Ben Saddler did not make any sudden move, nor did he speak for a second or two. Then he said,
‘You be Joe Collins, as was with my old partner Stock. Is that how it stands?’
‘That it is. What become o’ Stock?’
‘I shot him down.’
‘Is he dead?’
Saddler laughed out loud. ‘You don’t know me, do you Collins? When I shoot a man, I mean for to kill him dead. Abraham Stock died not two minutes after you dug up and ran.’
The other man flushed slightly on hearing Saddler claim that he had ‘run’. ‘You say what, you whore’s son? You think I run away from you?’
‘Watch your mouth. There’s a child present.’ Turning to Abigail, Saddler said, ‘Abigail, you cut along now and set over there on the porch of yon’ store.’ He pointed to a building twenty-five yards or so from them. He was relieved when the girl at once trotted obediently off to sit where he had bid her. Once she was safely out of the way, he turned back to Collins.
‘I got no quarrel with you,’ he said. ‘You an’ Stock set up as bushwhackers and chose the wrong man to rob. That’s how it goes sometimes. I ain’t got a grudge.’ From Saddler’s perspective the matter was quite simple and he was wholly in the right. Two men had tried to rob him and then come off worse. If he was happy to forget the business, then he was damned if he knew why the other party should be determined to carry on the dispute. It was over and finished and the man standing before him had escaped with his life. He ought to be counting his self lucky, not come now getting ready to cut up rough about the affair.
It was plain as a pikestaff that the man called Joe Collins held a contrary view of the matter to that to which Saddler himself subscribed. Indeed, he said as much, reasoning out the case in this way:
‘You shot my wrist. See here, where my arm is in a sling? Doctor says there’s nothing to be done. The bone is smashed to atoms and I’m like to lose the hand. Even if I don’t, it’ll never be any use to me. You ever try riding with one hand?’
‘I tried it once or twice,’ admitted Saddler in a cheerful conversational tone. ‘Tried it, but it didn’t really answer. I always found it better to use both hands on the reins. Still and all, you can get used to ’most anything in time. Or so they say.’
‘You made a cripple of me. Now you pay for it.’
‘Truth is, Collins, I am mighty busy right now. That child over yonder, I am takin’ her to her family. It’s a long story, but I can’t risk my life over this. I’m sorry about your hand, but you would a done better not to trouble me in the first place. Least you’re still alive, which Abraham Stock is not. Leave it alone now and we’ll go our own ways.’
‘You think so? I’ll have blood.’
The man’s pigheadedness was beginning to irk Saddler and of a sudden, he lost patience, saying, ‘All right you troublesome bastard, if you’ll have it so. You’ll have blood? Happen it’ll be your own. I take it you’re right-handed?’
‘I am.’
‘So you can draw well enough?’
‘You’ll see how well I can draw directly.’
Without taking his eyes off the fellow for the least fraction of a second, Saddler backed off, moving slowly into what passed for a street, the space separating the saloon from the nearby stores. Collins said nothing more but also moved slowly backwards, until the two of them were facing each other at a distance of some thirty feet. Passers-by hastened to move, so that they were not behind either of the men. From the resigned and practised way that they undertook this manoeuvre it was apparent that dodging stray bullets like this was not exactly a novelty for the residents of Fort Renown.
Collins was sporting a fancy rig of tooled black leather. He looked the part of a gunfighter far more than the shabby figure facing him in that street, with an old pistol tucked carelessly in his belt. Appearances are often deceptive, though, and in truth Saddler had not the least apprehension about the outcome of this contest. He was quicker than a rattlesnake at work of this sort and unless he mistook the man greatly, Joe Collins was already as good as dead.
The two of them stood there, neither venturing to draw. They held this position for something like a minute before Collins went for his pistol. He was quick enough, but had nowhere near Saddler’s speed. The old Navy Colt was in his hand, cocked and levelled in the time that it took Collins to begin pulling his own pistol. Saddler fired twice, in quick succession. His first bullet took his opponent in the chest and before the man fell, he followed up with a more carefully aimed shot through the man’s forehead. Joe Collins was dead before he hit the ground.
Saddler called out to the spectators, ‘You all saw that. I gave him a fair chance. Anywise, I didn’t even want this fight.’
It had been a clean contest and nobody would blame him for the death. He had started walking towards Abigail when a man from the watching crowd stepped forward. He was an older man, with a long, drooping white moustache. He had a silver star on his jacket and said,
‘I’m a US marshal. You’re under arrest.’
‘What?’ said Saddler in amazement. ‘That was a fair fight an’ he started it into the bargain. Ask any of those over by that there saloon.’ He called out to a couple of loafers. ‘You saw what happened. Tell the marshal here.’
The marshal gave a short, barking laugh. ‘You think I give a shit if you trash kill each other? It’s nothing to me. You don’t call me to mind, do you, Saddler?’
Saddler looked closely at the man and then let out a resigned sigh. ‘Aaah!’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said the marshal. ‘Aaah! You’re Ben Saddler and there’s a warrant outstanding against you.’
‘A warrant? The hell are you talking about?’
‘Six months ago you were running rifles into the territories. No,’ he said, as Saddler began instinctively to deny the suggestion, ‘you can save that for the judge. I’m taking you to Greensborough, where you’ll stand trial.’ Saying which, he reached out his hand and took Saddler’s pistol from him. Then he took the unresisting man’s arm and led him away from the scene of his late triumph against Joe Collins.
Abigail had watched the gunfight with great interest, never doubting for a single moment that Saddler would best the other. When the man came up afterwards and led Saddler away, she sensed that it would be better to keep her distance. As she trailed along a few paces behind them, she wondered if this was the same feeling that Mr Saddler had talked of, when he could just feel that trouble was brewing. Right now, she just knew that the best thing to do was hang back and see where her friend was being taken. From the way that Saddler allowed himself to be marched along like this and had meekly surrendered up his gun, Abigail guessed that this was a lawman.
Now Abigail Filer might only be twelve years of age and have led a pretty sheltered life into the bargain, but she was not a perfect fool. She had guessed soon after meeting him that Ben Saddler was a man who made his money in various ways that would not bear close examination. She also knew something else, and that was that beneath that devil-may-care exterior, beat a kind and loving heart. She was sure that Saddler was a fundamentally good man.
On a more practical level, he had promised to get her to her mother’s folks in Kansas and she had the notion that he would not just make a few cursory enquiries to that end, but saw the matter more in the nature of being a holy duty. If some busybody found that she was wandering alone in the Indian Territories, then she was apt to be taken into charge and probably packed off to an orphans’ asylum. Once there, the chances were that it would be very hard for anybody to make contact with her mother’s folks, seeing as she didn’t even know her mother’s maiden name. She needed Mr Saddler and if that meant helping him to evade the law, then so be it.
As they walked along, Saddler said to the marshal, ‘Were you looking for me here?’
Marshal Devlin snorted derisively, ‘You think I got nothing better to do than go chasing after a saddle-bum like you? No, I had business hereabouts. It was just chance as set me in your path. I been after a pair of scamps, but they’ll keep.’
‘You couldn’t let bygones be bygones, Devlin? I got pressing matters need attending to.’
‘I’ll be bound you have. What is it this time, Saddler? More guns for the Chickasaw? Moonshine for the Choctaw? No, you been dancing between the raindrops for long enough. Here is where you learn some respect for the law.’ ‘Not from you, I won’t!’ muttered Saddler.
Now as Marshal Devlin very well knew, his authority in the Choctaw nation was of a very tenuous and debatable nature. Had Saddler been prepared to make a fight of it, there would have been little enough that Devlin could have done to enforce his will. Still, he knew his man. People like Saddler might break the law and get up to all manner of mischief, but when faced by a man with a star, they would generally knuckle under, and so it had proved in the present circumstance.
Because there was no real law in Fort Renown, there was no jail or sheriff’s office where a man like Ben Saddler could be held overnight. The town’s vigilance committee, however, acknowledged the authority of any US marshal and went out of its way to cooperate and provide facilities for such men. Once before Devlin had needed somewhere to keep a man locked up overnight, and Jack Stoker, the head of the vigilance committee, had lent him the use of a storage shed out back of his premises. Stoker ran the agricultural provisions store.
Abigail tried to look inconspicuous as she stood outside the store next to Stoker’s and watched as the marshal led Saddler in, then emerged a minute later with a large ring on which were a number of keys. He led his captive round the back of the store to a wooden shed. The child saw Saddler pushed roughly into this and the door locked behind him. Acting on an impulse, Abigail skipped quickly back into the store and began examining some zinc pails. The storekeeper ignored her. When Marshal Devlin returned with the keys she watched out of the corner of her eye as the man behind the counter hung them carelessly on a hook in the wall, just above his head.
Not wanting to draw attention to herself, Abigail left the store and tried to think out the best course of action. There would be no chance of sneaking into the store and simply taking that bunch of keys. No, she would need to get the storekeeper out of the way first. How if she brought him a message and told him that somebody in another part of the fort wished to see him? He might be fooled, but like as not he would then lock up his store behind him when he left. That wouldn’t answer. What was needed was something which would get that man running out of his store without stopping to think about his keys or anything else. She would need to think about this real hard.
Sitting on the floor of the stinking, dark shed Saddler felt a wave of despair engulf him. It was not so much that he minded being carted back to Greensborough to have his role in a little gunrunning investigated. At worst he would be looking at a hefty fine or perhaps six months in the penitentiary. His chief concern was the child whom he had promised to help. What would become of a helpless orphan girl stuck alone in the middle of the Indian Territories? What would become of her now?
Sunk in such gloomy thoughts and beginning to wonder if he should not tell Devlin of the child’s existence, so that some provision could be made for her, Saddler did not at first hear the soft scratching on the outside wall of his prison. Then a voice whispered,
‘Are you all right in there, Mr Saddler?’
‘Abigail? What are you about?’
‘I’m going to get you out of there. Don’t worry, I will have to go away for an hour or two, but be ready to leave when I unlock the door.’
‘Unlock the door? What are you up to, child? Listen, you must find that marshal and tell him that you are alone here. He will make arrangements for you to be taken somewhere safe.’
‘An orphanage, you mean? No, I will arrange things. I have to go now.’
‘No, Come back, Abigail. What are you doing?’ Saddler might as well have saved his breath. Abigail had evidently left, to undertake whatever plans she had formulated. He had been pleased to hear her voice, but had little hope that a child of such tender years would really be able to outfox that wily bastard Devlin.
Abigail went back to the rooming house, and after greeting the owner went into the room that Saddler had taken. Under the circumstances, she felt justified in going through his belongings, in order to see if there was anything that might help her to free him. Apart from his blanket and rifle there was little more than a flask of powder, a box of lucifers and a few other odds and ends. It did not seem to Abigail that she would be able to make much use of the rifle. She had never fired a gun in her life, and the time to begin was not on a desperate enterprise such as this. The powder, though; that might come in handy.
In all her twelve years Abigail Filer had never once cut loose and behaved in a riotous or even mischievous fashion. Perhaps it was holding back all those little devilments over the whole course of her childhood that contributed to the events that night. At any rate, she would soon make up for being so well behaved for over a decade. That same brain that had hitherto exercised itself with nothing more taxing than helping out in Sunday school was now devising a scheme so outrageous that even Ben Saddler himself might have been reluctant to embark upon it.
The saddles were heavy and Abigail knew that she would have to carry them out of Fort Renown one at a time. It would be necessary to tack up their mounts and then have them waiting near at hand because, if she followed the plan which was fermenting in her agile young mind, they needs must ride like the wind as soon as Saddler was free. On the landing outside the rooms was a can of lamp oil. That too would come in handy. This would be plain theft, but Abigail justified this sin to herself by recollecting that Saddler had paid for two rooms this night; neither of which would be occupied. Trading that off against a pint or so of lamp oil seemed to her a fair deal.
Getting the horses ready took considerably longer than Abigail had budgeted for. Each saddle was a journey to and from the place where they had booked the rooms. Then the blankets and so on were another two journeys. It was nearly nine before she had both horses tacked up and with their packs on them. The night in the corral had already, like their own rooms, been paid for. The boy watching over the animals asked if they were planning on leaving at once, but Abigail snubbed him and did not reply.
Now it was dark and, if she was going to undertake this business, it was time to do so. She felt breathless with anxiety. There was, at least as far as she knew, no scriptural justification for what she was about to do and she had little else upon which to draw. Certainly no real-life experience in her short life had given her any guidance on such a matter. Still, the only other choice was to go to that marshal and ask him to deliver her to the orphan’s asylum in Greensborough at the same time as he deposited Mr Saddler in the jailhouse. I’m darned, she thought, no, I’m . . . damned if I’ll do so.
There was no properly organized collection of garbage in Fort Renown, so folk tended to chuck their rubbish out back of their premises, until it built up too high. Then they would agree an afternoon and cart it all out of the fort and start a bonfire. Some people had warned that all the old bits of broken wood, torn paper and rags which began to pile up against the wooden walls of the fort were a fire hazard. This was particularly so, because every single building in those eight acres was built of nothing other than wood.
It had been a dry, hot summer and clearing away all the current crop of litter was overdue. It was observing all the junk heaped up at back of the buildings that had given Abigail her idea; that and witnessing the destruction by fire of the Indian Bureau offices in the Chickasaw nation.
Without attracting too much attention to herself Abigail made three little piles of smallish pieces of discarded wood, up against the logs which made up the wall of the stockade. She spaced them thirty feet apart and made the first of them a little way along from the shed in which Saddler was confined. In the third of the piles, the one furthest from the shed, she carefully positioned the copper powder-flask that she had found among Saddler’s things.
Then she gathered up bits of old newspaper, pieces of material and anything else flammable and pushed this kindling into the spaces between the pieces of wood which she had heaped up. There had been a church barbecue the previous summer at which she had helped out and she had been fascinated at how the fire had been started and maintained.
Over each of the three heaps she poured a little of the lamp oil that had been purloined from the rooming house.
It was quite dark by the time she had completed her preparations and Abigail crept to the shed behind the store.
‘Mr Saddler,’ she called softly, ‘Are you awake?’
‘I’m awake. Abigail, have you been to see Marshal Devlin and explained to him that you are alone and helpless?’
‘Not quite.’
‘Not quite? What the . . . deuce does that mean?’
‘In a minute I’ll have the key to this place. I’ve saddled up the horses and they’re ready to go. We will have to ride in the dark, but I dare say you know how to do that.’
‘What are you talking about, child? You can’t spring me from here. You mustn’t think of such a thing, it would make you a felon.’
‘Be ready in a few minutes. I’ll be back with the key.’
Saddler felt a cold hand clutch at his heart. ‘Abigail, you stop this nonsense right now, you hear what I say?’ There was no answer. He called slightly louder, ‘Abigail!’ It was obvious that the child had gone.
Saddler was worried out of his mind. What on earth could she be about? He was terrified that she would get into trouble herself. He would never forgive himself if he was responsible for a child that age getting into hot water with the law.
After leaving Mr Saddler and pretending that she couldn’t hear his frantic shouts for her to stop, Abigail went round to the front of the store again. Like most of the businesses in Fort Renown, the stores did not generally open until late morning and then carried on trading until after dark, or until there were no more customers. Through the window she could see the owner or clerk or whatever he was, sitting behind the counter and studying some ledgers. In the yellow gleam of the oil lamp, she could just make out the big ring of keys hanging on the wall near to him.
Clutching the box of lucifers tightly in her hand, Abigail returned to the back of the store and made her way cautiously along the wall of the fort towards the furthest of the piles she had built up. The air reeked with the smell of the kerosene which she had poured over it. Before she could give herself the chance to change her mind, Abigail struck one of the long matches and dropped it on to the oil soaked heap of junk. There was a whoosh and yellow flames leapt up into the night air.
About 20 years ago, I read a book written by an English Oxford graduate who bought a ranch in New Mexico. He lost one arm in a shooting accident and continued to ride his horses. In fact, after the accident he took up bear hunting in the mountains-of course on horseback. Here's the book: https://archive.org/details/meetmrgrizzlysag0000stev/page/n7/mode/2up
Yee haaah is the appropriate vernacular. I believe.