Read Online Sudden Country by Loren D. Estleman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
Tags: Action & Adventure, Western
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at every stop; after some persuasion by Mr. Knox and Judge Blod and an exchange of money, he released them in a sandy lot nearby and clubbed them to death with a blackthorn stick he carried for that purpose. The snake-catcher complained of stiffness in the arm that had been bitten ten hours earlier, but otherwise appeared no worse for the experience. Of all my recollections from the time, that one is questioned most often. I have never met anyone else who demonstrated immunity to poisonous snakebites.
And the weapons! Amarillo's ordinance prohibiting the carrying of firearms did not apply to men leaving town, and so the parade of long guns and pistolsâthrust inside belts, riding in holsters on hips and under arms, or just simply carried by handâsuggested a convention of gunsmiths. In addition to the expected array of Colts and Winchesters, there were Sharps and Remington buffalo guns, Creedmore competition rifles with mounted scopes, LaMatte .36 caliber pistols equipped with secondary barrels that fired birdshot, pepper-boxes, Greener shotguns, Yellow Boy Henrys, and, in the possession of the man called Blackwater, a British Enfield carbine that he insisted had seen action in the Zulu War of 1879, in the hands of a cousin who had sold his services to Her Majesty's army. In the Texas of 1890, large public displays of percussion weapons were confined to hunting parties and not usually on railroad platforms; hence our celebrity. I confess that I myself carried my blanket roll with the Winchester stock exposed rather higher than necessary.
By contrast with all this ostentation, Ben Wedlock cut a subdued figure in an old Confederate campaign hat with the brim tugged down over his Dresden eye and a canvas coat buttoned over a bulge that I supposed belonged to his Remington revolver. He was carrying a McClellan saddle and pouches and leading a sorrel stallion that stood at least eighteen hands high. True to his prejudice, the animal was all one color. The muscles on its flanks stood out like sculpture. I asked Wedlock what he called it.
"Nicodemus. I've had him ten year come August, and I do believe he's commencing to be a patch on Old Deuteronomy." He laughed when the horse whinnied angrily. "Listen to him. He don't countenance being compared."
"Is that not a Union saddle you have?" I asked.
"I inherited it off a Yankee officer at Second Manassas. I taken the rag for it often enough. If you ride with the stirrups low it's the second next best thing to sitting at home. The next best thing is walking." He took his place in line at the bottom of the ramp to the stock car.
"Did you know Robert E. Lee?"
"Seen him horseback once at Sharpsburg. He looked a vengesome angel with his white hair and beard."
"Did you fight for slavery?"
"Didn't none of us do that. Most of us never seen a slave our whole lives, much less owned any. That war wasn't over slavery. We was fighting for Southern independence. You'll hear different, but they're lies."
I changed the subject, for I sensed that I had struck a raw place. "Will we see Indians where we're going?"
"As well ask will we catch fleas in a kennel."
"Are they as savage as Judge Blod says they are in his books?"
"I don't read much. But some are, some ain't, same as white men. One thing you got to have in bushels with an injun is patience. He'll talk about the weather and his wife's piles and how many buffaloes he seen that week and just about anything but the thing you come there to talk about till he runs out of it. Then he'll get to business. But that's talk. If it's your scalp he admires he'll get to it first thing. They got priorities."
"Mr. Wedlockâ"
"There ain't been no Mr. Wedlock since a free nigger named Eustace dropped a rooftree on my paw's head accidental-like back in '56," he said. "I'm Ben if you're Davy."
"Ben. Did you know that man Pike?"
"Seen him in there a time or two. I reckon he got wind there was hiring going on. Mind, if I knew he kept company
And the weapons! Amarillo's ordinance prohibiting the carrying of firearms did not apply to men leaving town, and so the parade of long guns and pistolsâthrust inside belts, riding in holsters on hips and under arms, or just simply carried by handâsuggested a convention of gunsmiths. In addition to the expected array of Colts and Winchesters, there were Sharps and Remington buffalo guns, Creedmore competition rifles with mounted scopes, LaMatte .36 caliber pistols equipped with secondary barrels that fired birdshot, pepper-boxes, Greener shotguns, Yellow Boy Henrys, and, in the possession of the man called Blackwater, a British Enfield carbine that he insisted had seen action in the Zulu War of 1879, in the hands of a cousin who had sold his services to Her Majesty's army. In the Texas of 1890, large public displays of percussion weapons were confined to hunting parties and not usually on railroad platforms; hence our celebrity. I confess that I myself carried my blanket roll with the Winchester stock exposed rather higher than necessary.
By contrast with all this ostentation, Ben Wedlock cut a subdued figure in an old Confederate campaign hat with the brim tugged down over his Dresden eye and a canvas coat buttoned over a bulge that I supposed belonged to his Remington revolver. He was carrying a McClellan saddle and pouches and leading a sorrel stallion that stood at least eighteen hands high. True to his prejudice, the animal was all one color. The muscles on its flanks stood out like sculpture. I asked Wedlock what he called it.
"Nicodemus. I've had him ten year come August, and I do believe he's commencing to be a patch on Old Deuteronomy." He laughed when the horse whinnied angrily. "Listen to him. He don't countenance being compared."
"Is that not a Union saddle you have?" I asked.
"I inherited it off a Yankee officer at Second Manassas. I taken the rag for it often enough. If you ride with the stirrups low it's the second next best thing to sitting at home. The next best thing is walking." He took his place in line at the bottom of the ramp to the stock car.
"Did you know Robert E. Lee?"
"Seen him horseback once at Sharpsburg. He looked a vengesome angel with his white hair and beard."
"Did you fight for slavery?"
"Didn't none of us do that. Most of us never seen a slave our whole lives, much less owned any. That war wasn't over slavery. We was fighting for Southern independence. You'll hear different, but they're lies."
I changed the subject, for I sensed that I had struck a raw place. "Will we see Indians where we're going?"
"As well ask will we catch fleas in a kennel."
"Are they as savage as Judge Blod says they are in his books?"
"I don't read much. But some are, some ain't, same as white men. One thing you got to have in bushels with an injun is patience. He'll talk about the weather and his wife's piles and how many buffaloes he seen that week and just about anything but the thing you come there to talk about till he runs out of it. Then he'll get to business. But that's talk. If it's your scalp he admires he'll get to it first thing. They got priorities."
"Mr. Wedlockâ"
"There ain't been no Mr. Wedlock since a free nigger named Eustace dropped a rooftree on my paw's head accidental-like back in '56," he said. "I'm Ben if you're Davy."
"Ben. Did you know that man Pike?"
"Seen him in there a time or two. I reckon he got wind there was hiring going on. Mind, if I knew he kept company
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