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Short Stories & Tall Tales
Stranger in Musket City
Tom Sheehan
“They didn’t know who I was or where I came from or what I’d done and left undone somewhere else, and they didn’t care.”
Orchards of Almonds
Donald Junkins
The only one to see the stranger ride up the main street of Musket City after dark was the sheriff at his rounds. He patched the arrival into his mind, noted the time, and set behind his eyes the image of the man in the saddle as he passed under the light over the livery doorway. There was little more to see; a close guess at height and weight, a stiffness in the saddle not of discomfort but alertness, a wide sombrero, a thick saddle roll, twin holstered hand guns, rifle slung in its sheath, and the black stallion looking like a match for the man riding him.
A cowboy plain and simple; young, most likely, but so was the west.
On the following morning, Sunday, the sun managed to crawl quietly into Musket City, the town sleepy and unaware except for the sheriff that a stranger had ridden his horse right into a stall at Livermore’s Livery during the latter part of the night, told the owner, Luchen Livermore, to take care of his horse, gave him a tip, crawled up into the mow and fell asleep where he had roughed up a bed on the hay.
Anywhere else, except for Musket City for some unknown reason, it would all bunch up as an oddity; to be nosed at, found curious, talked about, looked into from different angles. Musket City had a notable reserve in these matters. Maybe that ease was found too easily, in that all matters tend to level out, find their proper places in the order of things. One might wonder, however, if a fulcrum weight had shifted with the new arrival, a balance broken, a new tone set for change.
Some things the sheriff could not see but the details of which were noticeable to Livermore: the visitor, in the dim light of a lantern, showed a wild, jagged scar down beside his left eye obviously earned from a serious disturbance, as may be produced by several swipes of a heavy blade, or a close shave with a shotgun. The scare gave his face an added dimension of mystery and a second thought; the man had survived the hard time the scar bespoke. He wore roughed up clothes that had been through long rides in tough country, a gray vest with one pocket nearly torn off and doubled into its inner fold, faded black pants showing horse-wear all over, a wide-brimmed sombrero beaten past normal usage, as seen from its haggard shape, and boots that might have been neatly crafted by hand but were now kicked in at both ends.
One stirrup was missing, which might have said a whole lot to Livermore if he had dwelled on it. But he had seen all situations, he thought; a spur lost in a stampede, or a chase; once out on the trail he had found a lone boot with the spur still attached, and never a revelation of cause. It could have been death or dismemberment, or both.
Some problems or situations, without resolve, could bother a man endlessly, if he let them.
The stranger appeared to the livery man to be in his early 20s, despite the wear he carried, and sureness rode in the man’s frame, in the way he handled himself. The visible is easily set in place.
Livermore was adding up his observations, not from habit, but because he was a man who liked to find simple answers to simple puzzles. So this assessment was a minor game with him, as a loner. He would dwell on them for real only if paid.
If the stranger hadn’t been at a working job, he had traveled a long way; and if that was the case, why did he come to Musket City? Also, it was apparent, if he hadn’t been wearing such clumsy overworked clothes, Livermore might have thought he was a tall gaunt man, but that observation was elusive in the face of labor’s mark. Livermore, a worker most of his life, held that honest labor tends to mark a man first and foremost; it was a long-standing tenet of the livery man, like one old cow veteran said in the past, crafting a true tenet to live by, “Clothes mark the man, as well as his horse.”
There were further observations that Livermore could have made. He’d not tell anybody about the stranger, especially if he was asked, a matter of principle with him, and he thought deeper about Musket City not drawing a lot of strangers to its bosom, or to its sole wetting spot, the Blind Horse Saloon.
What other attraction sat in the town?
Livermore, a long time in the business of tending horses and generally getting along with folks, did not consider mentioning the man’s arrival, or his long nap in the hay, to any of his other customers. But he had looked over the horse, a good-sized black stallion with two red socks on his rear legs, and found no markings otherwise. Nor did the saddle and associated gear bear any further identification of the man. Livermore wanted to check the horse’s hooves, to see if he could detect the path he’d used coming this way, but held back on that final push of curiosity.
For a long part of the morning the mystery man slept without snoring, without unusual sounds, as if comfort had been withheld from his person for an extended period. The roosting owl in the peak did not disturb his sleep, or the mice scurrying about the loft floor.
Later in the morning the stranger crawled down out of his night abode, washed up out back of the livery at Livermore’s direction and asked where he could get a good breakfast.
“Hannah Goode’s good enough for anybody,” Livermore said. “Just down the street too. No sign on her door but red curtains in the windows. She’s awful good with the skillet. Just name your poison.” A quick laugh accompanied the statement. “And she’s as sweet-looking as the first flower you see out on the spring grass.”
“Who’s the sheriff here? What’s he like? He wear the star like a man?” Though the questions were direct, they appeared to be off-handed, normal talk for a town visitor.” He never looked up to assess Livermore, or check his makings. In a motion that Livermore discerned as habitual, the stranger touched the handles of his pistols as if he was fondling them, but in a comfortable afterthought.
“Can I say who asked?” Livermore posed the question uneasily, but his eyes and facial expression were bedded with honesty. “He’d like to know who’s in town. His name’s George Easilee. We call him “Easy,” but he ain’t. Strict as they come, and that amount of fair to go with it.” His honest smile said it was a true and honest qualification of the sheriff.
“Easy, eh? That sets a picture. Sounds like an okay lawman, by your judgment. He the hangman, too?”
Later, thinking over the session of questions, Livermore thought the one about the hangman to be the most open of all, and filled with more than idle curiosity. Possibly filled with meaning or intent. If he let his mind wander, it might find a hundred reasons in this part of the country where life found sudden conclusion at odd moments. He was also thinking, “Let the man be. We all came here from somewhere else, many of us never saying where, when or why. The land made the calling on such matters, and how you handled it straight up. It was like that all over, but especially this side of the Mississippi.”
“Haven’t had a hangman in a few years. I barely remember who it was. Oh, yuh, a gent killed a bank teller and a customer with the same shot. Had the money in a bag when Easy caught up to him. Shot him off his horse, then called a hangman from Ford Creek after the quick trial. He did the rope and the drop, and then rode out of town without even having a drink.” He nodded and added, “I remember that part of it, strange as it was, lots of people crowding the saloon afterward, the Blind Horse Saloon, looking to drown out the hanging, a hard finish on any day’s work, and the hangman riding out of town without a drink.”
Sheriff Easilee spotted the stranger entering Hannah Goode’s in the morning and decided he’d get a bite himself. He sat directly opposite the stranger who sat in a corner table, back to the wall, able to see all the actions in the room, with a view out the window onto the street.
Hannah plopped a quick plate down in front of the stranger and said to the sheriff, “G’morning, Easy, Want your regular? I’ll have coffee in a second.”
The old man at the livery was dead-on in his description of Hannah Goode. She indeed was as sweet as a spring flower and the newest man in town could not take his eyes off her, to which she reacted with an honest blush. She was a day past her 18th birthday, tall, and shapely with an apron draped about her hips.
Easilee observed the exchange, smiled directly at Hannah, put his hat on a nearby chair, and greeted her, “Okay to that, Hannah. You’re right cheerful as usual. You cooking all your eggs one eye and straight up and bright as the sun this morning? “
He looked at the stranger seated at the next table and said, “Don’t she make breakfast an occasion for the morning? I swear she ain’t been sleeping for the last few hours and here she is eager as the day.”
He paused and added a quick commentary, “I saw you come in late last night. Hope you had a good sleep.”
Easilee paused, rated his introduction, and offered, “And I hope the day goes well too. I’m George Easilee, the sheriff, and folks here call me Easy. I like to keep tabs on the town on occasion. Makes the job easier, which now and then takes some doin’.” He had dropped the “g” on doing to make it sound friendlier. The maneuver appeared clearly open to the stranger.
“Don’t blame you none for that, Sheriff. My name’s Rope Downing, name given by a Shawnee woman who found me under a hanging tree that got blown over by a storm and the dead man still attached to it by the hanging rope.”
He stretched his hand across the table and explained more. “I might have been 5 years old. Don’t know that exactly so, but near as close as I can figure. The hanged man might have been my father, else I wonder how I got there. I’ve never known that either. Indian woman’s name was Blue Flame and she was killed by troopers when I was about twelve and I’ve been running ever since. She did tell me when she was about to leave this world, that the man who did the hanging was an army man with an army patrol. Said all she could see from where she was hidden was that the army man, who wore an old gray uniform in pieces, sat straightest in the saddle than any man ever did, ever seen, and tallest man she ever saw on a horse.”
“You looking for him, Rope?” Easilee said. “I don’t know any old army man who sits and rides like that, at least not near Musket City.”
“Oh, he’s around, Sheriff. He’ll pass through here one of these days. His name, which I’ve tracked down through some old comrades from the Big War, is Major Dermot Blackburn and I’m going to question him about that hung man that was still tied to the tree when Blue Flame found me under those turned-up roots. Can’t blame me for that, being my chance to clear up a few hidden details, including suspicious details.”
“What leads you to believe he’s headed for Musket City?”
“Next town on the line in a string of bank robberies. There’s been bank robberies every so often, all coming this way like a roadmap’s been laid out by them, the robbers, like they’re headed for California and catching up all the good days they can muster beforehand. And folks keep talking about a tall man riding straight up like an arrow in an Indian quiver.”
“And wearing ‘gray’?”
“Yup, gray as can be.”
Easilee, satisfied with what he learned, dumped it all off when he asked, “Didn’t hear if you got a good sleep last night.” It was his way of saying his small pass at a semi-inquisition was over.
“Oh, yes, I did, Sheriff. Livery man said it was okay to sleep up in his hay mow. I sleep real fine on dry hay. It’s like what I’ve been doing for a long time, often being in strange places, getting strange welcomes. People and places get marked by their deeds and their comfort giving.” The nod of his head was a pronouncement as he closed. “At least, that’s how I look at things.”
With the air amicably clear, both men went at their breakfast.
In one corner of the room, near a side pantry, Hannah Goode turned and stared back at Rope Downing as Sheriff Easilee shut the door on his way out. She enjoyed a sudden comfort settling around her, a comfort she swore she could touch. A dimple showed at one corner of her mouth, then she smiled at nobody in particular and to the morning in general. First-hand for herself she had seen evidence of a rare man; straight talker, square-shouldered, chin set with promise and determination, a not-ugly scar but one that spoke of a serious concern and clutch at life. Then the measure of the man softened for her as she noted again how his blue eyes recalled instantly for her a mirrored tarn once seen in the mountains when it captured the blue sky calm as a framed picture.
The picture stayed with her the whole working day; and then some.
Two days passed quietly, then the third day. On the fourth day the good morning passed into the tail end of the day, to be suddenly livened by news.
The word came into the Blind Horse Saloon from a freight driver, his voice as husky as rough wind in trail brush. “The bank at Toberville got robbed last evenin’ by a small gang. They was led by a tall man sittin’ up on his saddle like a statue. They didn’t shoot no one, but they could have. Managed to sit one young fella down, kind of an itchy kid might be achin’ to draw his gun, and got his mind squared away about what he was facin’. Guess it worked for him, and them. But they got all the money just the same. Folks say they rode out like they was in formation, like regular army, the tall gent in an old Johnny Reb get- up.”
Rope Downing was straight up in his chair through the whole story.
The freighter told the story all over again when Easilee entered the saloon and was hailed by the bartender. The sheriff hurried out after the freighter’s recital. The freighter must have told the story to himself a dozen times on the way into Musket City. Each telling thereafter coming exactly like the previous rendition. He got a free beer with each telling.
Rope Downing, listening for the third time, did not miss a word of any delivery.
Back in his office, Easilee studied the calendar. He sent his deputy off to send a few telegraph messages down the trail. When the replies were received and in hand, Easilee studied the calendar again, marked a few dates, sat back and thought about all he had heard.
An hour later, his mind full of images, ideas, questions, he sent his deputy back out to find Rope Downing. “He might be down at the livery doing some odd jobs for Livermore. He might still be sleeping in the hayloft, but I doubt it.”
Ten minutes later Rope Downing walked into the office.
“Hey, Rope, I just sent my deputy out to hustle you up here. He find you okay?”
“No he didn’t, Sheriff. I saw him heading down that way and figured straight out he was looking for me. I’d rather come on my own than have the whole town see a lawman hustle me up here. There’s too many chances coming along to iron out my past. Get all the questions answered. We put our heads together on this, we can stop a bank robbery if it’s coming our way, and not get anybody killed, including the tall man in the saddle wearing faded Johnny Reb. I’ll do all I can to help you with those aims in mind. You got some ideas stirring around inside?”
“”I’m happy to have your help. Need and take all I can get. Some folks in town shy away from any troubles, any gunplay in the deal. I’ll bet you can handle yourself in anything that comes up. Am I right there?”
“You been reading my signs, Sheriff, piece by piece?”
“Yup,” Easilee said. “From the scar you’ve survived, from your long run on personal matters, even Hannah making good signs about you. She’s one of a kind and been waiting on her man for a long while. She knows something that I don’t, but I sure trust her judgment. You been seeing her, finishing breakfast at lunchtime, riding out for a spell?”
“You’re smooth as soft water, Sheriff. Hannah filled me in on that too. Said your wife is coming back from tending her mother in another week or two. The woman serious?”
“Only a matter of time,” Easilee replied. “Got something down inside her won’t let go, just pulling her down.” He looked out the window at the fading sun. “It won’t be long now.”
“I hope she goes faster, Sheriff. Some ways are not so good for leaving.”
“That’s right, Rope. You know some of that for sure. Let’s put our heads together on this and draw up some plans. My deputy’s a good kid, but he’s got a lot to learn. I hate to throw him into the middle. Rather see him approach things slow and careful. Learn more and hurt less.”
The two men talked for two hours, and Downing repeated every bit of information he knew about Major Dermot Blackburn, his military history, his method of robbing banks.
At one point, Easilee asked, “You think you’re dead sure about this fellow, Rope, this Blackburn?”
“Blue Flame was the first one to describe him, and I’ve talked to half a dozen or more folk who all said the same thing about him, how he rides high in the saddle like no one ever did. Blue Flame, victims of bank hold-ups, comrades who served with him in the Army of the Confederacy, the lot of them I could find. His companions I know nothing about. He’s my main interest. I’m just hoping he has all the answers I need. It’s been a long haul, with the gang having a hide-out somewhere in the mountains nobody’s ever seen, as far as I know.”
“You’re saying if they rob the bank here and light out with all our money, we might never catch them, not up in those mountains?”
“Right again, Sheriff. “
Five days later, in the shadows of evening, one of the lookouts posted on the two trails to Musket City galloped into town directly to Easilee’s office. “Easy, it’s just like you said; six men in a two-column march, with one tall gent out front. They went off the trail about an hour ago. They’re someplace in the foothills near Angela’s Hill. I could smell their cooking smoke, though I couldn’t see their fire. I guess they’re camped up in there and will be coming here in the morning. They’re about an hour from town.”
“Thanks, Reggie,” Easilee said. “You ride out the other end and get Jackson to come on in. We’ll be needing you gents in the morning. On your way, go by the saloon and tell all those I’ve deputized I want to see them here pronto. Make sure there’s no strangers in there.”
The meeting lasted about an hour. In the middle of it, one other man entered the office and said, “Easy, one stranger came into the saloon and got a drink, looked around, left. I saw him ride around town, checking things. He didn’t go into the livery and didn’t see all the horses of the gents here at the meeting. Just went on by. Livermore didn’t even look up from his chair by the door, like he was sleeping his life away.”
Easilee and Downing looked at each other, nodding their agreement; they had figured right on a scout coming from Blackburn’s gang.
At 6 A.M. Hannah Goode had breakfast ready for Downing, Easilee and the deputized element of town, all of them listening to Easilee as he went over the plans again. “They’ll wander in in singles, from any direction, and gather casually but so they’re a force again, a military unit. They count on that. So, regardless of what you’re supposed to be doing, do it like you’d do it every day. Don’t stare at them. Don’t heed them as they gather. Don’t let their strength rattle you. We have the upper hand. We know they’re coming. We know they want to leave as a group, as a unit, like it’s the army all over again for them. They count on the way they do things.”
He laid it all out for them, all the ruses and tactics they’d employ, and then added, with a change in his voice, “It’s damned important, if we can handle it without anybody getting killed, that we catch the leader alive. We’re sure he’ll be wearing that old Reb gray we’ve been talking about, and he’ll look as tall as you can imagine, tall as we’ve heard. But I want to tell you why it’s so important for another reason.”
He had gained their complete attention; it wasn’t the easiest thing to do with some of them.
Looking down at Downing, then smiling at Hannah Goode, making him feel he had made a secret announcement, he said to them very slowly, “Rope Downing, here, is the one who warned us that the gang would be coming to rob our bank. That would have been a big loss to us as a town. But it goes deeper than that for Downing. Let me tell you how important.”
The sheriff took another swig of his coffee, and went on. “As a kid about 5 years old, Downing was found by an Indian squaw after a storm hiding under the roots of a blow-down from a storm. The tree was a hanging tree. The hung man still had the rope around his neck, and the Indian woman saw a tall man in an old Confederate uniform leading a gang of riders away from the tree after the storm passed. Downing doesn’t know if the hung man was his father. He thinks he might have been. There was no reason for a kid to be out there without belonging to the man who was hung, who must have brought him into those foothills. That happened maybe 15 years ago. He’s not sure of that, but he’s been looking for that man all this time. He’s trying to find out if that man can tell him who he is.”
There was discussion, there were questions, there was amazement expressed about Downing’s long search by the deputies. Purpose was suddenly cemented in the group; Easilee and Downing felt it spreading.
Easilee had woken them up to a separate cause. Downing had won them over. And Hannah, serving all throughout the meeting, her eyes often finding Rope Downing looking back at her, a huge smile on his face, knew she was in love, and it was not pity.
Every man leaving Hannah Goode’s breakfast knew his assignment for the day.
The seven riders came into town at different times, from devious routes, a couple walking their horses as though shoes had been lost, and casually assembled near the bank. Unobtrusive they were to an untrained eye, lighting smokes, one pipe tobacco odor floating in the air, easy in their practiced manners. Town business was on-going all around them, as though it was a normal day.
When the gang was somewhat assembled, men dismounting and assuring the reins to their horses came to one man leaning near the bank hitch rail, the town stayed at its business. The boardwalk in front of the bank was empty, the sun shining down on it with particular brilliance, a snappy but warm morning breath of air seemed liquid except when the pipe aroma came with it.
The first three men of the gang advanced toward the bank, and stood by the door. Two more men joined them on the boardwalk in front of the bank, but looking to be two groups. None of them wore the same kind of clothes; different colors, vest or no vest, pants either gray or black, one small man in a brown shirt and brown pants but a black hat. The tall man sat up in his saddle looking the town over and saw nothing unusual. He nodded casually.
The first three men rushed at the bank doors and broke the door inwards. Two others quickly stationed themselves outside the door, and then jumped back when commotion started inside the bank, where the first three men ran straight into a solid wall of timbers nailed in front of them. Twice they tried to bust it down, and twice it did not budge.
The tall man in old Reb gray heard the commotion, stared at the bank as the men rushed outside, and saw at least 50 guns of all makes and calibers pointed at them from 50 vantages. Half a dozen wagons suddenly rolled into the street on two sides to block off escape.
The leader, seeing all of it in sudden clarity, threw down his weapons and yelled at the others to do the same. “Don’t shoot anybody,” he yelled. “Throw down your guns. We are trapped.”
It was over in a few minutes, and Sheriff Easilee and Deputy Rope Downing took Major Dermot Blackburn away in a set of irons, Blackburn shaking his head in disbelief all the way to a storefront with no sign showing but red curtains in the windows.
The other members of the gang, to a man, were marched off to the jail and locked in cells.
A party started up in the Blind Horse Saloon, the owner throwing the bar open to all deputies that took part in the adventure.
In Hannah Goode’s place, Major Dermot Blackburn said, “May I have a cup of coffee please. It has been a trying day.”
“It’s not over by a longshot,” Easilee said as he sat Blackburn in a chair and Hannah put a cup of coffee in front of him. He managed it with the manacles in place. “Thank you, Miss,” he said.
Easilee sat opposite the prisoner. “I’ve got a young fellow here who’s been looking for you for years. He told us you’d be coming.”
“And you were well prepared,” Blackburn said. “It was very military. My compliments.” He cast a long, wondering look at Downing.
Easilee said, “And I thank you, Major Blackburn, for telling your men not to shoot. It would have been a terrible waste of life.”
“You know who I am?” Blackburn said with amazement. He looked again at Downing and then at Hannah Goode, as though he was trying to put some thoughts in order.
Shifting in his chair, Easilee said, “We knew all about you before you got here. The same fellow here told us everything including what he’s really looking for.”
Blackburn looked at Downing and said, “I don’t know you. How do you know me? How could I possibly help you? I have never seen you before.”
“I’ve seen you before,” Downing said. “I guess you didn’t see me.”
“I told you, I’ve never seen you before. How do you know so much? How did you find out that we would be coming here to Musket City?”
Downing stepped into the breach. “You tell me what I want to know and I’ll tell you how I knew you were coming here. Is that a deal?”
Blackburn nodded. “That’s fair to me. What do you want from me?”
Maybe about 15 years ago, in a corner of Kansas during and after a wind storm, a man was hanged from a tree. The tree was blown over by the storm and the man still had the rope around his neck.”
“My, God,” Blackburn said, “How do you know that?”
“I saw it. I saw you leave with your men when the storm was over. An Indian woman found me hiding under the tree. Who was the man who was hanged?”
“Oh, my,” Blackburn gasped. “You’re his son. I thought you were blown away by the storm.”
“Downing was up out of his chair. “Who was he? Who am I?”
“I swear, I thought you were dead, blown away.”
“Who was he?”
“He was one of my lieutenants in the war, Georgia 5th Cavalry. He was with me at Kennesaw Mountain, Buckhead, Big Shanty, and Chattahoochee River. The war didn’t go our way and we promised always to get back some of what was taken from us.”
“What was his name? Where was he from?”
“His name was Marcus Winfield. He was from Alabama. A small town near Tuscaloosa, I think. He was going to join up with us when we met him, but changed his mind during the night when your mother showed up with you. She had been following him but was sick and died during the night. We were going to bury her when he decided he wouldn’t go with us. He said he had to take care of you. But he knew who we were, to a man. We couldn’t let him go, even if he promised not to reveal our identities. We had committed too many robberies already. We had to keep the secret to ourselves. We were going to shoot him, but knew someone was hunting us, so we hung him. The storm came up, in a sudden frenzy, and you were gone. The tree came down. We retreated from that site in a hurry after the storm.”
“What’s my first name?”
“Morgan,” Blackburn said immediately. “Morgan Winfield.”
Morgan Winfield, AKA Rope Downing, walked to Hannah Goode in the corner. Her eyes were misty. “Morgan,” she said. “I like that.”
Easilee, walking down Musket City’s main street, taking Blackburn to jail, said, “You came up with that boy’s name in a hurry, Major. Can I count on you keeping it so?”
“Yes you can, Sheriff. I had no idea the boy had to go through so much trouble to find his name. I gave
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