seeing all this, I had my eyes focused on Hawkface and Red. My twelve-gauge, on full cock, was pointed at Red’s belly as I heard myself say, “If you want to live, don’t move.” My voice was much stronger and more powerful than any words I had ever heard out of me.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bud reach for a pistol that was lying on the bar and Henry bring the butt of his rifle up under Bud’s jaw. Everything was a blur to me as Bud fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Then Red started talking real fast and reached for a rifle.
As I had been instructed, I pulled the trigger but the gun didn’t go off. One problem with old guns that have to be primed with powder is that sometimes the priming powder sputters for a few seconds before the gun goes off. Sometimes it doesn’t go off at all. There I was holding a sputtering gun on Red and him getting his rifle. I was praying my shotgun would fire.
At a glance Henry saw what was happening. He pulled down his rifle from having hit Bud in the jaw, and shot Red in the side of the head. Somehow in those moments I remembered Henry biting down on the percussion cap before we came inside. If he hadn’t, the cap would have come off the nipple when he hit Bud, and the rifle wouldn’t have fired when he shot Red. Henry had planned the whole thing.
I was still holding a twelve-gauge with a sputtering primer. Since Hawkface was also moving into action, I pulled the shotgun around toward him. As luck would have it, the shotgun went off when I lined it up on Hawkface. That ended the altercation except for Sam, who had reached under the bar.
Having picked up the pistol Bud had been reaching for, Henry leveled it on Sam, but spoke to me, “We can do this legal, or we can kill them all and walk out. What do you say, Ben?”
I heard myself say, still in that authoritative voice, “It don’t matter to me. Let’s let Sam decide.”
Sam said, “Boys, I’ll do whatever it takes. Let’s do it the clean way. There’s a shotgun under the bar. I’ll feel better if one of you comes around and gets it.”
As I went around the bar to get the shotgun, the woman came out of the back room screaming. I thought she was going to have a stroke.
His voice cold enough to freeze hot water, Henry said, “Shut up and sit on that stool,”
She sat, but kept on sniveling.
Henry said to Sam, “Step outside and look at those horses.”
When they returned, Sam was saying, “The three of them rode up on those horses. They were leading the mule. The Bar-S brand belongs to a little planter north of here. I don’t have any idea about the Flying W. It’s not from around here. The slick horse, the unbranded one, could be from anywhere. I’ve seen those men before but don’t know much about them.”
After going through Bud’s and his friends’ pockets, Henry said, “I only find six dollars and forty cents. They had a ten dollar gold piece that belonged to me.”
“It’s in the drawer. Take it and go,” Sam said.
Henry said, “No. You two worked for your pay. These three owe me three dollars and sixty cents, and for the chickens and eggs. Until someone claims them, and proves ownership, I’m taking these men’s outfits and weapons as payment. I’m also going to write out the story just as it happened and all four of us are going to sign it.”
Sam got pen, ink, and paper and Henry started writing. Starting with them taking his things at the river, Henry wrote the story three times. The writing took a full hour.
During the writing the woman quit sniveling and began to come on to us. She wanted fifty cents to go in the back room. Henry wasn’t having any of it. To tell the truth she began to look good to me, and I started thinking about it, but I didn’t have fifty cents.
Henry took some things from the pack on the mule and showed them to Sam. Sam believed the story after seeing the books with Henry’s name in them and the clothes, which fit him.
We left one paper with Sam, along with instructions that he was to fetch the sheriff before cleaning up the place and was to give the sheriff the paper. Henry also explained to Sam that he better do it right or, when we came back through the area, we would stuff his body in a gator hole.
Ma was awake and reading the Bible when we came riding in near midnight. Lilly was also awake. Having eyes only for Henry, I don’t think Lilly was aware of me walking in the door.
I told the story, but didn’t tell about the woman. Though it was in the paper Henry had written, and Ma would know, Lilly didn’t need to know at the time. Ma then said a prayer. She didn’t beat it to death. She just said a few words of thanks for us being safe. We all held hands while Ma said the words. Lilly held on to Henry’s hands a few seconds longer than to mine. Ma pretended not to notice. I didn’t care what either of them did, Henry was my man and I was already planning on going to Pensacola.
We heard later that Bud died from infection in his jaw a few days after the set-to. His jaw was so broken up, and he was so addled, that he never said another word after Henry hit him with the rifle butt. It was also said that the sheriff was satisfied with what Sam and the woman told him. He never even came to talk to us.
A second copy of Henry’s paper was left with Ma, along with the Bar-S mare and the extra guns we didn’t need. No one ever claimed the guns or the horses. Ma inquired and found out that Bud had actually traded legal for the Bar-S mare. Lilly’s still riding that mare. No record was ever found of the other horses.
Ma talked Henry into staying and resting for several days before we left for Pensacola. I don’t know what he was resting from. He looked rested enough to me by late the next morning when we both finally got up.
Lilly persuaded Henry to teach her something about riding every day while we were still at the house. Though they were never gone for more than a couple of hours on any day, Lilly quickly became a very confident rider. Henry and I also talked about the stuff in Henry’s medical book every day. He was proud of that book.
For those few days I mostly sat in front of the house and cleaned our weapons and saddles, and waited for the right time to announce that I was going to Pensacola. I also started reading that medical book of Henry’s. Being a slower reader than Henry, I had to read twice as long as him and had to ask him how to say some words. It turned out that some of the words were just the names of joints, parts, or muscles of animals or people. They’re all about the same. Having cut up lots of hogs and deer, I knew those parts. Anatomy was simple once you knew how to say the words. Ma encouraged me to sit and read.
One thing of note happened that made all of them feel I would be safe going off with Henry. Ma had a hen that hatched off some chicks. A big red hawk soon started hanging around and stealing one of those chicks every day or two. As most women do, Ma keeps a snuff can full of arsenic for just such an occasion. When one of the chicks died, she stuffed some arsenic up its rectum and laid it on a horse pen post. Within an hour the hawk swooped in and snatched that chick off the post. Having reloaded his .45 caliber Hawken, which I had just cleaned, Henry was standing at the corner of the house and saw the hawk. Not knowing Ma had poisoned the chick to kill the hawk, he threw up and shot the hawk going away at sixty yards. He killed it dead as a stump. Even though I had to clean the rifle again, I was smiling about that shot.
October 28, 1861
After getting
