The Desperado
Clifton Adams
Chapter 1
I AWOKE SUDDENLY and lay there in the darkness, listening to the rapid, faraway thud of hoofbeats. The horse was traveling fast, and occasionally the rhythmic gait would falter and become uneven, then catch and come on again in the direction of the ranch house. It was a tired horse. It had been pushed hard and for too long. I could tell by the way it was running.
Pa had heard it too. I heard the bedsprings screech downstairs as he got up. Then the old wall clock began to clang monotonously. I didn't bother to count the strokes, but I knew it must be twelve o'clock. The hoof-beats were getting louder now.
I got up and pulled on my pants. I found my boots under the bed and stuffed my feet into them without bothering to light the lamp. Then, holding onto the banister, I felt my way downstairs and into the parlor.
Pa was standing at the front door, a slight breeze coming through the doorway and flapping the white cotton nightshirt against his bare legs. He was standing there peering into the darkness, holding a shotgun in the crook of his arm.
“Tall?” he said without looking around.
“Yes, sir.”
“You better get that forty-four out of the bureau drawer. It's in there with my shirts somewhere. You can find it.”
I said, “Yes, sir,” and turned and felt my way into the downstairs bedroom that Pa and Ma used. Ma was sitting up in bed, her nightgown a white blob in the darkness and her nightcap a smaller blob above it. I went to the bureau and started feeling around in the drawer until I found the pistol.
“Talbert,” Ma said anxiously, “what is it, son?”
“Just a rider, Ma. Nothing to worry about.”
“What are you looking for there in the bureau?”
“Pa's pistol,” I said. “Just in case.”
She didn't say anything for a moment. But she was worried. She had been worried ever since I'd got into that scrape with the state police down at Garner's Store. But that had been a long time ago, almost six months. Anyway, I hadn't killed anybody; I'd just beaten hell out of a carpetbagger with the butt end of a Winchester. There had been a big stir about it for a while, but Pa had fixed it up with the bluebelly police for fifty head of three-year-old cattle. So I wasn't worried about that.
I said, “Rest easy, Ma. It's probably one of the neighbors. Maybe somebody's sick.”
She still didn't say anything, so I went back into the parlor where Pa was. We heard the horse pull up and scamper nervously, and we knew the rider was swinging open the rail gate about two hundred yards south of the house.
Pa said, “Tall?” That's the way Pa would do when he was worrying something in his mind. He'd call your name and wait for you to answer before he'd come out and say what he was thinking.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Tall, you haven't been up to anything, have you? You haven't got into any trouble that you haven't told us about?”
“No, sir,” I said.
I could feel Pa relax. Then he reached over and roughed up my hair, the way he used to do when I was just a kid, when he was feeling good. Pa could stand just about anything but a liar, and he knew I'd tell him the truth, no matter what it was.
The rider was coming on now, and we could hear the horse blowing and grunting. The rider swung down at the hitching rack by our front porch and called out:
“Mr. Cameron! Tall!”
“It was Ray Novak's voice. I would have known it anywhere. He was two or three years older than me, and his pa used to be town marshal in John's City, before the scalawags and turncoats came in and elected their own man. Ray was old enough to have fought a year for the Confederacy, and that set him apart from the rest of us who had been too young. Ordinarily, he was an easygoing, likable man, and the only thing I had against him was that he had been seeing a little too much of Laurin Bannerman. But that wasn't important. I knew how Laurin felt, and I knew I didn't have anything to be afraid of On that score. From Ray Novak or anybody else.
Pa pushed the screen door open and stepped out on the front porch. “Ray?” he said. “Ray Novak?”
“Yes, sir,” Ray said.
“Well, come on in,” Pa said. “Tall, light the table lamp, will you? And see if the kitchen stove's still warm. Pull the coffee pot up on the front lid if it is.”
I lit the lamp and went back to the kitchen. The fire had gone out in the stove. When I came back to the parlor, Ray was saying, “I'm afraid I can't stay, Mr. Cameron. The truth is I just stopped by to see if I could change my horse for a fresh mount. That animal of mine is about played out.” He saw me then and we nodded to each other.
Ray Novak didn't look scared exactly, but he looked worried. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through thick, straw-colored hair. “I played the fool down in John's City this afternoon,” he said. “I let myself get suckered into a scrape with the police. I guess I'll have to get out of the country for a while, until things cool off a little.”
Pa looked at him sharply. “You... didn't kill anybody, did you, Ray?”
Killing a state policeman in Texas, in 1869, was the same as buying a one-way ticket to a hanging. The blue-bellies from the North had their own judges and juries, and their verdict was always the same.
But Ray shook his head. “It was just a fist fight,” he said. “But they're pretty riled up. I was in the harness shop getting a splice made in a stirrup strap and this private cavalryman came in and started passing remarks about all the families around John's City—all the families that amounted to anything before the war. When he started on 'that goddamn Novak white trash that used to be town marshal,' I hit him. I busted a couple of teeth, I think. I expect a detachment of cavalry will be along pretty soon, looking for me. I don't aim to be around.”
Pa nodded soberly. “It was a damn fool thing to do all right,” he said. “And you won't be able to fix it with the police this time. First Tall, and now you. The Yankees'll feel bound to do something about it this time.”
Ray looked down at his feet and shifted uncomfortably. “Yes, sir,” he said. “That's about the way I figured it. That's one reason I came by your place. If they don't find me they might get to remembering Tall and start on him again.” Then he looked up at me, his big bland face as serious as a preacher's. “I'm sorry, Tall, I didn't figure to get you mixed up in it.”
“What the hell,” I said. “The only thing I'm sorry about is that you didn't put a bullet in the bluebelly's gut.”
“Tall?” Pa said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Now just hold your head. Ray's right. This could be serious for both of you. We better take a little time and figure something out. Ray, have you figured on anything?”
“I thought maybe I'd go up to the Panhandle for a while, sir. I've got an older brother up there that has a little spread. I could work with him through the spring gathering season and come back in the summer. That ought to be time enough to let it blow over.”