In the May of 1863, Anthony Armstrong had travelled alone from his home in Arizona to Cambridge, Massachusetts; in order to take up his place at the Law School at Harvard. He was just eighteen years of age. In the event, he never reached Cambridge. That period was, thought some, a crucial point in the War between the States, with England supposedly on the verge of recognising the Confederacy and offering its support to the fledgling nation. Lee, flushed with his victory at Chancellorsville, had just embarked upon the invasion of the North. Anthony, like all his family, hated the very idea of slavery and was hoping to see the South defeated by Mr Lincoln and his army. Whether he was motivated by such noble sentiments as a hatred of the institutions of the South, or perhaps just because he was young and sought adventure; whatever the reason, no sooner had the young boy arrived in Massachusetts than he enlisted in the Federal Army.
From that May of 1863 until the signing of the armistice at Appomattox Court House, two years later, Anthony Armstrong was in the thick of the fiercest fighting ever seen on the North American continent. When his mother got word that he had enlisted in the army, she was struck all of a heap and fainted away dead on the spot. Seth Armstrong was more phlegmatic about it, merely observing that he had done much the same thing himself at a similar age.
There were no furloughs for the Union forces as they fought their way into the southern states and it was two years before Anthony was able to return home to his mother and father. When he fetched up at the farmhouse towards the end of April in 1865, the first person he met was his mother. She gave him such a slap around his face that two of his teeth were loosened. She had never thought to see her beloved baby son again alive.
They all thought that Anthony had ruined his chances of studying at Harvard by vanishing en route in that way, but it appeared not. Indeed, the college expressed their honour at being able to welcome a veteran of the late war into their halls. So it was that after spending the summer of 1865 at home, Anthony Armstrong set off again for Harvard that fall; this time arriving without any detours.
He fitted in well enough at college, but his experiences of war had marked him and everybody knew that he was in some way a man apart. From September 1865 to April 1867, Anthony Armstrong did not leave Massachusetts once and it was only as Easter approached that he felt that it was time to go back to Arizona and see his family again.
Whoever had shot Seth Armstrong had not stayed around afterwards to see the consequences of it. As Anthony looked round for a target, he heard the drumming of hoof beats on the other side of a rise of ground about a quarter mile from where he lay. At that range, hitting his father could surely have been no more than a fluke. Whoever had fired at them had most likely only intended the shot as a warning and it was mere ill fortune which had led to the ball finding a lodging-place in Seth Armstrong’s breast.
There was a small, neat hole in his father’s shirt, with a little staining around it. Anthony said, “Pa, can you hear me?”
“Course I can hear you, you young fool,” replied his father quietly, “You think I been struck deaf? I been shot in the chest, not my ear.”
“Thank the Lord for that,” said his son piously, “When you didn’t move, I thought…”
“Nothin’ o’ the sort. I don’t want to move, not ‘til I know where the ball is. I don’t want to dislodge it and cause myself a mischief.”
“You want I should look?”
“Course I do, you damn’ fool. Who else is round to do it?”
Despite his rough words, the old man was right glad that it had been his youngest son near at hand when this misfortune had struck him. Had it been Tom or Jack, they would have gone racing off after the man who had fired the shot, chased the shooter half way across the territory and then killed him. Meanwhile, he himself would have expired quietly; having been quite forgotten in his son‘s quest for vengeance. Anthony was a horse of another colour and Seth Armstrong knew that not only would he deal with the wound first, before even thinking about any retaliation, but that he probably knew more about tending to bullet wounds than his brothers.
Gingerly, Anthony Armstrong probed the area around the wound in his father’s chest. He said, “Does it hurt when you breathe in, pa?”
Seth took a deep gulp and said, “No, not at all. Seems like it ain’t through my lung, which is a mercy.”
“Is it painful when I prod you here?”
“Yes, it is, you clumsy oaf. Mind what you’re about.”
“You know what I think? I’m thinking that the ball’s cracked one of your ribs and now it’s just resting in the chest cavity. We can fish it out, and the wound doesn’t turn bad, I think you’ll be right as rain.”
His father grunted. “Ain’t you the optimist? Maybe you’re right, though. Leastways about the cracked rib. I think the bone took most of the force out o’ it and it’s just kind of nestled there. Think you can handle it, or need I send to town for the doctor?”
Anthony considered the question seriously for a spell and then said slowly, “I reckon that doctor or no doctor, I’ve likely had more experience of this than most men. If you’re agreeable, I’ll do it for you. It’ll hurt like hell though. And I surely ain’t about to do it here, with cowshit all over the place.”
“You think it’s nigh enough the surface to fish out?”
“I hope so. But don’t you move now. You start walking, you might send it rattling down the Lord knows where. I’ll fetch the buckboard and tote you back to the house.”
In front of his father, Anthony had tried to display as much confidence as possible, not wanting his pa to feel anxious, but once he was heading back to the house, his face grew grave. For all that he’d reassured his father, he knew fine well that digging out that ball wasn’t apt to be a simple business.
His mother was working in the kitchen and as soon as her son walked through the door, she saw at once that something was amiss. “Where’s your father?”
“Don’t worry, there’s been an accident.”
“Accident,” said Martha Armstrong sharply, “He’s taken a fall or what?”
“Not exactly. Listen, I’m going to harness up the buckboard and bring him back here. Can you boil up some water?”
Nothing but her terror at the thought of something bad befalling her husband or sons would have caused Mrs Armstrong to take the Lord’s name in vain. She said, “Mother of God boy, what ails him?”
“He’s been shot,” said her son bluntly, “I’m going to dig the ball out if I can.”
“Is it mortal? Will he live?”
“I don’t know ma, and that’s the God’s honest truth. The sooner I bring him back here, the sooner we’ll know.”
His father had not moved at all; having been laying as still and quiet as he could under the circumstances. Anthony said, “Pa, I’m going to lift you onto the buckboard. Just relax and don’t move more than you can help.”
Seth Armstrong said nothing, just nodded. He too knew that there was an excellent chance that the bullet was going to be knocked loose and end up deep in his body. If that happened, he was as good as dead.
The defining feature of Martha Armstrong’s life, and also her tragedy, was that none of her daughters had survived infancy. She had lived for over thirty years in an excusively male environment, which meant that at times such as this, she knew what needed to be done and wasted no time in doing it. She had in the past patched up her husband and sons when they had broken collar bones tumbling from horses, lost teeth in fist fights, needed knife wounds to be sewn up or even the occasional bullet wound to be dressed. This had been her married life, with no leavening of femininity. No comforting of a lovestruck young daughter, no delivering a baby for a daughter; nothing of that sort at all. So it was that when she heard that her husband had been shot, she simply set to and cleared the kitchen, turning it into something resembling a field hospital. The table had been cleared and scrubbed clean; scissors and thread lay at hand, should a wound need stitching.
“Lay him on the table,” Martha told her son, when he appeared, carrying her husband in his arms. When he’d been laid gently down, she went over and said, “Seth, what’s become o’ you? You hang on now. Our boy’ll do what’s needed.” She took her husband’s hand and he squeezed it gently; smiling at her.
Meanwhile, Anthony was boiling up a blunt knife and a teaspoon, hoping that they would suffice. While they were in the pot, he went over to his father and unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it back so that the wound was exposed. “You want some liquor, ’fore we begin? It’s going to hurt like the Devil.”
Seth shook his head impatiently, saying, “Stop fooling round and do it. I stood pain enough before this day.”
After washing his hands and fishing the knife and spoon out of the water, satisfying himself that they were perfectly clean; Anthony started work. His father did not move a muscle while his son inserted the tip of the knife into the wound and jiggled it about a little. He gave a sigh of relief when the knife scraped against something hard and rough. Judging by its position, about an inch or less in, it wasn’t the bone of the ribs. It could only be that he had found the ball. Having satisfied himself that he had found the bullet, he at once withdrew the knife; fearful of pushing the lead ball deeper into the wound. Then, without further hesitation, he picked up the spoon and swiftly gouged it deep into the hole in his father’ chest. He aimed well to one side, intending to scoop out a chunk of flesh along with the ball, rather than run the risk of pushing the bullet in further; perhaps out of his reach.
Throughout the whole of this sickeningly painful procedure, his father stayed completely still and made no sound at all. When he had finished though, Anthony noticed beads of bright blood on his fathers lower lip where he had bitten it. The ball came out in the spoon, dropping to the floor as he yanked it out. He said to his mother, “We’d best dress that wound. It won’t do to leave it open to the air like that.”
“I’ll do that. I hear horses outside. You’d better see who it is.”
A sudden apprehension of danger gripped him and Anthony strode over to the wall and took down the scattergun which was hanging there. He cocked both hammers and then went to the door, kicking it open and marching straight out into the yard with the gun held to his shoulder.
Tom, Jack and Andrew were more than a little taken aback to find their baby brother drawing down on them with a shotgun. Tom said, “What in the hell are you playing at little brother? What’s goin’ on?”
“Pa’s been shot. Thought you three might have come to finish off the job.”
“Shot?” exclaimed Tom, “Who shot him? Is he all right?”
“I just taken the ball out. I think he’ll do. As for who shot him, I was hoping you boys could tell me that.”
The three men on horseback looked sideways at each other, none of them wishing to be the one to explain. At length, Tom said, “Pa doesn’t want you getting mixed up in anything. He’s that proud o’ you, you goin’ to be a lawyer and all. Said as he’d skin any one of us as told you any of our games.”
“This something to do with the Doolans?”
“You might say so,” said Jack.
“Ma know what it’s about?”
“She guesses plenty, but you know her. She never asks nothing.”
Anthony lowered the scattergun and carefully uncocked the piece. Then he said, “We’ll talk on this later. For now, we all know that somebody tried to kill pa. We’d best set a guard on the house. I’m not fixing for any harm to come to either ma or pa.”
The four of them entered the kitchen, to find their mother winding a bandage around her husband’s chest. She turned round from this task and said abruptly, “I don’t want you boys milling round and causing a fuss. Stay out now, ‘til I got your pa comfortable.”
This was pretty plain talking and so the young men backed out of the kitchen and strolled together in the general direction of the barn. Anthony said, “By the by, I noticed pa’s not as sharp as he once was. Any of you seen that too?”
“That’s the nub o’ the matter, in a manner of speaking,” said Tom slowly, “Meaning that pa ain’t exactly his self lately. He’s forgetful, don’t know half the time what we’re up to.”
Jack chimed in, saying, “So’s not to shame him, we don’t say over much ‘bout it. Like it might be he says, ‘You boys get on with what needs doing’, but then later on he’s cursin’ up hill and down dale on account of he’s forgot where we are.”
Anthony frowned. “That happen often?”
“Most days lately,” said Andrew, “An’ it’s getting’ worse. He gets confused too about things. Couple o’ days back, he was talkin’ ‘bout you coming home and said as you’d been in the army a fair spell. He’d forgot about Harvard an’ all, thought you was still at war.”
“What does ma say?” asked Anthony, “She know all this?”
“Sure she does,” said Tom, “But she won’t talk to us about it none. Don’t want to think on it, I guess.”
The four of them stopped by the barn and his brothers lit up and stood smoking for a space. Then Anthony asked, “So who shot him? Don’t say you don’t know, ‘cause I can tell you weren’t surprised to hear it. What’s going one?”
None of his three brothers spoke for a while and it was fairly clear to Anthony that there were things going on from which they hoped to shield him. How much of this was because he was their baby brother and to what extent it was that his pa had never wanted to see him involved in dishonest business; he could not say. But he was determined to find out what the score was, so that he could help to protect his father.
At last, Tom said, “Here’s the way of it. You know how pa was always willin’ to deal in steers which weren’t always bought straight and paid for?”
“Knew stuff like that was done,” said Anthony, “I never needed any of you to tell me about it. I have eyes in my head.”
“Well then,” continued Tom, “Lately, cattle has been a drug on the market. Price has dropped ‘til it ain’t hardly worth takin’ ‘em to sell. Something to do with railheads being set up in Kansas and herds drove up from Texas. Whatever ‘tis, it’s been the ruination of us and the Doolans both.”
Anthony cast his gaze around the house and barn, the rolling land around them, which stretched as far as the eye could see for hundreds of acres. He said, “We don’t look to be paupers yet awhile.”
“Well, it ain’t from steers. It’s horses.”
“You’re breeding horses? Or buying and selling them? I never knew that. When did that all start?”
“We ain’t breedin’ of ‘em, nor buyin’ ‘em either,” said Jack Armstrong, staring moodily towards the distant horizon, “We’re stealin’ ‘em.”
“You’re stealing horses?” exclaimed Anthony, aghast, “Landsakes, what’s the matter with you all? Is this pa’s idea?”
“What it is, Anthony,” said Andrew, “Is that pa was always right good at knowing about how to deal in steers. When the bottom fell out o’ that market, he was lost. Couldn’t cope or think what to do next. Me and the others, we kind of stepped in and branched out, as you might say.”
“Horses, though!” said Anthony, genuinely shocked.
In Washington or New York, the theft of a horse was no great matter. You might fetch up in the courthouse for taking a man’s horse, but you’d be unlucky to get more than a fine for it. Out in the western territories though, things were very different. The theft of his horse could condemn a man to a lingering death in the desert or leave him at the mercy of bloodthirsty savages. Horses had an almost mystical significance for those living in wild country on the edge of the frontier. Few types were more despised than horse thieves and the fellow who ventured into that line of work was just begging to end up being invited to a necktie party and jerked to Jesus at the end of a hang-rope.
“Pa thinks that we’re still taking mavericks and such and raisin’ them ourselves,” said Jack, “He’s afeared that you’ll hear of it and he wants you to stay out of trouble, seein’ as you’re set to be a lawyer. He don’t know nothing’ about the horses though. Not a damn’ thing. You’re not to say a word to him about all this, neither.”
Anthony’s mind had been working rapidly and he thought that he knew now what had precipitated the attempt on his father’s life. He said, “I’m guessing then that the Doolan’s have their tails in the same crack and you’re all competing for the same goods. Is that the strength of it?”
“Pretty much,” Tom said, “Old man Doolan’s been hiring more men lately and we’ve been expectin’ something. Not this though.”
“I’ll ride over to see him tonight,” said Anthony, “See if I can make the peace with him. This can’t carry on, not with pa wounded and ma there in the house.”
“You can’t go up to Doolan’s by yourself,” Tom told him flatly, “If it’s got as far as shooting, then they’ll think nothing of shooting you down as well.”
“I don’t think so. I always got on well enough with Mr Doolan and his boys. Anyways, he knows I’m nothing to do with all this, having been out east for all that time. I’ll reason with him. You’ll see, it’ll be fine.”
Jack interrupted at this point, saying to his brothers, “Anthony’s got a point. He don’t carry iron and see how he’s dressed. They won’t trouble him and Mr Doolan always had a soft spot for him, ‘fore him and pa fell out.”
When they went back into the house, it was to find that their father had been helped to bed by his wife and was resting. She’d examined the wound and splashed some lye round it. From all that she could see it was clean enough and with a little luck, her husband would pull through. When her four sons were settled in the kitchen, Martha said to them, “I don’t enquire what’s going on, but I tell you now I don’t want any one of you seeking vengeance or an foolishness of that kind. I look to you Tom, to put a stop to this and I don’t mean by going off and shooting Michael Doolan, either. You hear what I tell you?”
“Sure, ma” said Tom, “Anthony says he’s a goin’ to ride over and smooth things over with ‘em. Try to make peace.”
His mother looked long and searchingly at Anthony and then nodded her head slowly. “I’ll allow there’s some sense in that scheme. The boy’s got a head on his shoulders and what’s more he uses it, which is more than can be said for some folk as I could mention.” She said to Anthony, “When you going over there, son?”
“I thought in an hour or two. Nobody has any objection, I‘ll take the bay mare.”
“Mind yourself. There’s some rare scoundrels hunkered down round the Doolan spread these days. Ragamuffins and scamps from both armies, men as has nothing to do but fight and suchlike. You mind how you step.”
Anthony looked back steadily at his mother and said quietly, “It’s like I told the others, ma. I’ll reason with them.”