Shoe leather has started a small war in our town. Its put twelve dead horses in front of my saloon, and laid a vexing problem before Sheriff Theodore Clemens.
A mob of mad Texas cowboys is milling around in the street, cussing and carrying on. Theyre looking off in the direction Addie Sparks rode, but they haven't yet touched their pistols.
Maybe they'll let Addie go on home.
Maybe they'll go back to their cattle drive and leave the rest of us in the same peace.
Hell, maybe the moon will fall down on them Texans.
It's a warm day for September. Every man I see is sweating like this is July, and dead horses will be a problem in no time. If theyre not buried by morning, theyll be smelling them things all the way to Topeka.
But before the horses, we got cowboys to deal with, like Addie wanted us to in the first place.
Addie lives eighteen or nineteen miles outside our town of Restful Haven. She's got a sod house and nine kids Buford Sparks left with her when he run off to Nevada. Her sister in St. Louis writes at least twice a year, begging Addie to move back east where them children can get more educated than they will on a Kansas dirt-shanty homestead.
Addie won't do it.
The thing is, she believes with all her heart and soul the tales Buford told, about coming back from Nevada a rich man to take her and them kids to a better place, better even than St. Louis. Addie says, "If I leave Restful Haven, Buford might not find us when he comes home.
President Garfield is more likely to turn up in Restful Haven than Buford Sparks, but nobody says so to Addie. When she talks about her man there's a look in her eye that says you better not contradict her.
By now some of her children are old enough to help Addie. Last time I was out that way, I seen one of the bigger boys horseback, inspecting fences, and in a few years her daughters will attract a man or two who'll settle down with them. The Sparks family ain't as likely to starve as they once were. It's a long time since anybody thought it necessary to carry food to them out yonder.
They raise a few head of cattle, farm a little, and keep some sheep, not so many to hurt what little grazing pasture they got. Addie spins the wool into yarn, knits shawls, mittens, all manner of well made items for John Barker, our storekeeper. In the fall Addie trades wool goods for shoes. Her children can run barefoot spring and summer, but Kansas winters are fierce.
As a rule, that's the only time we see her, in September, when she rides a mule in to get nine pair of new shoes. Everybody was surprised when Addie showed up last March, well ahead of time. People who seen her coming say her face had no more movement to it than a painting, and she didn't say word one to nobody.
She kept her eyes set straight ahead, didn't climb off the mule till she was at the sheriff's office. He wasn't there, and Addie worked her way through the town, door to door, till she found Theodore trading lies with Toby Bradley, the piano player at my saloon.
Addie scattered sawdust every which a way, stomping across the floor, ignoring whores at the bar and the men drinking with them. "I want the law on somebody," she said, standing between Sheriff Clemens and Toby.
There ain't much for a sheriff to do in Restful Haven. Theodore was drunk, like he is most of the time. He didn't look up, just tried to see around Addie, waiting to hear the end of a dirty story Toby was telling.
When Theodore raised his head to see who was interrupting, he was as surprised to see Addie in town as he would be to see snow in summer. One's about as common, out of season, as the other.
"What're you doing here, Miz Sparks?" he asked. "It ain't September. Is it?" He grinned at Toby, like their two or three day drunk might have lasted longer than they thought.
Toby told him, "Why sheriff, we ain't even seen April yet." He would have said more but Addie shot a look in his direction that made him hush.
"I want the law on somebody," she repeated, talking slow, like she just that moment realized it was a drunk man in front of her.
I was cleaning glasses at the bar, and when Theodore tried to wave me over to the table, I pretended not to see him. Sometimes the sheriff decides I'm a deputy, never mind the town ain't got money to pay one. I don't keep a pistol nor even a badge.
heodore turned his waving into a two-handed semaphore, and then he bellowed, "Robert Patrick Reilly, I need you here." When he makes me his deputy, Theodore uses all three of my names. If I didn't go he'd get louder, so I put down my dish towel. "Now," the sheriff said to Addie as I sat down at the table. "Tell us about it."
"Last November," she began. "I was robbed." The hard look on her face gave way, but Addie sucked the tears beading in her eyes back inside someplace, and her face turned to stone again.
"What have you got that anybody could rob, Addie?" I asked. I wondered if another winter in a dirt house, where you can see twenty miles in any direction, waiting for a man who ain't never coming home had caused that woman to lose her mind.
What Addie said next brought us where we are now, to dead horses and mad Texans.
"Six men come by my place, four months ago, and stole from me," she said. "Right after they left it snowed, and I wasn't able to get to town all winter." Tears come back in her eyes and this time they ran down her thin cheeks. Addie paid them no mind and let them drip onto the front of her dress. "They took my babies' shoes."
"Who'd do a thing like that?" Theodore looked shocked, but he and I both knew the men Addie was talking about.
A Texas cattle drive had come through in the fall. Later, a half dozen cowboys, going home, hung around town till winter was almost on us before they rode south. We'd not been sorry to see that bunch leave.
Most everybody in Restful Haven owns at least one gun, but we keep 'em put away mostly. The Texans carried pistols everywhere they went. Sharp Mexican spurs rang like sleigh bells when they walked, and looking at their half-wild horses, you understood what the spurs was for. If you watched their eyes, you could see the Texans understood what pistols could be for.
"They took them shoes for pure meanness," Addie said. She lowered her voice so only Theodore, me, and Toby Bradley could hear. "They done meanness on me too, Sheriff Clemens." Addie looked away from us, her pale skin turning pink. "Do I have to say what kind?"
"I reckon not," Theodore said, shaking his head. Addie's not much to look at, but a drifter might want her, especially if he was drunk. The sheriff's eyes showed every one of his sixty two years.
"I sent my children to sleep in the barn the night them men come by," she said. "I done what they wanted me to." Addie's cheeks got red while she remembered. "I done what all of 'em wanted me to, but in the morning, when they rode off, they took my babies' shoes. I come here to put the law on 'em."
"Addie, them men was from Texas." Theodore told her. "I don't have no authority down there."
"Telegraph a federal marshal," said Addie. "A marshal could arrest them and send them back."
"He could," Theodore agreed. "But he won't. A marshal's got plenty to do without looking for a half dozen cowboys whose names he don't even know."
"They rode for the Broken T brand, out of west Texas someplace." I was only thinking out loud, but Theodore looked sorry he'd had me come to the table.
"Knowing who they work for is nearly as good as having names," Addie said. "And I can describe them for you, sheriff." She blinked her eyes and took a deep breath. "I can tell you a whole lot about them."
Theodore stared dumbly at Addie, too drunk to do anything but puzzle over finding her in front of him when it wasn't yet fall. Or maybe only pretending to be that drunk.
"You go on to Reverend Stuckey's," I told her. Addie stayed the night with the preacher and his wife whenever she came to town. "Come see me and the sheriff tomorrow morning and we'll talk."
Addie's face sagged, once she knew nothing more was going to happen right then. She'd marched into the saloon, but walked out like a whipped child.
I didn't sell Theodore Clemens no more whiskey that day, and spent most of the night making sure he'd be sober enough to at least listen to Addie. There wasn't much he could do about what happened, but I thought Addie deserved a chance to tell her story to a man who wasn't drunk.
The next morning I made Theodore put his gun belt on. There's seldom any reason for him to wear it. The main job for Restful Haven's sheriff is collecting taxes or running elections, and it don't take a gun to do neither one. "You owe it to Addie to look like a lawman," I said when he fussed about wearing the pistol.
Theodore tried to bargain about it. "I'll wear a gun if you let me have one drink," he said.
When the hardware was strapped around his belly, I put another cup of coffee in front of the sheriff. I was thinking about three weeks in December, when the mud in Front Street never thawed once, and nine youngsters with no shoes.
Addie got to the office about eight o'clock. She told her story again, with more detail than I needed to hear. "I know I should of fought what they wanted me to do," she said at the end. "But I've got daughters, twelve and thirteen years old. Them men was watching my girls."
Addie looked out the window, but I don't believe she saw anything a'tall. "I expect Buford will understand, when I tell him how they looked at the girls," she whispered.
Theodore looked sick, from Addie's story, or from being sober for hours at a stretch. Or both.
"I'll do for you what I can," he said. "But it won't be much."
"What exactly will you do?" Addie wanted to know.
Theodore took a deep breath. "I'll wire the marshal and tell him what you've told me, and if I can track down where the Broken T is, I'll send another telegram to the sheriff down in Texas."
"What else?" she demanded.
"For the love of God, Addie, what more do you want?" Theodore almost shouted. "I can't ride after them."
"If they drove cattle this way once, they may do it again." Addie said. "I want a promise you'll arrest those men if they show up in town."
Theodore gazed at the pie safe where he keeps a bottle, but Addie stepped to the left, so he had to look at her. "Promise," she said.
Theodore nodded. "If they come back I'll do what I can."
Addie wanted something stronger from the sheriff, but knew as well as I did she wasn't going to get it. She left us sitting there, went straight to her mule and rode for home.
Addie had told a terrible tale, and not a man in town doubted we ought to do something. All spring and summer we picked at her story like a boil that wont go away, and someone was sure to talk about it when more than three people were in the saloon.
But like any other sore spot, it begun to heal as time passed. Spring turned to summer, and by then it didn't hurt so much. Come September, no one talked about what happened to Addie. Theodore Clemens acted like he didn't remember at all.
When the Broken T's foreman, a whiskered squint-eyed man named Garner showed up, Theodore sent for me. The sheriff made me a deputy again because he was scared, and I could see why. By the time I got to the sheriff's office, Garner had made himself at home in Theodore's chair and didn't look like someone to trifle with.
"I hear some of my men stopped over, after the drive last fall," he said. "A law man down home told me a local lady had some little problems with them."
"More than little problems," Theodore told him. "Are the same men with you?"
Garner nodded. "But you can't have 'em." he said. "I got a bigger herd than last year, gents, and can't spare a single hand till I get them cattle to the railhead at Dodge." He put his feet on the sheriff's desk and offered us cigars. Theodore made a big show of lighting his. Fooling with the smokes gave us an excuse not to look at Garner.
"Anyway, my boys tell a different story," the foreman said, blowing smoke in my direction. "They claim the lady was glad to see them ride up, even sent her kids out of the house so she could have a noisy good time."
"Did they tell you the rest of it?" I asked. "Did they tell about stealing shoes and leaving children with naked feet in winter? What did they want with children's shoes, Mr. Garner? Trade 'em for a few bottles of whiskey on their way south?"
Garner looked at me like I was a bothersome child. "A man who runs a saloon ought to know every story's got two sides." Turning back to Theodore he said, "Leave my crew alone, sheriff, and I'll give you fifty dollars for the woman's trouble. She can buy shoes for half the town with that."
Theodore looked at me like he wanted help, but Garner stood up and put his hand on the sheriff's chin. He moved so his whiskers wasn't but a few inches from Theodore's nose and hissed, "I won't lose any hands off this drive, sheriff."
Theodore had the decency to look ashamed as he told Garner, "I reckon that's fair. Fifty dollars for Addie and I'll not bother you nor your men."
Garner dropped a gold piece on Theodore's desk and got up, still grinning as he left us. "The drive's a few days out yet," he said, holding the door open. "I expect if we bed the herd close to town, and the boys want to celebrate some, it'll be all right."
I seen Theodore had struck a bad deal, and so did he, though he wouldn't admit it out loud. Texans were going to take over Restful Haven for a while, and our sheriff as much as said he wouldn't lift a hand against them.
Addie showed up three days later. "They're coming!" she shouted, bright eyed and breathless by the time she'd tracked Theodore and me down at the barber shop. "A troop of cavalry from Fort Lincoln rode close to my place and told me they'd seen the Broken T herd, headed this way."
Theodore was in the chair, and I was waiting my turn for a shave. He signaled McMasters, the barber, to go ahead and cover his face with a hot towel. That way he didn't have to look at Addie. "Their foreman has already been here," Theodore said, and told about the fifty dollar gold piece he was holding for her.
The light in Addie's eyes died as Theodore talked. "That ain't what you promised," she said. "It was going to be more than that."
When the towel come off his face, Theodore still wouldn't turn his eyes toward Addie. "If I was to try and arrest them men somebody'd get killed," he said. "Do you want that, Addie? Do you want to see somebody dead?"
"What I want is them men in jail," she insisted, her voice shaky. "A gold piece won't pay for what they done to my children." She bent over the barber chair to look right in Theodore's face. "Or what they done to me."
"I can't do it Addie." Theodore took a deep breath and motioned for McMasters to go ahead with the lather. "Take your money and go home."
Addie straightened and turned toward me. "Mr. Reilly, will you help me?"
I'm not proud to tell you I didn't look that poor woman in the eye neither. "Addie, I'm just a bartender, I told her. "And this man Garner is dangerous. Do you want to see someone dead?"
"I don't care," she said in a quiet voice. "You didn't watch my babies shiver, or worry night and day they'd get frostbite, lose toes or worse. You didn't see them made to spend a whole season in a dirt house, November to March, without once going outside."
"People will die," I told her.
Addie didn't say no more. It seemed to me she made up her mind about something in that very moment. "Sheriff, I'll thank you for that gold piece," she said, stretching her hand out like a child asking for candy.
Quick as Theodore took it from his vest pocket, Addie snatched it and was gone. None of us, not me, nor Theodore, nor McMasters the barber could look one another in the eye for a long while.
Next day there was an odd story going around town. Instead of going home, Addie had hunted up Lars Swenson, an old buffalo hunter who traps wolves for the state bounty, and hangs around like he expects the herds to come back. Addie didn't stay with the Reverend and his wife that night neither.
At the saloon that afternoon somebody said, "I guess after six cowboys, Lars ain't such a big deal."
"Shut your worthless mouth," Theodore said over his whiskey glass. "I'm not too drunk to lock your sorry self up for a week, if you make another joke about Addie Sparks."
Not long after, Lars come in, and he had Addie's gold piece. She hadnt stayed in town at all. She'd bought the heavy Sharps rifle Lars used when there was buffalo to be shot, and took all the ammunition he had for it too. "A roff velcome she'll giff, anybody bother her now," Lars said in his sing-song Norskie way of talking. "Plenty roff velcome."
The town felt a little better. Out there on the prairie Addie was ready for anyone who might bother her. She was safe, and even though we didn't have anything to do with making her safe, we all felt better.
In the next day or two the town began to get ready for the storm of cowboys headed our way, like we'd deal with a natural tempest. Them that could find scrap lumber boarded up windows, children were kept close to home, and the streets stayed empty all day long.
Early this morning the Broken T crew rode into town, dirty, ornery, and ready to hoo-rah. Garner, the foreman, must have advanced pay against wages due in Dodge City. There was plenty of money for whiskey, and the three erring sisters at my place saw more cash in six hours than the whole month before the cowboys.
The Texans stayed in the saloon, or lined up for baths at the barber shop. I was kept as busy pouring drinks as the whores was with other things. By afternoon, with twelve cowboys passed out at their tables, I thought the worst of our problems were over.
Addie fired her first shot an hour before sundown. A fifty-eight caliber Sharps can drop a bull buffalo on the run, and takes a horse down easy as swatting a fly. Them dozen men snoring in my place woke up and run outside, but Addie put a bullet over their heads. They come back to the bar room like lost children finding home sweet home.
Buford probably showed Addie something about shooting before he lit out. But she'd practiced reloading the single action Sharps too. There was precious few moments between shots, and every time the big rifle boomed, a horse dropped.
The ones that still breathed went crazy with the death smell, rearing against reins holding them to the hitching post, screaming like they knew what struck down their mates would touch them next. For a piece of time, Addie turned Front Street into a bloody hell for horses.
Garner cornered me and Theodore in the saloon. "By God, do something," he hollered at the sheriff. "Someone's destroying our animals!"
I jerked my head at Theodore. "Let's cross the street to your office," I said. Leaning close enough he could hear a whisper, I told the sheriff, "Addie don't want to kill you nor me, Theodore. She'll let us pass. And we better get clear of these Texans."
Addie held her fire till the sheriff and me were fifteen or twenty paces from the saloon doors before she blasted away again. I'll not soon forget the wet sound of a heavy bullet knocking breath out of a horse, or the cry as it went down. And I'm not ashamed to say my hands shook as I followed Theodore across the street neither.
We saw the rest of the slaughter from the sheriff's office. We could even watch Addie, shooting from a knoll a hundred yards past the end of Front Street. She reloaded and shot, reloaded and shot, and every time she raised her rifle another Texas horse died.
When the last one was down, Addie straddled her mule and kicked the animal into a trot, aimed for home. When a long stretch of time passed between shots, the street began to fill with Broken T cowboys.
On foot, the way Addie meant 'em to be.
Sheriff Theodore Clemens has got a decision to make. Soon them Texans will find mounts, steal horses if they have to. If they catch Addie, the night she spent with six of them will seem like a tea party.
Or else Theodore will step into the street and stop them.
It's worrisome. But I've taken a look out the window and feel a little better.
Jake McMasters, the barber, has poked a shotgun through an open window in his shop. In the alley by his general store, John Barker's cradling a rifle, and I saw Lars on the roof of the saloon with a brace of pistols. Toby Bradley's got an old Springfield left over from the war, and even the Indian who works at the livery stable is aiming something from up in the hay loft.
I seen all that with just a peek through the window. I expect I could count thirty weapons, ready to back up Theodore, if I had time to study our town more carefully. This ain't going to be a restful haven for them cowboys, no matter what happens.
Theodore's handed me a Winchester from his gun rack. If he does what I think he's about to, he'll be wrote up for a hero in next weeks paper. And if the Texans take Theodore down, that foreman Garner is the first one I'm going to shoot.
Things are working out just the way Addie wanted them to.
But I expect she knows that.
*~*~*~*~*
About the author...
Bob Sloan and his wife Julie live on thirty hillside acres east of Morehead KY, with three big dogs and an embarrassing number of cats. They're the third generation of Sloans to own the place, which belonged to Bob's grandfather and father. Bob's work is regularly heard on National Public Radio's Morning Edition news program and other public radio shows. His writing has won a Faulkner Society Gold Medal, a PRNDI from the national professional organization of public radio news directors. He's also a contributing columnist for the Lexington, Kentucky Herald-Leader.
Bob's new book is a collection of short stories entitled Bearskin to HollyFork: Stories From Appalachian, available at bookstores everywhere, or at his website, www.bobsloansampler.com
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Copyright © 2004 Bob Sloan. All rights reserved.
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