Fugitives

Cutter and the boy took one of the guards’ horses and a mule from the wagon team. Since the fugitives were chained left leg to right leg they rode double, the boy seated behind and facing back, holding the chain so the horse wouldn’t step into the loop. The lead on the mule was tied around his waist, which slowed their progress, lest the animal balk and pull off both riders.

Cutter figured they had the better part of two days before authorities in Springfield would come looking for them, so they rode steadily for the next twenty hours; moving through thickets off main roads, stopping only for water, avoiding farmhouses and towns as night fell. At dawn they came to the Little Osage River, which they followed west until the horse gave out.

They struck northwest, riding until the legs of the mule trembled so badly the animal could barely stand to drink. They dismounted and allowed it to graze, whelmed in a sea of bluestem, switchgrass, and Indiangrass, as high as the mule’s belly. They had reached tallgrass prairie, and Cutter seemed to relax as he shaded his eyes against the setting sun, scanning the horizon.
Ye ever been west, boy?

The boy shook his head. He was fighting fatigue. He hadn’t eaten much for a day and a half, and he knew if he laid his head down he would sleep, but he wasn’t sure what Cutter would do - kill him and chop off his foot? He’d seen Cutter murder three men without hesitation; surely another killing posed no problem. The boy promised himself he would fight if it came to that, and he thought of Little’s pistol in his waistband. He had no idea if the weapon would fire.

Cutter sat. He laid back in the long grass, folding his long arms behind his head.
I intend to sleep for a while. I’ll advise ye do the same. We’ll be off again shortly.
The boy listened as the sound of Cutter’s breathing slowed to an intermittent buzz. Slowly he lowered himself to the ground, silently vowing to stay alert. He looked up into the night sky, wondering at the scattered brightness of so many stars, more than he could ever recall seeing. A minute later he was sound asleep.

They slept for four hours before resuming travel that lasted through most of the following day. They rode until the waves of tall grass gave way to bluestem and wheatgrass. Trees became scarce; oak and hickory disappeared, leaving only shallow belts of cottonwood and willow to mark the region’s waterways, which ran generally west to east, forming a ladder of streams to confront the northbound travelers.

In late afternoon the mule began to founder, so they halted next to the skeleton of a lightning-killed cottonwood. A quarter mile to the west a willow thicket surrounded a shallow, blackwater pond. They hobbled the mule and walked to the slough, shouldering their way through the tangled growth until they sank ankle-deep in the sour-smelling muck. Set upon by swarms of buffalo gnats and mosquitoes they retreated, cursing, back to the tree where they stripped their wet shoes and socks and watched angry welts bloom on each other’s faces and necks. They ate the last of their food in silence.

The boy slept fitfully that night, waking often as coyotes prowled in the darkness, calling back and forth from the gullies and brush-filled ravines that webbed the surrounding country. Several times they came close enough for the boy to hear their quick footsteps in the dry grass, their panting as they tested the breezes that gently rattled the branches of the dead cottonwood.

Toward morning the boy fell into a sound sleep. He dreamed he was sitting at the crown of the cottonwood; to the west clouds of white dust rose like mountains in a red sky. He could hear horses running and men shouting, and the horses screamed and shots were fired, and he recognized his uncle and the red-bearded teamster along with Scoggins and the two dead guards, and they all carried drums which they struck in steady cadence as they emerged from the swirling dust. They walked to the tree and stood at the bottom looking up at the boy, playing a long roll. Cutter appeared in the middle of these men and the drums stopped. He was smiling at the boy, white teeth shining like stars, and he gripped the Springfield rifle like an axe and swung it against the tree’s blackened trunk, which shook and tilted until the boy felt himself falling.

Wake up boy.
Cutter prodded the boy with the rifle until he twitched and sat up, eyes wide.
Get ready. We got distance to cover.
The boy looked around, expecting to see the men in his dream. But he saw the tree still upright and realized he had been asleep. He looked at Cutter for a long moment.
Light, he said.
What?
William Light. My name.
Oh, said Cutter. Well, William, no breakfast this morning. I expect to possess a good stake soon enough, but we best pull foot.

For most of the morning the two walked, leading the footsore mule while the sun bore down upon them, burning their ears, noses and necks. The still, humid air radiated heat and the heavy, sweet smell of goldenrod; by midmorning the sun hammered the horizon into a shimmering, shallow water mirage. At noon the fugitives retreated to a shallow draw, where giant fossilized bones of creatures long dead shone white in the eroded walls. They sought the shade of a buckbrush thicket, but were roused by the appearance of a visitor.

An old Indian rode up to the edge of the draw, where he stopped to look at the chained travelers. The old man wore an ancient trader blanket wrapped about his waist, and a filthy turban on his head. He was mounted on a small pony the color of ripened barley. Across the withers he held a bow and two arrows. His skin was dark -- so dark the boy thought at first he was a runaway slave. He had never seen so many wrinkles on human skin. The Indian’s jaw and mouth were painted red, and a single, ragged feather dangled behind his right ear, which appeared small and misshapen poking out from a tangle of oily, shoulder-length hair.
The boy put his hand on the butt of the pistol.

Hold on boy.
Cutter raised a hand in greeting. The old man responded and began making sounds the boy did not recognize as language; he could not tell where one word ended and another began. But the Indian made signs as he spoke and Cutter seemed to understand.
Got any tabbacky on ye boy?
No.
Cutter held out his arms and slid his left hand down his right sleeve and shook his head. The old Indian quit speaking and stared silently at the travelers for a long moment before sawing the pony around and kicking it into a quick trot. The boy watched until horse and rider became a small dot on the landscape. He opened his mouth to speak, but the outlaw had already pulled his hat down over his face.
Kaw, he muttered.
What?
The Injun. A Kaw, I think. Bastards is thick as fleas around here. Surpised they ain't caught up with us before now.
He lifted his hat from his face.
Tell me boy. Ye got an eddycashun?
The boy shook his head.
No? Well, too much is made of it anyhow. A man’s entire obligation is to live his part, whatsoever he finds that to be. All else is sham. Each and every man is born with that knowledge. It’s the schools and churches that confuse it. They draw it out and replace it with the law, which is the whip they lay on ye to suit the conventions of capital and government. Them damn Injuns, heathens they are, they know it and want no part of it. No churches, no banks. They got it figured.
He leaned back, put his hat back over his face.
Yep, only thing they lack is the spondoolix.
---
By dusk they were well out on the prairie, a speck of movement in an eternity of short grass. Overhead the empty sky deepened.
To the boy the land had assumed an inhospitable barrenness, and he began to wonder if Cutter was insane and if they would perish from starvation or thirst, wandering in directions only the outlaw could ascribe, steered by currents unknown to a rational mind. Yet the boy did not speak, and as he walked it occurred to him that whatever fate awaited him in this place, it was his only course – the way his life was meant to play out.

They halted in the shallow light, Cutter shading his eyes, staring into the distance.
What ye lookin’ for, the boy asked.
Gotta be here. It’s close, I know it.
What?
The mule snuffled and let out a wheezy bray. Cutter smiled. He pointed at the animal.
See? Look at them ears. Foller them ears.
A half hour later they approached the rim of a shallow valley. Cutter turned and shook his finger at the mule.
Well? Where is it? Ye smelt somethin’, didn’t ye?

He took a step and disappeared; the ground seemed to open and swallow him. The boy followed, yanked by the leg chain into the void, drained from the prairie surface with scarcely a sound.
The drop was nine feet. They landed on the smooth dirt floor of a dugout, the dark earthen walls yellowed in the light of a lantern. Coughing, they slowly sat up in the dusty air, rubbing their eyes.
Across the space a white man and an Indian sat on wooden crates, staring at Cutter and the boy. The white man stood.
Henry? That you?
Teddy... I ain’t yer dead grammaw.
Ye found the dugout.
I guess so. The roof, anyway.
Cutter stood, brushing dirt from his shirt and hair.
C’mon boy.
The boy rose.
Who’s that?
This one says his name is William Light. Split the skull of some teamster in Westport. We was in the juzgado together.
He spit.
Say Teddy, ye got any grub? It’s been awhile since we et, and my gut’s damn near shriveled to nothin’.

Over a meal of antelope steaks the boy was introduced to Cutter’s cohorts: Theodore “Teddy” Cole and Eli Jumper. He learned that in June of the previous year Cole, a Texas native, had celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday by shooting a fourteen-year-old farm boy in the attempted robbery of a post office in Clinton, Missouri -- the crime for which Cutter had been arrested -- and that in March of that same year Jumper, a full-blooded Osage, had been baptized by Methodist missionaries at Shawnee Mission, Kansas territory. For the event Jumper wore a fancy shell ornament in his left ear, which he proudly showed the boy, along with the dried, blackened ear of the Sioux woman he murdered to obtain it.

It was a reunion of killers.

I got to tell you Henry, Cole said, I figured you was done for once them Missouri pullets got their hands on you.
Yeah well, they ain’t seen the day they can put the choke on Henry Cutter.
We didn’t know what to do. Me ‘n Eli, we just holed up here.
We’ll be on the move soon enough. First things first, though. Got to get shed of these damn bracelets. Fuckin’ guard throwed the keys in the crick.
He laughed.
I give that trash a little somethin’ to remember me by. Didn’t I, boy?
The boy looked at him.
I guess.
Cole regarded the boy.
What about him? Is he with us Henry?
Don’t know. Ain’t inquired that of him. Can ye shoot boy?
Reckon I could, if I had to.
How’d you kill the teamster? Cole asked.
The boy didn’t reply, but returned to his plate. Cutter answered.
Sheriff said he bashed him. What’d ye hit him with?
A pot lid.
Cole laughed.
A lid? What fer? Why’d you bash him?
Don’t propose to say.
Cole frowned.
Hell, he’s just a kid. Prob’ly wants to get back to his mam and pap. Say, Henry… mebbe they’d pay us to get him back… if we was to ask.
The boy shook his head.
Got no kin.
No family? How you been livin’ boy?
The boy looked up from his food. His eyes moved around the dirt walls of the dugout.
By the looks of it same as you all. Don’t appear they’s any big bugs in this ditch.

Cutter smiled. He slapped his knee and looked at Cole, who pointed at Jumper. Outside, the picketed horses raised their heads toward the dugout as the sound of laughter filtered out onto the dark prairie.