May, 2011

Issue #20

The Stock Detective
By Kenneth Newton

The stock detective spotted the cow thieves through his spyglass from about a half a mile away. He worked his way toward them through a deep gully off to the side, then circled around behind a low hill so he could approach them from the opposite direction without being seen. Near the base of the hill he hobbled his mare, gave her some oats to keep her mind occupied, and pulled a lever action carbine from its scabbard.

He worked his way up the hill with the sun at his back. It was only an hour after sunup; the cow thieves probably thought nobody would get up early enough to catch them, but they were wrong. He crested the hill and watched them for a minute — an old woman and a young man busily quartering a steer. She wielded a long butcher knife, and he worked a cross-cut saw as they hurried to get the carcass into small enough pieces to put into their waiting buckboard.

The stock detective side-stepped and slid his way down the side of the hill, no longer concerned with the element of surprise. He had already achieved that, and he had a Winchester and a top break Smith and Wesson for insurance. Considering that the cow thieves would be looking up into the rising sun, he felt like he had things pretty much under control. "Drop those tools and put up your hands," he said. "I'm arresting you for cattle rustling."

Both of them jerked their heads in his direction and put up a hand to shield their eyes from the sun. If they could see anything, it was just the black silhouette of a man against a hot orange glow, but they knew what was happening. The woman held onto her knife, but the man dropped his saw and glanced quickly toward the seat of the buckboard where a well-worn belt and holster offered up the walnut handle of a Colt percussion revolver some ten feet distant.

"That will be the last stupid thing you ever do," the stock detective warned. There was already a round in the chamber of the carbine. He thumbed back the hammer.

The young man looked back toward the sun. "Now, look, Bull," he said. "This ain't what you think. This is our steer."

"You picked a funny place to butcher him." Bull glanced toward the old woman, who still had her knife but hadn't moved a step. "I said put that down."

The boy was talking again, and reclaimed Bull's attention. "It's the truth, Bull. We had our milk cow bred, and we been raisin' this fella up for slaughter. He broke out. He was pen raised, and didn't know nothin' about makin' his way on rocky ground. When we found him, his leg was broke. You can see it's so."

The steer's right foreleg was broken. Bull gestured toward the back of the buckboard. "For all I know, you did that with that sledge hammer before you brained him with it. Do you reckon I'd find a 36 caliber bullet hole in him someplace, if I was to look?"

"There ain't no bullet in this steer, Bull, and even if there was, without this meat, my grandma ain't gonna make it through the winter."

"Well, let's let the law sort it out."

The young man put his hands to his head in exasperation. "The law? Don't you mean the Cattleman's Association? They own all the lawyers and judges for 100 miles in every direction." He glanced back toward the buckboard.

Bull Henry shook his head. "You're worrying me, boy, the way you keep thinking about going for that gun. You need to give up on that."

The young man's shoulders slumped in resignation, and he turned back toward the stock detective with his arms outspread. "OK, Bull, let's go to town."

Bull pulled the trigger. The boy made it to the buckboard, stumbling backward as he fell, but he was dead before he got there. The woman dropped her knife at last, and ran to the boy's side, sobbing as she fell across his body. Bull walked around her and pulled the old pistol from its holster. After an initial misfire, he shot one round into the carcass of the steer, and another into the hill, then holstered the gun and tossed it into the back of the wagon.

Town Marshal Tom Woodward lifted the blanket and looked at the dead body in the back of the wagon. "Jesus, Bull! Willie Edwards?"

"He fired on me, Tom. It was him or me. Check that cap and ball pistol if you don't believe it."

"I find it damn strange how every man you ever thought stole a steer always took a shot at you and missed, right before you killed him. This was a sweet boy. He wouldn't have shot anybody, not even you."

"Sweet boys don't steal beef cattle."

Woodward walked to the front of the buckboard where Willie's grandmother sat on the seat. "Bertha," he said, "what happened out there?"

She shook her head. "Bull Henry murdered my grandson, that's what, for butcherin' our own steer. But it don't matter none what I say. Bull Henry's with them, and what they say, goes. But there's a higher authority than the Association." She turned in the seat. "And Bull Henry, that authority knows who you are and what you do, and one day, retribution will come."

Woodward saw his teen-age son staring at the body. "You gonna be OK, Jack?" The boy raised his head and looked at Bull Henry for a moment, then nodded. "All right, then," said the marshal. "You go with Bertha and take Willie to the undertaker, and then you go out there with her and you get what the wolves haven't got of that steer and help her get it home."

"That's a bad idea, Tom," Bull Henry said. "You let one cow thief get away with it and you'll be up to your elbows in cow thieves."

The marshal glanced at the dead man in the wagon. "It's kinda hard for me to see how he got away with anything."

"If she eats Association beef this winter, he got away with it."

Woodward shook his head in disgust. "You stick around town, Bull. This one ain't in the books just yet."

It was in the books as far as Bull Henry was concerned. He went from the marshal's office to the headquarters of the Cattleman's Association, where he collected his bounty. It wasn't strictly legal, but in addition to his generous salary of $100.00 a month, he got $100.00 for every rustler he permanently removed from the range. The association secretary offered to buy him a steak, and an hour or so later, after they'd finished their meal and polished off half a bottle of good Kentucky bourbon, the secretary excused himself. Bull decided to make a night of it and finish the bottle. After all, it was paid for. It had been a good day.

He spent the evening alone at his table, as usual. Some people seemed to have a problem with a man doing his job, and maintaining law and order. Even the cowboys, whose bosses were his bosses, wanted little to do with him. He had his own bunk in every bunkhouse on every spread affiliated with the Association, but he didn't feel wanted in any of them, and was never invited into a game of cards or dominoes. Well, to hell with them. They could have their dollar a day and found. Even Jensen's two dollar women didn't come around offering their company. Bull Henry could buy and sell them by the dozen, but he could do without them, too.

As the night wore on, he dozed from time to time, and sometimes when he came to he had to close his eyes for a moment to stop seeing double, and to try to make the room stop spinning. At one point he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Bull, come on. It's just you and me. If you go home, I can go home." The bartender stood waiting, but when Bull opened his eyes, he didn't see a bartender, he saw Sam Perkins. Half of Sam's head was missing. A 44 caliber slug from Bull's Smith and Wesson had done that job and netted Bull $100.00, but somehow, there stood Sam, big as life, talking about going home. "Whaddya say, Bull, let's call it a night."

Bull stood and threw aside his chair as he backed away from the table and drew his revolver. The man with half a head seemed perplexed. "Whoa, now, Bull," he said, "You don't need that."

"I think maybe I do," Bull slurred, and he shot Sam Perkins through the breast bone. Even if he could live with half a head, he probably couldn't live with a heart shot through and through. It seemed to work, as Sam fell and didn't get up.

The saloon keeper, Nils Jensen, ran out at the sound of the shot. "Holy God, Bull," he said, "you've shot Joe!" But the man confronting Bull Henry was Pete Drake, another rustler he'd seen off. He was bleeding heavily from the chest, but didn't seem much the worse for it. Bull put a bullet between the rustler's eyes and watched him fall.

He then found his way to where the horses were tied. His was the only one there, and as he pulled himself into the saddle, Harvey Flanagan, owner of the Bar D and an Association stalwart, rode up next to him. "What's all the shootin' about, Bull? Did Nils try to get you to pay for your supper?" When Bull ignored the joke and didn't answer, he said, "Well, never mind, come on, and sleep it off at my place."

Bull looked at the man on the horse next to his, and saw the disheveled countenance of Willie Edwards, bleeding from a wound just below his Adam's apple. "You're supposed to be dead."

Flanagan laughed. "You know, Bull, that's what my sweet young wife says. But she's gonna have to wait a little while longer for the money."

Bull pulled his revolver and began firing wildly at Willie Edwards as he spurred his horse and galloped out of town.

The deputy U.S. marshal looked straight ahead as he rode past the saloon at a slow walk, not offering so much as a sideways glance. Three doors down, he dismounted and tied his horse in front of a dry goods store. He pulled some folded papers from his saddlebag, put them in his coat pocket, and made his way back along the boardwalk. He pushed open the batwings and crossed the room to the bar. As far as he could see, he and the bartender were the only people in the place. That was good.

He put his foot on the rail and leaned on the bar. "Is the beer cold?"

The bartender smiled. "Well, it's slightly cooler than fresh horse piss." He brought up a mug from underneath the bar. "Actually, there's still some ice in the cellar. It's not too bad." He drew a glass and slid it in front of the stranger. "I'm not sure I've had the pleasure." He held out his hand as he eyed the deputy quizzically.

The deputy drained half of the mug before coming up for air. "You're right. That's not half bad." He put down the mug and took the bartender's hand. The man behind the bar was going gray, and he had grown a beard and put on some weight, but the deputy had seen all he needed to see. Releasing the hand, he said, "Keep your hands on the bar where I can see them." He brought up his Colt and removed the wanted poster and arrest warrant from his pocket. He shook the folds out of the papers and laid them on the bar. "Albert Henry — may I still call you Bull? — I'm a federal marshal. I have a warrant for your arrest, not to mention a wanted flyer that says you're worth $100.00, dead or alive."

The bartender kept both hands on top of the bar as ordered. "You're making a mistake, marshal. My name's Bill Clayton, ask anybody around here. The town sheriff will vouch for me."

"There's no mistake. If God Almighty walked into this dump and told me to turn you loose, I wouldn't do it, and there's no higher authority than that. Now come around from behind that bar."

As Bull Henry walked, he gradually turned until his back was to the deputy, and his hands crept slowly toward the edge of the bar. The deputy saw it, and cocked the hammer on the Colt. Bull heard the three ominous clicks and stopped walking. Both hands were now at his sides. "I'm sorry for the things I did, but I just can't go back there," he said.

"You're going to, though, one way or the other."

The deputy thought to himself that Bull was still pretty fast for an old guy — but nobody was fast enough to pick up a sawed-off scattergun, pull back a hammer, turn, and shoot before a man could pull the trigger on a revolver that was already cocked and aimed. He waited until Bull was turned almost all the way around before he shot him. The bullet struck Bull low in the left side and he jerked one trigger on the shotgun as he stumbled around the end of the bar, the load of buckshot splintering a table and chair in the middle of the room.

Bull Henry looked at the deputy as he cocked the other barrel. He had figured out who he was talking to. "Little Jack Woodward. The moustache and scar is what throwed me." He gritted his teeth against the pain.

"Retribution is who I am."

Bull nodded. "Did the wolves get all the beef, or was there some left for the old woman?" He pressed his hand to the wound in the side of his gut.

"Yes, plenty. But she died that winter anyway. Broken heart, they said." The deputy glanced at Bull's bloody side. "That'll kill you, but it's going to take some time, and hurt a lot." He cocked his revolver. "Why don't I — "

Bull raised his bloody hand. "Wait. So, was the steer theirs, after all?"

"It matters now?"

Bull leaned against the bar and nodded. "It does."

"It was theirs. You murdered Willie for nothing, same as the other three."

Bull looked at the floor. "I truly regret it, all of it. If I could make it right, I would."

"That's my job."

Bull raised his head. "Well, then."

"Yeah." The deputy aimed at the middle of Bull's chest and pulled the trigger. One final reflexive jerk on the trigger of the scattergun sent a load of buckshot into the floor as Bull Henry collapsed. The deputy walked over and put another bullet in Bull's chest and one in his head. He heard running footfalls on the boardwalk as he laid the Colt on the bar and retrieved the warrant and wanted poster. Holding the papers aloft in his right hand, and opening his coat with his left to expose his badge, he turned toward the door.

The deputy wrapped Bull Henry's carcass in a tarpaulin and tied it securely in place with a rope, then hopped down out of the back of the buckboard.

The town sheriff sadly shook his head. "That's one of the finest men I ever knew, wrapped up in that tarp."

"I showed you the warrant and the wanted flyer. You saying I got the wrong man?"

"I'm sayin' a man can change."

"Yes, he sure can, but he can't un-do what he's already done. That fine man there killed nine so-called rustlers under color of authority — working as a stock detective for the Cattleman's Association up north — and got away with it. Stock detective was a fancy way of saying hired gun, and a rustler was anybody that owned cattle that didn't pay dues to the Association." Deputy Woodward saw the liveryman coming, and produced a notebook and pencil from his pocket. He began writing as he continued his conversation with the sheriff. "Then he got a little carried away and murdered four men in one day. Even the Association couldn't protect him then, and didn't want to, because one of the four was a big shot Association man named Flanagan. He named Bull as his killer before he died, but Bull was long gone."

"Yeah, everybody, even me, has heard all the Bull Henry stories, includin' how he just disappeared into thin air. My problem is, I can't get used to knowin' that Bill Clayton and Bull Henry was the same man. Bill would give you his last nickel."

The deputy looked up from his notebook. "Bull would give you his last bullet for $100.00."

The stable master had arrived, and he was livid. "Damn you, I told you that rig wasn't for rent."

"And I told you," said the deputy as he continued to write, "I'm requisitioning this wagon and team for official government business. When you retrieve your property in Sheridan and file your claim, you'll be paid a fair rate, plus any legitimate expenses. Your wagon will be stored and your horses boarded for 30 days, after which time they are subject to be sold to the highest bidder as excess government property." He tore the page from the book and held it out to the liveryman. "Don't lose this. It's your only receipt."

He was even madder now. "Sheridan's a hard two days from here. Excess government property, my ass." The stable owner turned to the sheriff. "Carl, don't let him do this."

"I can't stop him, Morgan," replied the sheriff. "Better take your receipt."

Morgan fumed for a few more seconds, then snatched the paper from Woodward's hand and stormed away.

"Why not just leave him here and let us bury him?" asked the sheriff.

"I need proof in order to collect the reward."

"Well, I never understood lawmen collecting bounties. It don't seem right."

The deputy had tied his horse's reins to the buckboard. He now removed the saddle and put it in the bed next to Bull Henry, moving a stirrup to avoid a smear of blood. "Well, your old pal, Bill, would understand," he said with a small grin. "But I suppose I could cut off his head and let you bury the rest, if you want to do that."

"Well, that's a god awful thing to say, but it wouldn't be much worse than what you already did. You damn near shot him to pieces."

"The first bullet went in his gut. The next three were a favor from me to him, to end it quick. But he was a dead man when he grabbed that scattergun. I winged a fella once, when I was young and dumb. I was helping him to the doc's office when he pulled a knife and gave me this for my trouble." His finger traced a long, straight scar on the right side of his face. "Went clear through my cheek, cut my gums to the bone, and took a hunk out of the side of my tongue. Ever since then, if a man turns a weapon on me, I shoot him until he stops moving. Bull wanted to talk a little first, and I had the drop on him, so I let him talk."

"If you'da done me the courtesy of a visit when you got to town, between the two of us we might have arrested him."

"That's one of the things we talked about. He wasn't going back alive."

The sheriff sighed. "How'd you place him here?"

The deputy climbed into the seat of the buckboard. "My daddy and lots of other law dogs, including me, looked for him for ten years off and on, and pretty much gave up on ever finding him. Then just recently, a fella passing through said he knew somebody that knew somebody from down around here that said they thought they'd seen him behind that bar. Damned if they hadn't." He picked up the reins. "How long has he been here?"

"Two years, give or take."

"I wonder where he was for the first eight." The deputy released the brake. "Wherever he was, he should have stayed there. It's funny to think of Bull Henry getting homesick, and working his way back in our direction." He smiled again.

"Maybe it was Bill Clayton that got homesick."

The deputy raised his eyebrows for a second, then extended his hand. "Yeah, maybe. So long, sheriff."

The sheriff shook his head. "I wish you well, Deputy U.S. Marshal Woodward, but I can't shake that hand."

The deputy withdrew his hand. "Just doing my job, sheriff. If we let one get away with it, God knows how many more will think they can do murder and just ride away."

The sheriff looked at the bloody shape wrapped in the tarp. "Well, he sure didn't get away with it. I reckon nobody ever does. Leastways, not forever."

The deputy clicked his tongue and shook the reins. "I reckon not."

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