Читать книгу 500 Miles to Nowhere - Fred Eason - Страница 4

Jim Webb jumped out of a window of Bywaters’ store and made a run for his horse, but deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves rode up on his horse and ordered the outlaw to surrender. Bass had been trying to catch the outlaw for two years and he wasn’t about to let him get away. The outlaw turned and started shooting at the marshal with his rifle, grazing the marshal’s saddle horn with his first shot and shattering a button on his coat with the second and then blasting the reins right out of the marshal’s hands with the third shot. With the sounds of BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! still ringing in his ears and the turbulence of the bullets narrowly missing his body, the marshal dove off his horse, landed on his feet and aimed his own Winchester rifle at the outlaw and fired twice, with both rounds hitting the man and ending the fight, but not before a fourth .44 caliber bullet from the outlaw’s rifle had put a hole in the brim of the marshal’s hat. He was still a bit rattled by the close misses as he walked over to the outlaw.

As Bass approached the outlaw, he had just enough life left to utter “I have killed eleven men and expected for you to be the twelfth. Take my guns as your prize. You earned them.” The marshal took Webb’s pistol and put it in his saddle bag and attached Webb’s rifle to his saddle. He then tied Webb’s body to his horse to carry him back to the prison wagon. He took the man’s saddle to the livery stable and sold it to pay for Webb’s burial. The marshal saved Webb’s boots and gun belt to show to Judge Parker so he could collect his reward.

Jim Webb had a $5,000 bounty on his head, as he had “skipped out” on a $17,000 bond and the marshal would be happy to collect it. $5,000 was a lot of money in 1884. This reward would be used to invest in more top notch horses on the farm he owned in Van Buren, just across the river from Fort Smith, where Judge Parker’s court was held. He would have preferred not to have killed Webb, but had no choice in the matter. His orders as a U.S. Marshal, serving under Judge Parker were to bring them in dead or alive. Reeves was angry about Webb getting out of jail on bond after he had arrested him in the first place.

The marshal rode a beautiful sorrel, a reddish-brown horse, with a light colored mane. Most marshals owned fine horses that were capable of catching ordinary horses. Sometimes outlaws would be tipped off about who a marshal was by the way they sat in the saddle and by the quality of their horses and saddles. There were only 3 other negro marshals, besides Bass, at that time and someone had seen the marshal coming and tipped Webb off.

Successful marshals made a lot of money and spared no expense when it came to fine horses or guns. This marshal tended to wear a bow-tie and suit, even on a dusty trail. He wore a pair of Colt 1873 Single Action Army .45 revolvers, carried in a black handmade “cross-draw” leather holster rig with the backs of the handles facing to the front. Most who saw that rig knew who he was. He also carried a Winchester .38-.40 carbine in a scabbard attached to his saddle. He pondered a moment on why he had gone for the rifle in his scabbard instead of the Colts. He guessed it was just instinctive due to the other man having a rifle. Usually he preferred the Colts at close range. He was ambidextrous and could draw either or both Colts just as well and shoot them equally well. He was just as good with his rifle with either hand. No matter which direction an outlaw came from, he could react quickly. He was 46-years-old at the time, but could still hold his own in a fist fight. At 6-feet, two-inches and 200 pounds, he was still in good shape for his age. He was an impressive figure, taller than most men of his time. He was a man who did not think very much about himself. He did not feel like being colored was an advantage or a disadvantage. He figured his abilities spoke more about him as a man than did his color. And most men of any color respected him for that.

All U.S. Marshals at that time were required to travel with a chuck wagon and cook, a “prison” wagon and guard, and one hired gun or posse man. It was not unusual to accumulate 10 to 15 outlaws on a single trip and someone had to guard them and feed them while the marshal was hunting down other outlaws that might be in the area. Sometimes he took the posse man with him to make an arrest and sometimes he went by himself.

The marshal was on his way back to the wagon, which already held ten prisoners, when he came across an angry mob in the process of lynching a man who had been accused of stealing cattle. The ranch hands had tracked him down and were about to administer their own form of justice. The marshal rode into the crowd and proclaimed, “I’m Bass Reeves, United States Marshal, and I’ll take this man to Judge Parker’s court. You can come to Fort Smith and have charges filed against him and he’ll get a fair trial.”

“Like Hell you will!” one of the ranch hands screamed. “We caught him and we aim to hang him right here.”

One of the other ranch hands restrained the man and said, “You don’t want to mess with this marshal. As you can see, he’s already killed Jim Webb who’s tied to the horse behind him. He can kill you or whip you either way you want.”

“I’d like to see him whip my ass!” the ranch hand countered, seemingly not intimidated by the dead man.

Bass calmly stepped down off his horse and said “You can have the first punch.” The ranch hand stepped down from his horse and threw a punch and Bass countered with a punch that knocked the man to the ground. He didn’t get up. The marshal thought for a moment he’d have to draw his Colts and had his hands in the position to do so, but the crowd seemed to calm down when they saw he was willing to draw. Most of them knew he was fast as lightning and they’d just witnessed him knocking down the biggest cowboy they had with them. They knew the man he’d killed, Jim Webb, had been a foreman on their ranch. Bass had a reputation and they knew he wasn’t going to back down, so they did. Bass cut the man they were going to lynch down and took him to his wagon, along with Jim Webb. He tied the man to the horse behind Webb. He figured the horse could carry two people, no further than they were going.

The next day, the marshal and his cook and wagons all headed back to Fort Smith. It had been a very profitable trip. He had close to $900 in fees due to him, besides the bounty on Webb. Even after paying the cook $20 per month, a guard $3 per day and a posse man $3 per day and paying for all their food and other expenses, he had a nice deposit for the bank. His herd of fine horses was growing and he’d be able to retire in comfort whenever he got tired of the trail. Most of his horses were top of the line and would bring $100 each or more. He was living a good life, although dangerous, but the journey to this point had not been easy.

They were more than 80 miles west of Fort Smith, past the zone known as the “dead line.” The dead line was where outlaws posted threats to any lawman who might be looking for them saying if they crossed this line they’d soon be dead. As they passed through the area, on the way back to Fort Smith, Bass was amused to find a note from Jim Webb that said, “Bass Reeves, if you cross this line and attempt to arrest me, you’ll soon be dead.” He pulled the note from the tree and added it to his collection. Bass had crossed this line many times and had been shot at many times, but had been wounded only one time. The dead line ran north and south through Fort Gibson and Muskogee, and followed the North to South path of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Rail Road.

The only law in the Indian Territory, besides U. S. Marshals who traveled there, were Indian police, known as “Lighthorse”. The Lighthorse only had jurisdiction over Indians or Indian freedmen. Indian freedmen were negro slaves who’d been traded for or bought by Indians and freed after the Civil War. The marshal’s territory covered the Indian Nation, where Indians had been herded to from all over the country across the Trail of Tears.

The Indians had been given these lands under a treaty that had since been challenged, due to the Indian Nation’s perceived support of the Confederacy. There were roughly 25,000 white men living in the Indian territory and at least 20,000 of them were outlaws preying on the Indians or the railroads or the ranchers. The fact they were white didn’t stop Bass from arresting or killing them. Justice, in Judge Parker’s Court, was indifferent to race.

Many of the arrests that Bass made were for “introducing,” which was the illegal practice of selling whiskey or other alcoholic beverages to the Indians. But there were also many thieves, murderers and rapists that he dealt with.

Some of the outlaws made a good living robbing the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Rail Road, the Rock Island, Pacific Rail Road,the Kansas and Arkansas Valley Rail Road, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Rail Road or the St. Louis & San Francisco Rail Road. Most of the best rewards were paid by the railroads.

The Indian Territory consisted of the Cherokee, Osage, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Wichita, Caddo, Comanche, Kiowa, Apache, Chickasaw, Creek and Choctaw Indians. Bass had lived with the Indians for many years as a runaway slave and knew almost all of the Indian leaders and their policemen and spoke most of the Indian languages fluently. That gave him an edge over the other marshals. The Lighthorse and other Indians he knew fed him information regarding a certain outlaw’s whereabouts.

After the first day of travel, the group stopped to camp for the night and the prisoners were all attached to a long, heavy chain outside the wagon. That way they could be fed and could sleep more comfortably overnight. The negro cook, William Leach, was busy cooking the nightly meal, complete with biscuits and a big pot of stew, over an open fire. He had already cooked the meat for the stew in a big frying pan. Bass went over and got himself a biscuit to chew on prior to the meal. His dog, Bandit, was standing on his hind legs and begging for a share. Bass threw the dog a couple of bites, which really made the cook mad and he told Bass so. The cook had a really bad temper and that had bothered Bass in the past. He had also been in trouble before and Judge Parker had thrown him in jail a few times, but he was a good cook.

Bass ignored the cook and began to clean his rifle. He had shot some game with it for the cook and wanted to clean it before he needed it again. He was unloading the rifle, one shell at a time, when he realized a cartridge that was in the chamber seemed to be stuck. When he looked at it, he realized that the cartridge must have had a dent in it and the rifle would not eject it. He was trying to pry the cartridge from the chamber with his pocket knife. About this time he glanced up to see Bandit standing up begging the cook to give him a piece of leftover stew meat from the big frying pan he had in his hand. Bass loved Bandit like he loved all of his animals. Instead of giving the dog a piece of meat, the cook threw the whole pan of scalding grease on the dog and down his mouth. The dog took his last breath and died. Bass jumped to his feet and his rifle went off, shooting the stuck round, killing the cook on the spot. The posseman and the prisoners weren’t sure if his sudden reaction caused the gun to go off, or if Bass was defending his dog. The grief welled up inside Bass. He wanted to cry but would not let himself cry in front of all of these men.

There were too many witnesses to deny what had happened. Judge Parker was not very forgiving of a lawman who broke the law. He did not know what he was going to do. Killing a man over a dog would probably not sit well with Judge Parker, even though it might have been an accident.

It would be a long night and a long next day without food, so he ordered his posse man to cook something from the wagon. Meanwhile, he continued to prise the spent .38-.40 round out of the chamber of the rifle and finish cleaning the rifle so that it would be ready the next day.

The next morning, after they had packed the wagons and the prisoners, along with the dead cook, the marshal and his men resumed the trip back to Fort Smith. He started to think about the first man he had killed on this trip, Jim Webb. Webb was an outlaw who had drifted into the Chickasaw Nation from Texas and had gone to work for Billy Washington, a prominent rancher who was a partner with Dick McLish, a prominent Chickasaw Indian. They owned a huge ranch in the southern portion of the Chickasaw Nation and were very wealthy. Webb became the foreman of the ranch and supervised 45 cowboys and 7 gun hands, several of whom were negros and Indians. Webb ran the ranch with an iron hand, and nobody contested that.

A negro preacher, William Steward, owned a small ranch that joined the Washington-McLish Ranch. He had set a fire on his ranch that spread out of control to the bigger ranch next door. Jim Webb was furious about it and rode over to the preacher’s ranch to confront him. After a violent argument, Webb drew his gun and killed the preacher. After Bass had been given a warrant for Webb’s arrest, he went to the ranch to serve the warrant, along with Floyd Wilson, a posseman. When they arrived at the ranch, there were only a few men there. They did not have on their badges and stopped to ask if they could share some breakfast. Webb was immediately suspicious of the men. He kept his hand on his gun the whole time that Bass and Floyd were eating. Eventually, out on the porch with Webb and another gunman who worked at the ranch, Webb took his eye off the marshal just long enough for Bass to put his arm around Webb’s neck and draw his gun. The marshal aimed it at the other gunman, who still reached for his gun and shot at Bass. Bass returned fire and shot him right between his eyes. After his arrest, Webb had skipped bail and was on the run until Bass caught up with him again.

As they continued their journey to Fort Smith, gunshots rang out and bullets starting pelting the ground around the marshal and his group. There were 6 gunmen on a nearby hill, shooting at them with rifles. They were about 300 yards away. The marshal drew his rifle and killed three of the men. He then rode his horse straight at the men while continuing to fire his rifle. By the time he reached the top of the hill, the remaining 3 men had managed to reach their horses and were heading towards Muskogee, which was towards the Washington-McLish Ranch.

Bass had been heading east from the Chickasaw Nation.

He guessed that the ranch hands who had been trying to hang the man who was now his prisoner had told the owners of the ranch about that. When they told the owners about him killing Webb, they had probably sent the gun hands to try to kill him. He managed to kill two more of the men, while chasing them. They were surprised by how fast he had overtaken them and had been looking back at him with fear in their eyes. They knew they were dead men. They were riding $20 horses while he was riding a sorrel which probably would have fetched $150, even at that time.

He let the last man ride off, because he wanted the man to go back to the ranch and tell the owners. Maybe they would think twice before sending anyone after him again. Judge Parker always said it was the fear of certain punishment that caused a man to do right. Bass wanted them to feel that fear. It was to his advantage, or so he thought at the time.

The marshal collected the men’s horses and tied their bodies to them in order to take them back to his waiting chuck and prison wagon. The guard and posse man had been of little help to him. Even though they had rifles, they probably could not have made the shots that Bass had made. That’s why he made the kind of money he made. Most men would not have attempted to do the things he did to make a living. Out of a total of about 200 deputy U.S. Marshals who had worked for Judge Parker’s court in Fort Smith, over the years, almost half had been killed. One died in an insane asylum and some just quit and some were severely wounded. Very few had lasted as many years as Bass. Every time he left Fort Smith in search of prisoners he realized he might not return alive, but he could not help but love the job. The marshal knew he was helping the Indians who had been so good to him when he was a runaway.

As the group rode into Fort Smith, they gathered immediate attention and a crowd started to follow. Scenes like this were the main entertainment in Fort Smith. This was the show that proceeded the big show: the hangings. The marshal rode tall and proud in his saddle, like the returning warrior that he was. Most of the people in town admired him. All feared him. Some hated him.

Once they arrived at the jail, the task began of unloading the prisoners, who were shackled to a long chain and led into the jail building. The guard and the posse man helped Bass lock them up for transport, being careful not to give any of them the chance to reach a gun. The transfer went without incident for a change. It was not unusual for one or more of the prisoners to attempt an escape at this point in the trip.

After Bass unloaded his prisoners and took care of the burial of the dead outlaws and Jim Webb, the marshal went in to see Judge Parker. Normally he loved going to see the judge. The judge cared about Bass as if he were a son and spent many hours teaching him the law. Most of the marshals that worked for the judge were close to being outlaws themselves and he had a hard time keeping them from doing wrong. Judge Parker had been forced to charge several of his deputies with murder over the years, just for killing people with no good reason. In fact, he required each marshal to write him and ask for a writ before they were allowed to arrest a person that did not have a writ against them from the judge to begin with. The exception would be where they witnessed a crime as it happened. Sometimes, if they were Indians, the Lighthorse would already have them under arrest and a marshal simply took custody from them.

“Good job, marshall,” Judge Parker said, “I see you have brought in 10 live men and I heard you had to kill Jim Webb?”

“Yes sir,” Bass replied to the judge “and I had to kill 5 gunmen who I think were sent from the Washington-McLish Ranch to avenge Webb’s death. They ambushed us on the way back to Fort Smith. I let one of them escape, so he could tell them what happened. Maybe that will stop them from trying that again.”

“I doubt that will stop those people.” Parker replied. “They don’t seem to have any sense in spite of being wealthy. Well, I think the court owes you about $5,900. There was a $5,000 bounty on Webb put up by the bonding agent when Webb skipped out on a $17,000 bail and we owe you another $900 in fees according to your report on distance and arrests. Are you going to buy more horses with the money?”

“Yes sir,” Bass answered. “And I also hate to tell you this, but I killed my negro cook.”

“How did that happen?,” the judge replied.

“Well sir, I was cleaning my rifle when the cook threw a frying pan full of hot grease on my dog Bandit when I just jumped up and my rifle went off. I know that wasn’t the right thing to happen. I rescued that dog from a cruel owner and just got him to trust me. I don’t know what else to say. I guess I should have been more careful with the rifle. I’m sorry.”

The judge was thinking about what Bass had just told him. He knew the big man loved his animals like they were his own children and he was the best deputy he had, so he hated to lose him. But he was a judge sworn to uphold the law.

“Bass, you know that you may have broken the law. I am not going to have you arrested and I want you to continue to do your job, but you will have to stand trial. I may call a Grand Jury hearing to determine if you should be charged. I am very busy dealing with much worse criminals right now, so what I am going to do is to set you up with a trial date about 2 years from now. As your friend, I would advise you to hire one of the very best attorneys in Fort Smith and you know who they are. If it were me, I would hire someone from the law firm of William H.H. Clayton, William M. Cravens and Thomas Marcum. Clayton, as you know, is the District Attorney.”

“I don’t have to worry about you not showing up for trial,” the judge continued, ”with a wife and kids and property nearby, so there will be no warrants or any bail. But you will have to stand for a trial or Grand Jury hearing. It’s possible that when you jumped up while extracting the shells from your rifle, like you said, you could have killed the cook accidentally. But your lawyer will have to deal with that and we will probably have to have a jury, since I would probably not be able to render an unbiased opinion when it comes to you. The prisoners you had with you would probably not make good witnesses in court, but your posse man and guard might have to testify. Understand?”

“Yessir,” Bass replied.

He was somewhat relieved, because the judge didn’t seem to be mad at him. The judge had dealings with the cook before and had put him in jail a few times for cheating at cards and being drunk and for shooting another man’s dog and for beating a horse. As far as Judge Parker was concerned, the man needed killing, but the public would probably not tolerate him letting Bass off without a trial. He knew that President Grant would probably pardon Bass, at his request, if he happened to get convicted. He was far more concerned with cleaning up the Indian Territory, which covered 74,000 square miles.

Bass was more concerned with going home to his ranch and seeing his wife and kids and extended family. He had bought the ranch with money he had earned as a bounty hunter out of the Van Buren court before Judge Parker’s court existed.

Once Bass had determined he was going to settle down, he went to Fort Gibson to ask Jennie to marry him. She was part white, part Indian and part negro. He had met her when he was living among the Indians during the Civil War. It was then that he had learned to speak Muskogee, the language of the Creeks and Seminoles and had learned to speak the languages of the all the tribes that inhabited the Indian Territory. Many slaves had escaped into the Indian Territory during the Civil War and were accepted by the Indians, even though some Indians had traded for and owned negro slaves of their own. After the Civil War, the slaves became “Indian Freedmen”. As a part of the 1866 treaty, those freedmen became members of the Indian tribes. Many negros married or otherwise integrated with the Indians.

Bass had built 3 houses on the ranch. One for he and Jennie and their children and one for his mother Pearlalee and one for his sister, Jane and her husband. Jane’s husband ran the ranch while Bass was out rounding up outlaws. He viewed his family as his most valued asset. The ranch and horses came next. He had bought a beautiful property on a plateau overlooking the Arkansas River and Fort Smith, on top of Mount Vista. He could stand on the edge of his property and see the river winding around Fort Smith and heading West into the Indian Territory and he could look downriver to where the river separated Van Buren and Fort Smith. When bad weather approached, it usually came from the Southwest and he could see it coming from miles away. That allowed them to make sure the livestock and the family were safely inside. Tornadoes usually seemed to follow the river, but as far as he knew, none had ever jumped up onto the plateau, although the wind could be pretty dangerous. There were some people who thought he was “uppity” and he guessed he was pretty “uppity”, setting up on his mountain. Looking down at all of the land below him did make him feel pretty special. Once he had managed to buy all of the land on the plateau, he started expanding his land on the flatlands below the mountain.

He had purchased most of the land for about $5 per acre. Most of his best pasture land was on the flatlands below the mountain. He had bought the land on the plateau for $2 per acre. One of the reasons that Bass had selected the plateau as the place to build his home, other than the vast beauty of it, was he felt like his family was safe there. There was only one trail up the mountain and one or two armed men could hold off an army of men trying to come up the trail. He had made a lot of enemies and a lot of dangerous men would like to see him dead. He was worried that some of those men might get the idea of harming or capturing his family to get to him. It gave him great comfort when he was 250 miles or more West of Fort Smith to know that his family was safe on the mountain. His brother-in-law, Green Saunders, was a good rancher and was a good shot with a rifle and made it a point to keep an eye on the trail.

He had several ranch hands, who were Indian, who also helped to keep an eye on the trail. Someone was watching it 24 hours a day. There was also a giant bolder at the top of the trail that could be set to roll down the mountain with a charge of dynamite if that became necessary. He hoped they never had to resort to that, since it would be a lot of work to clean up the trail again. It had taken them almost a year to build the trail, one stick of dynamite and one wagon load of rock at a time. Most of the folks in Van Buren thought Bass was crazy to buy a piece of property like that and even crazier to build a house up there. It was a lot of extra work to get all the building materials to the top of the hill, although they cut most of the lumber off the top of the plateau.

Bass was not afraid of hard work and knew that being a marshal was dangerous. So he had to plan for that and be prepared for the worst. He could rest at ease with his family living in the “fortress” he had built for them on the hill.