Читать книгу 500 Miles to Nowhere - Fred Eason - Страница 5

By the time Bass got to the top of Mount Vista, he had to remind himself of why he had built on top of this hill. The trail up there was really giving his horse a workout. But he figured any horse that could make it up this hill could probably catch any horse around. There was one horse at the ranch that could outrun the sorrel, known to him as “Rusty”. He wasn’t sure of the lineage, but the horse was solid white. He called the horse “Silver”, because sometimes the sun reflecting off the horse seemed to reflect some hair that looked just like it was made of silver. Besides, “Whitey” just didn’t seem right. He loved to ride Silver, but was saving the stallion for a special trip. He did not want everyone to know he had a white horse. Right now, everyone expected to see him on a sorrel. He actually had several sorrels that he rode on different occasions. He always wanted to have a horse that was as rested and well fed as possible. Fast horses gave him the same advantage that his ability with firearms did. Having an edge of any kind might make the difference between staying alive or being dead.

As Bass rode up to the house, his wife Jennie and his eight children, Sarah, the oldest, Robert, the second oldest, Harriet, the third oldest and Georgia, Alice, Newland, Edgar and Lula, in the order of birth, all came running up to him while the youngest kids screamed, “Daddy, daddy, daddy!” As soon as he got down off Rusty, they all hugged his neck one at a time. This is what I’m working for, he thought, as he hugged them back. This is what the marshal looked forward to the whole time he was gone. This is what kept him motivated while he was out risking his life and dealing with scumbags and killers. He then gave Jennie a big kiss and they headed into the house.

Bass had built the house from oak logs he cut off the plateau. It was a simple structure that had a kitchen and large sitting area on one side of a “breeze-way” and the parents’ bedroom and five bunkrooms for the kids on the other. The breeze-way served as a middle sitting area and connected to a porch facing west that looked down on Fort Smith. The wind, which usually came from the west or south during the summer, was forced between the two halves of the house that served to funnel the wind through the breeze-way. It was pretty cool on the porch even on a typical summer day in Arkansas. All of the bedrooms and the living area had windows that let a lot of air blow throughout the house. The breeze-way also siphoned the air through the other parts of the house. Bass loved to sit on the porch in the afternoon and watch the sun setting over the Indian Territory to the west. He imagined he could see all the way to the dead line.

When it came time for supper, Jennie told him that she had invited his mother and sister and her husband to eat with them. Bass had bought a giant bison roast in Fort Smith and she had been cooking it for hours, along with fresh vegetables from her garden, including black-eyed peas, cabbage and fresh sliced tomatoes. She had baked a big slab of the bison in a big metal pot along with fresh potatoes and carrots and onions. Bass was drooling at the prospect of such a meal. While they were on the trail, they pretty much ate whatever they could kill. Bass and his family were extremely religious and they always said prayers for the meal and his safe return before every meal, whether he was there or not. If he was there, they would thank God for his safe return. In the sitting area of the kitchen, they had several large tables with chairs to seat all 13 of them when they scooted all of the tables together.

While they were eating, Bass decided to conduct some business and told his brother-in-law, Green Saunders, that he had brought back enough money to add some more fine horses to their stables.

“Green,” Bass began, “after adding to our savings account, I think we have enough extra money to add another 10 really good horses to the herd. You may want to check and see where we could get some really good ones. I’d be willing to pay $100 each for the best ones you can find.”

“I’ll check around and see where I can find what you’re looking for. Maybe we can buy some thoroughbred stock out of Texas. I’ve seen some real nice herds brought through Fort Smith on their way to different places, but wasn’t sure if we were going to buy or sell at this point,” Green replied.

“I trust your judgement,” Bass continued. “Just remember, I might be running for my life on one of these horses, so only buy horses you’d trust with your life.”

“I understand.” Green said.

Green started to think about where he might go to find some really good horses. Even the army was not as picky about horses as Bass was. Every one in Arkansas knew the herd they were raising included the finest horses available. Most of the other marshals bought their horses from Bass. They didn’t want to be outran either. Most were willing to pay up to $150 for one of his horses and several had tried to buy horses that Bass kept for himself, but were told they were not for sale.

After supper, Jennie gave Bass a pipe she had bought for him in Fort Smith, along with some fancy imported tobacco. It was one of those pipes that was shaped kind of like an “S”, with the burning part dropping below his chin. He thought he looked like a detective when he smoked it. Jennie thought it made him look distinguished. He enjoyed sitting on the porch and smoking it while Jennie and the girls finished cleaning up the table. Jennie had also bought him a nice oversized rocking chair that was considered to be his that no other person sat in. He was a big man and was thankful for the big rocking chair.

All of the children had their own chores to do. Sallie, who was 21 and the oldest, was now more than old enough to be married and needed to learn all of her mother’s cooking skills. Bass’s sister Jane, who did all of the sewing on the ranch, including all of his clothing, was also teaching Sallie to sew.

His oldest son, Robert, now 19 and Newland, now 12, worked for Green, taking care of the horses. The best horses were still kept at the stables on Mount Vista. These stables were some of the nicest and cleanest stables you would find anywhere. The horses that Bass kept for his own personal use were kept in stables all by themselves. Each had a separate stall where they were groomed and shoed.

Green was teaching the oldest boys what to feed the horses and how to keep them well groomed. He was teaching Robert how to be a blacksmith, which was a skill he and Bass both shared. Robert was old enough to go out on his own or become a marshal himself, but so far had been happy to stay on the family farm and Bass was happy to have him there. He loved all of his kids and hated to see the moment when they might leave.

He thought Sallie would be married and gone by now, but was happy to have her stay. She was a big help to Jennie and helped take care of Pearlalee, his mother, who was getting to be about 65 years old by now. In fact, Sallie had moved into the house that Bass had built for Pearlalee so that she could see after her more closely. There was enough work on the ranch for everyone and all of the kids did their fair share.

While Jennie was finishing up in the kitchen, Bass decided to walk Sallie and Pearlalee back to their house. He had something on his mind he wanted to ask his mother and wanted to get her alone. She was getting old so he wanted to get as much family history from her as he could. She was pretty good about sitting with the children and telling them stories about Bass as a child. According to her, his father was a freedman who crossed her path while she was a servant for the Reeves family in Texas. However, he had heard otherwise and intended to confront her before she got too old to remember. After asking Sallie to give them some privacy, Bass asked his mother, “Who did you say my father was?”

“I’ve told you who your father was,” she responded, slightly angry at her son’s tone.

“Well, as you know, I spent a lot of time growing up with our master, Colonel George Reeves and even went with him into the Civil War when he fought for the Confederacy where I learned to shoot and ride well enough to survive myself and to help protect him. We got to be very close and I considered him to be my friend. One night, we were drinking in a bar and playing cards when he called me son. I looked him straight in the eye and said ‘you’re not my father, why’re you calling me son?’ He said, ‘you are my son’. I was so mad that I jumped up and hit him and that’s when I ran off to the Indian Territory. Nobody ever came looking for me. He never put a bounty on me like most other runaway slaves. Why would he say something like that?”

Pearlalee looked at him with tears in her eyes and said “I hoped you would never find out. You know we lived in his house and I loved his wife and didn’t want to do what he wanted to do, but couldn’t do anything about it. That’s why he showed you off like he did. He was really proud of you, but I didn’t think he’d ever admit to bein’ your father. That’s why he taught you to be a blacksmith and why he taught you to take care of his horses. You know his wife couldn’t bear him any children and the longer he was around you the more he came to realize you were his. He bragged to me about you all of the time. He was going to leave all his horses to you.”

“I didn’t want any of his damn horses!” Bass responded angrily, “I have my own horses! I can’t believe he did that to you. It makes me want to go find him and kill him.”

“Son,” Pearlalee said, looking him in the eye, “God doesn’t want you to feel that way about your father, even if he became your father against my will.

Your father was a great man, in spite of what he did to me. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives for the State of Texas and Reeves County in Texas was named for him. You shouldn’t hate him. His greatness is in you. Even when you were a child, everyone knew you weren’t an ordinary child. I love the greatness in you that he gave you. For that reason, I forgave him for what he did to me.

He wanted children of his own and he got you. If you ever do see him again, you should learn to love him like your children love you, even though you are a much better father than he was. He taught you how to shoot and ride horses. You make a good living doing that. I never loved him but he loved you and loved the part of you that was him. Can’t you forgive him like I did?”

“Maybe,” Reeves said. He knew his mother was right. “What about Jane? Who’s her father?”

“Jane’s your half sister. Her father is the man that I said was your father. I’m sorry I lied to you about this. I just though it would be best. You know that us slaves were not allowed to get married.”

“I never thought I would be 46-years-old when I found out who my real father was,” Bass continued, “but it does make a lot of sense to me now that I know. I have been thinking about this ever since the colonel and I got into a fight at that card game. I wanted to ask you that question all of these years and I just couldn’t let you die with me not knowing the truth. I don’t plan to try to contact him. I have my own family to think of now. I don’t plan to tell anyone else about this.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Pearlalee responded, “There’s no reason to upset the rest of the family.”

“Jennie has white blood, Indian blood and negro blood in her, so I’m sure she would understand me being mixed,” Bass continued, “but I don’t plan to bring this up unless she does.”

“I won’t either,” Pearlalee said, “and I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you this sooner.”

“That’s not a problem mama,” Bass allowed, “I suspected it for a long time.”

The walk back to the main house seemed further to Bass as he pondered the conversation he had just had with his mother. He was way past worrying about what his heritage was. He now had to worry about the legacy he would leave. He just had to know the truth…..now he did. That was the end of it as far as he was concerned.

When he got back to the main house, Jennie had finished cleaning up and had just taken a bath. She was sitting in a rocker on the porch in a bathrobe. Her fresh scrubbed skin was glowing in the sunset. Her hair was straight, like the Indian in her, and her eyes were a beautiful shade of hazel. He’d thought about what beautiful eyes she had from the moment he met her in Indian territory. She’d always loved his brown eyes that had a touch of green in them. But what she really loved about him was the proud way he carried himself, like a great stallion. There was no uncertainty about him. He had confidence in himself. Even at 46, after chasing outlaws on horses for years, he still stood erect and proud. The kids were in bed and this was their special time together. There were some clouds in the sky and the sun was painting them in beautiful shades of red and gold. He looked at her and felt really lucky to be home with her again.

Jennie had been educated in the mission schools in Indian Territory, while living in the Creek Nation and later working with Chief Opothle Yahola, chief of the Upper Creeks. She was gradually teaching Bass to read and write. He could already do numbers in his head. The ranch financials and their savings were all kept in his head.

The next morning Bass was greeted with biscuits and gravy along with fresh eggs and ham. Everything that they needed was produced on the ranch. In addition to the horses, they had chickens, turkeys, geese, goats, pigs and one mule. They used the mule to plow the garden. They owned pastureland in the valley below that produced good grazing and an ample supply of hay for the winter. They managed to raise enough corn to feed the children and all of the other livestock. The horses that Bass rode got corn and oats when they had them. The only thing missing was a dog. Bass missed Bandit and vowed to find another dog soon. Bandit would always wake him up if anything was wrong.

After breakfast, Bass made his tour of the farm on Rusty, riding alongside Green on another sorrel. He inspected the barns and stalls like a general barking out instructions about what could be done better to Green, who passed those instructions down to the kids. They were always happy to see him come home, but were somewhat relieved when he left. He kept them all running when he was there and expected perfection.

As they passed Green’s house, Bass’s sister Jane came out to greet him and let him know that she had a brand new suit of clothes for him to wear on his next trip. Some would say that it was silly for a lawman to wear a suit while in pursuit. Many times, he would have to cross waterways and sometimes crawl on his hands and knees to capture criminals, but he would not budge on the clothing. It made him feel special when he put on a suit that he knew took Jane weeks to finish. It made Jane feel special to have a brother that took pride in wearing what she made. It also made her proud that Bass trusted her husband with his prized livestock and with running his business and picking out the animals. Bass was gone for weeks at a time chasing bad guys, so he was happy to have someone like Green to take care of everything when he was gone.

After his tour, he sat down with Green to discuss the business. “It seems to me that we’re going to have to add to the stables,” Bass said matter-of-factly, “when we add those 10 horses to the herd. And we may have to move more horses down the hill to our other pastures. I’ve saved enough money to buy some more land if it comes down to that, but I think we’ll be O.K. for the time being.”

“I think we need to start checking around to see if we can buy some more land,” Green said, “we may not be able to find land for sale when we need it. We should probably add more land than we need when we have a chance. I heard about another 100 acres of pasture that might be for sale in a month or two that touches our property in the valley. The man who owned it died and his children are going to auction it off. They don’t live here any more and don’t care anything about the land or the house. We could either tear the house down, or use it to store hay. The metal roof looks like it is in good shape. We might have to tear a few walls down to make more room, but I don’t think they are load bearing. If they are, we can put up some poles for support.”

“All right,” Bass answered, “why don’t you keep an eye on that and go ahead and bid on it when the time comes. We can probably buy it for $5 an acre, but I’d go as high as $10 per acre, since it has a house on it. I plan on continuing to buy horses when I can and sell as few as I need to, as long as we make a good profit on them.”

“Speaking of that,” Green said, “the army wanted to buy 10 horses from us, for their officers to ride, but they only wanted to pay about $50 per horse for them. I didn’t think that’d be enough and told them so.”

“We don’t have any horses I’d sell for that,” Bass allowed, “they’ll either have to come up in price or look for horses somewhere else.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Green replied. “They’re still thinking about it. One of the officers really wanted Silver, but I told him Silver was not for sale for any price. He was willing to pay $50 more out of his pocket to buy that horse.”

“You were right,” Bass said, “he didn’t have enough money to buy Silver. He’s mine to ride and he’ll produce some really fine colts that we can get good money for. That makes him worth a lot of money to me.”

Bass really enjoyed being home for about a week. Then, something inside him that he could not explain, began to make him restless. He guessed he had become addicted to the excitement of being on the hunt. He enjoyed hunting outlaws as much as some men liked hunting rabbits.

After being home for about a week, he decided it was time to ride back to Fort Smith and see what Judge Parker had for him to do. Jennie always hated to see him pack up and leave, but she knew that was the way he was when they married, and knew that’s how he made a living. Jennie worried that he’d be hurt or killed. He worried about that a little himself. He couldn’t imagine making a living any other way and he never thought much about retiring, even though he knew that he probably had enough money saved and enough income from selling horses to support a good retirement.

There were tearful goodbyes as he left the ranch and headed to the courthouse in Fort Smith. He’d decided to give Rusty some time off and had Green saddle another one of his sorrels that he called “Midnight.” Midnight was such a dark brown that he was almost black. He had a white patch on his forehead that was shaped like a diamond. Midnight was not as fast as Silver but was a little faster than Rusty.

On his way to meet U. S. Marshal Colonel Thomas Boles, Bass thought back to the terrible smell that used to rise up into the courthouse and marshal’s office from the old jail cells below. The old jail in Fort Smith had long been known as “Hell on the Border”. It had been located under the courtroom and marshal’s office and was two large rooms about 29 feet by 55 feet each. The prisoners were allowed to mingle with each other in these two large spaces. The jail resembled a dungeon. It could hold up to 150 prisoners. There were white men and negroes and Indians all mingled together. Bedding was moldy and the place had smelled like urine and feces. Hell on the Border was a good name for it. Thankfully it was now empty and cleaner.

In 1877, a new three story brick jail was built for $75,000 next to the courthouse. Each floor had 24 cells, 5 by 8 feet, each having 2 iron cots, one over the other. Each cell had an iron door. The lower floor was designated “Murderers’ Row.” Judge Parker sentenced 172 men to be hanged, but only 88 were eventually hanged. Of the 88 who were hung, 39 were white, 26 were Indians and 23 were black.

Complaints against outlaws had to be made in person in Fort Smith. So if the complaints were by someone in Indian territory, they might have to travel two hundred miles to file it. Warrants were then sworn out and accumulated before taking them to the U.S. Marshal’s office to be served. An estimated 90 percent of the wanted men were murderers, cattle rustlers and horse thieves. The murders may have been committed in a bank robbery or a train robbery or in the process of theft. Many of them already had a reward offered for them. Sometimes, a marshal would arrest someone out in the territory and had to write to the marshal’s office to get a writ issued by Judge Parker before bringing them in to the jail.

It was common knowledge that Bass could not read or write before he married Jennie, but he managed to get others to write his letters requesting writs. He would also have someone read him the writs that he was serving. After arresting someone on a writ, he would find someone to identify them to make sure he had arrested the right person. He never arrested the wrong person. Over time, he had a good enough memory that he could identify enough words to be able to do his job. What he lacked in training to read and write, he made up for by his memory. He had never been accused of being stupid. And his wife, Jennie, who had been taught to read and write, was gradually teaching him.

Marshal Boles told Bass: “I have 11 warrants here that need to be served and the parties brought back to Fort Smith, live or dead. I have a warrant for Chub Moore, a white man who killed a negro who raped a white woman, One Eye Hanna, a Creek Indian wanted for murder, Jedick Jackson and John Bruner and Frank Buck, who are colored and wanted for horse thievery, Jim Mack, a Chickasaw, wanted for larceny, John Hoyt, A. Smith, and J. M. McConnell, all whites, and Alex Baker and Daniel Dorsey, Creek Indians, all for introducing. Of course, if you run into anyone else you know is wanted, or the Lighthorse have arrested anyone you want to bring in, we will pay you the fees on them. There is a $1,000 reward each for Jackson, Bruner and Buck.”

“All right,” Bass told him, “I will get after them as soon as I get a new cook and get all my gear loaded at the livery stable. Frank Pierce will be my posse man on this trip. I don’t see needing any more than that.”

After finding a cook, Bass hit the long trail to Indian Territory one more time.