, he knew the trails surrounding Emporia and much of eastern Kansas. He spurred his horse off the trail and over a ridge and then down into a dry wash that led towards a creek, a creek that would cross the trail about a mile ahead. He slowed his horse to a walk, as he approached a stand of willows and brush that surrounded the creek near the crossing.
The horse’s ears twitched, and then Clay heard a horse whinny just ahead. He dismounted, and circled the reins around branch of a small tree. The willows and brush provided some cover, and Clay stepped forward slowly peering through the brush. There were voices, and between the trees he could see woman and boy standing near a tree as two of the robbers watered their horses. Where’s the third one, Clay thought. Then he heard the click of a cocking pistol.
“Come join the party,…deputy. Well, well. You’re the one what kilt my brother Harmon. Got me a score to settle with you.” The voice came from behind a bush, but Clay couldn’t see the man. “Step into the clearing and drop your gun.”
Clay stepped around the bush that had hid him from the two robbers watering their horses in the stream. Each quickly pointed a weapon at Clay. The woman and the boy were behind Clay, out of harms way. Clay’s mind instinctively assessed his situation, two guns faced him head-on and one still hidden in the bushes to his right, all ready to fire. But, thought Clay, only the man in the bushes had cocked his weapon.
“Howdy boys,… Ma’am, …son. Saw the creek there, wondered if I might water my horse,” he said pointing towards the water with his left hand. Heads turned towards the creek, Clay instantly spun right, drew, and fired into the bushes…BAM. He continued his right-ward turn, dropping to his knees and firing at the other two. BAM BAM,…BAM.
Clay was knocked backwards, and his head and back hitting the hard ground. There was a scream from the woman and the boy, and then the sound of a dropped rifle, a dull thump and the whinny of a horse. Then all was quiet.
Clay felt some cold water splash in his face, he twisted his head, and then felt a burning pain in his shoulder. He opened his eyes, and saw Sheriff Andy kneeling next to him with a canteen of water.
“Andy,…I tried to save ‘em, the,…the widow and the boy,” said Clay, the words coming haltingly with pain.
“Ya done good, deputy. Stood up to three of ‘em,” said Sheriff Andy.
“The lady, ‘n’ the boy,… tell ‘em I’m sorry. Real sorry. It,…it was me and the Mason kid what kilt Mr. Jackson.” Clay coughed up blood, and felt really tired. “I,…I done my best to save ‘em.”
“I checked you out kid, knew it was you. But your work as deputy, and this here, ya got all three, ya done redeemed yourself.”
“I,…I got all three?” Clay died with a smile on his face.
|
|
|
|
|
Send this story to a friend
|
|
|
|
|
