I was only nine years old when Caleb York rode into town. Of course, I didn’t know he was Caleb York at the time; neither did anyone else, for that matter. It was not at all unusual, in 1875 Kansas, to see all manner of strangers passing through the various towns and settlements, so no one really noticed one more here and there.
This was even the case in a rickety little place like Waynetown, in the Flint Hills. This particular town was named after the late Thomas Wayne, the man who founded it, opened the first business, got elected mayor, and got murdered by a jealous husband. All this had happened within the space of three weeks. It turned out that his murder was somewhat unwarranted, though. It seems that the woman had entered his shop merely to buy a sack of flour. The husband, unfortunately for Wayne, was an impulsive fellow.
So it was that this stranger was paid no heed as he entered Waynetown. By no one except me, of course, for I was in the path of his approaching horse. He was traveling at no more than a fast trot, but a horse at any speed can be intimidating to a nine-year-old. I scurried to get out of the way and found myself falling into one of the town’s many mudholes.
As the stranger rode past, he nodded in my direction and said, “Don’t get too wet, son.”
That was how I first met Caleb York.
Maybe you’ve heard of Caleb York, and maybe you haven’t. Caleb was notorious in his time but history has largely ignored him. Where the Old West is concerned, it seems that the truly dangerous gunmen have escaped notice, while a few amateurs who hit a lucky streak here and there have become popular heroes. People have taken what little those fellows did and tacked on a bit here and sewn some on there and today they are legends.
In the summer of 1875 everybody in Waynetown knew about Caleb York and the men like him. They didn’t know what he looked like, but they were fairly certain that he wasn’t pretty. They knew that what he did wasn’t pretty, especially in light of their own recent troubles.
You see, Caleb York was a hired killer. He worked for the highest bidder and in the cattle wars the highest bidders were the rich ranchers trying to keep their empires in the face of the ever-advancing small settlers. From Texas to Colorado to Nebraska, Caleb York had left a trail of small ranchers lying dead behind him.
If the folks around Waynetown had known the identity of that silent stranger they would have been quite disturbed. The majority of them were small settlers. They were recent arrivals in the valley but they had dug in with the intention of staying a good long while, despite the hardship.
Hardship came in the form of Ike Majors, the local cattle baron. He had been running his herds through the valley for some time, and was not planning to change his habits to accommodate his new neighbors. He had, after all, single-handedly stolen the entire region from the Indians, so he felt justified in preventing anyone else from doing the same to him.
In addition to being unreasonable, Ike Majors also possessed a violent temper. He was the irate husband who had murdered our unfortunate town father. He murdered an additional four citizens before he discovered that the lady who had been seen consorting with them all had not been his wife at all. His wife had been out of town visiting relatives, a fact he had forgotten in the heat of his passion.
If the townspeople thought that Majors was jealous in regard to his wife –and even people who resembled his wife –they did not yet know the half of it. The sad truth was, he was much more jealous and protective of his land.
When the settlers refused to cooperate with him –his idea of cooperation being that they settle in Colorado instead –Ike lost his temper. He hired several local toughs to intimidate the troublesome newcomers. The opposition served only to harden their resolve. He then informed the settlers that before it was all over they would go either to Colorado or to hell, but they would not remain in his valley.
That was when Caleb York rode into town.
Of course, as previously noted, no one recognized him as Caleb York. But that was not the strange part, not by a long shot. The strange part was that Ike Majors was one of the few people in the West who was unfamiliar with York’s reputation.
He had never heard of the man, much less sent for him. He was as surprised as the settlers when York’s identity was revealed.
Naturally, Caleb was not just passing through. He had a definite purpose in coming to Waynetown, as we would all learn later. History may have forgotten him, but our little town never did.
Of all the West’s desperate gunmen, Caleb York was probably the most desperate. I was grown before I realized that. I don’t know if Caleb ever figured it out at all.
His story was a strange one. It was a lot more interesting than any of the fiction they produce for the cinema nowadays. It is the story of a gentle killer who changed a young boy’s life forever.
The young boy in question, of course, was me: Joseph P. Cutter. Seventy years ago I was known as “Joey”, and at the time I lived with my Aunt Sally and Uncle Burt. They had no children of their own so it was no great burden for them to take me in when my mother had decided to go away a few years earlier.
I wondered then where she had gone away to, and why. I often voiced these concerns to my guardians. I could never get a straight story from them. I eventually figured out on my own that she had died. Aunt Sally, my mother’s sister, believed that nine years old was too young to be told about death, and so withheld that crucial information from me. It was only after my brief association with Caleb York that I came to know that there was such a thing as death, and just what it meant. I was able to observe the process firsthand. And how can you really know life without knowing death?
At least that’s what Caleb used to say.
My Aunt Sally, like my mother, was quite a looker. Of course, in Waynetown, a well-groomed horse might be considered a looker. Aunt Sally, though, could have merited that description in even the finest cities, just as my mother could have.
In fact, to my young eyes, she and mother were practically identical. The only discernible difference was that Aunt Sally did not smile or laugh half so much as her younger sister had.
There was another difference, a major one, which I was not aware of at the time. This was the fact that Aunt Sally was considered “respectable”. My mother, in contrast, was not. I once overheard some ladies saying that Sara Cutter was a “kept woman”. I did not say anything, having learned at a young age that if you are seen and not heard you are far less likely to get hit, but inside I could not help bitterly disagreeing with that description of my mother. After all, I had certainly not kept her for very long.
So in social standing as well as in temperament, Aunt Sally was my mother’s polar opposite. She seemed to possess a great sadness, even before my mother left. I was constantly trying to figure out what the solemn occasion was.
If there was a solemn occasion, Uncle Burt seemed unaware of it. He loved to laugh. He indulged himself at every opportunity. He enjoyed playing cards with the boys, playing checkers with me (letting me win once in a great while), and singing behind the plow.
One thing he did not laugh about was Ike Majors and his men. Irish-born Burt had fought for the Union during the War. He was forever pointing that out, as if anyone could have forgotten it. He always concluded his tirade by saying, “I believe in America, and the American way is freedom! I ain’t going to let nobody push me around, nossir!” Since he was the most outspoken in his opposition to Majors, the other settlers made him their unofficial spokesman. I believe Ike Majors hated Uncle Burt more than he hated all the others combined.
Ike’s sons were a little harder to figure out. He had three originally, but the oldest one had got his brains dashed out by some Kiowa several years earlier. This was longer ago than I could remember, as they say I was barely more than an infant at the time.
They also claimed he was a fairly nice fellow. That could be because the other Majors’ crimes were fresh in mind whereas his had faded with time. I can’t really say, never having met the man.
If that was really a true picture of his character, he must have inherited the entire family’s supply of scruples in one lump sum, because his living brothers were every bit as hard as their father. And they were not nearly as single-minded as he was concerning land, so whether their actions were motivated by loyalty, greed, or just plain meanness was hard to tell.
The only member of the clan that was not dangerous was Mathilda, Ike’s young and dull-minded second wife. She was even more of a looker than Aunt Sally, but I was always of the opinion that Ike occasionally rode horses that were more clever than his spouse. Although she was not personally dangerous, her presence (or that of someone resembling her) could be. Our late mayor could have attested to that.
The final member of the family was the most interesting of all. This was Ruby, widow of oldest brother Joe. She had a will at least equal to that of her father-in-law, and many people claimed that she actually ran the family and Ike was only under the misconception that he did.
Whatever her actual role in the family, there was one thing I knew for a fact: she didn’t like me. In fact, she seemed to loathe me. I found this to be a unique experience. Everyone else just sort of ignored me, including most of the animals. And yet here was someone who took enough of an interest in me to dislike me. I had no idea what actions of mine made me merit such attention. Had I known, I would have done it more often in hopes of making other important people dislike me. Perhaps if I could get under the skins of enough of them, that would make me important too. Ike Majors had certainly gone a long way by applying that same principle.
On that particular spring day I had received a different type of attention, and this from a stranger.
“Don’t get too wet, son,” he had told me.
This was a friendly joke and a hint of genuine concern, all rolled into one. I was dumbstruck. Such attention was rare, indeed. Oh, I got it from Uncle Burt as well, true. But he was every bit as jubilant with pigs and cow chips, so I never took it personally.
This stranger was different somehow. I ran along the street behind him, trying to think of a way to further attract his attention. Without getting in the path of his horse, that is, or falling in the mud.
I followed him to the end of the street and watched him tether his horse outside the Mangy Dog saloon.
“Howdy,” I called out. He looked up at me from the hitching post. “Howdy yourself, Chief.”
He was a very tall man, lean and muscular. His face was tanned deeply, and there were little lines around his eyes which danced when he smiled. His hair was a rich reddish-brown, and he wore a neatly-trimmed beard to match.
“I ain’t no chief,” I said.
The stranger shrugged. “Everybody’s a chief every once in awhile. You looked like you was bein’ a chief today.”
“Oh. I reckon I am, then.”
“I thought so,” he said as he brushed the dust from his trousers. “Most chiefs I’ve ever known don’t get so muddy, though.”
“I was scared of your horse,” I said sheepishly.
“This old boy?” he said, scratching the nag’s nose. “He couldn’t hurt nothin’. Why, he ain’t even a big horse.”
“Looks pretty big when you’re in under him.”
He smiled. It was a pleasant smile, but a little stiff. It gave you the feeling he had given a lot of smiles in his time, but had fallen out of practice.
“You’ve got a point there,” he said.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Caleb.”
“Just plain Caleb? Nothin’ else?”
“Nope. Just plain Caleb.”
“That’s a awful funny name,” I said.
“What’s so awful funny about it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just ain’t never heard nothin’ like it, that’s all.”
“Well,” Caleb said, straightening the brim of his hat. “It’s the only name I’ve got, I reckon I’m stuck with it.”
“It sounds like a dog’s name.”
He looked at me kind of funny, the way a man nowadays would look at a ‘possum that was stupid enough to stand in the middle of the road, just before he ran over it.
“What’s your name, anyway?” he finally said.
“Joey.”
“Just plain Joey?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. Joey Cutter.”
“Well, Joey Cutter, I’m fixin’ to walk into this here saloon and wet my whistle. If anybody in there tells me I’ve got a name like a dog, at least I’ll know he’s drunk.”
He walked into the saloon and called back to me, “”Do me a favor, Chief, and watch my horse. It worries me that he has to drink water out of that old trough –looks like it came direct from a sluice mine. Come in and give a holler if he drops over dead.”
Caleb went into the saloon. I thought about it for a moment –I wasn’t thinking, really, but only making a show because I know people are impressed by very thoughtful youngsters –then I went through the double doors after him.
I had never been in a saloon before, and did not know what to expect, but I tried to appear perfectly at ease and in control of the situation. The room was very dark due to having no windows. There were half-a-dozen men present, in various stages of relaxation. A couple of them were relaxed enough to appear dead at first glance. Only their snoring gave proof that they were still on this mortal coil.
My young nose was assaulted by a wave of different smells that nothing in my previous upbringing could have prepared me for. I resolved to learn more about this place when time allowed, but at present I had found the object of my quest.
He was at the far end of the room, sitting at the bar. I sidled up to him as casually as a nine-year-old can.
“See here!” roared Big John, the bartender. “You’re too young to be in here! Go on, git!”
“Aw, let the kid stay for a few minutes,” Caleb told the big man. “He won’t hurt nothin’. Do you have somethin’ the little fella can drink? Sasparilla, or ginger beer, or somethin’?”
“Yeah,” Big John admitted after a slight hesitation. “But as soon as he finishes it, out he goes.”
Caleb pushed a stool at me with the toe of his boot. “Climb on up here, pard,” he said. “I hate to drink alone.”
I climbed up –with some difficulty –and took the opened bottle that I was offered. I could tell by the bartender’s scowl that he didn’t like me. That meant I was already going places, just like Mister Majors.
“Tell me, Just Plain Joey Cutter,” Caleb said. “Shouldn’t you be in school or somethin’?”
“It’s summer.”
“Why so it is. Tell me somethin’ else –do your folks mind you comin’ in saloons this way?”
“Don’t know. Ain’t never come in one before.”
Caleb leaned closer. “What made you decide to come in one today?”
I reflected a moment. That certainly was a good question, no denying it. I wasn’t sure I knew the answer myself. I decided to invent one.
“I wanted to act like a grown-up,” I lied.
The man smiled in a peculiar way. “That’s the way it always works, isn’t it? Kids come in here to act like grown-ups, grown-ups come in here to act like kids.” He smiled at me suspiciously. “Don’t you think your folks’d get a mite peeved if they was to walk in and see you here?”
“They won’t,” I assured him. “They’re at home, and it’s a long ways off.”
“Where is it?”
I scrunched my eyes up in concentration, trying to come up with an official, adult- sounding, exact reply. I got nowhere in that endeavor, so I told him what little I knew.
“That way,” I said finally, pointing toward the door.
“I see.” He nodded. “Did you decide to come into town on your own?”
“Aw, no,” I said, surprised at his stupidity. “I rode in with Mister Scott. I always do in the summer, so’s I can play. Town’s a lot funner to play in, ‘cause it’s got streets.”
I looked around the room until I located John Scott. The crusty old Scotsman was in the corner, playing cards with two men –one of whom had passed out. John was winning, I could tell by the pile of money, but he seemed nervous about the whole affair. If I had more sense at the time, I would have understood why.
Scott’s conscious poker partner was Walton Majors, Ike’s youngest and most mean-spirited son.
I pointed at Scott. “That’s the feller I come with,” I told my drinking buddy.
No sooner had I spoken the words than Majors stood up abruptly and shook his fist at the older man.
“Damn it,” he cried. “That’s the last time you cheat me, you no-account sodbuster!”
Walton Majors drew his pistol and fired it point-blank at his unfortunate opponent. He then removed his hat and scooped all the money on the table into it.
“The no-account sodbuster was cheatin’ me,” he announced to the room. He left then, eyes glued to the inside of his hat, counting his winnings.
John Scott sat slumped in his chair, a scarlet blotch spreading across his otherwise stainless shirt. A look of grotesque surprise was frozen on his face. I couldn’t figure out why he should be so surprised –everyone that played cards with Walton Majors wound up the same way, unless they had the good sense to lose or drink themselves unconscious. That was the only way to get out of the game alive, because Walton would shoot you if you refused to play. Walton managed to make a pretty good bit of money that way.
I suppose death always comes as a surprise, even if you’re expecting it. The only thing I was able to think about on this, my first glimpse of a dead person, was the way his face was all frozen like that. I had always been under the impression, acquired from storybooks and dime novels, that dead people just sort of closed their eyes and got on with it. Not so with Mister Scott, boy.
I was reminded of how, when I used to make ugly faces at my aunt, she warned me that someday I might get stuck like that. Someone should’ve told Mister Scott the same thing. I resolved than that if I was ever in the situation that someone was about to shoot me, I would refrain from making bizarre faces and thereby preserve my dignity.
Soon Big John had dragged the corpse into the back room, as I suppose he regularly did with Majors’ victims. I had never seen one get it before, but I knew of a lot that did. I imagined them all stacked up in the back room awaiting the undertaker, and wondered how many of them still had ridiculous looks on their faces.
Caleb watched the big bartender as he straightened up the poker table, working around the drunk.
“So,” Caleb said to me. “That was a friend of yours, huh?”
“Not really,” I replied. “He always used to call me nasty names all’a time. I ain’t got no friends, really.”
“No friends? Every boy needs a friend, even if it’s just a mangy old dog. You have a dog, don’t you?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame, Chief.”
“You got any friends?” I asked.
“Sure,” he answered quickly. “I got my horse, Aces. I call him that ‘cause I won him in a poker game bluffin’ with a pair of aces. And I’ve got the sun in the daytime, and the moon at night. And wind in the summertime. And a bunch more.”
“But ain’t you got no people friends?”
“Nah. They’re not half as reliable. Say, are you finished with that sasparilla?”
“Yeah,” I said sadly. It looked like the excitement was over so far as I was concerned.
“Good,” Caleb said. “I still ain’t found nobody in here worth drinkin’ with, so I’ll buy you another.”
“But Mister Big John said –"
“Don’t worry, Chief, I can handle Mister Big John. Drink up.”
I drank up, all right, and finished a second soda pop. Then a third, then a fourth. All the while the friendly stranger and I were shooting the breeze, discussing such diverse and pertinent topics as marbles, horses, mumbley-peg, and firearms. I also learned the basic rules of draw poker, as well as the fact that I should never trust a woman.
At length I happened to glance through the bat-wing doors and into the outside world. Dusk was rapidly approaching.
“I gotta go home,” I said. “My Aunt Sally’s gonna be mad.”
“I reckon it wouldn’t do for Aunt Sally to get mad,” Caleb said. “You go on home, Chief. I’m gonna be in town a few days; maybe we can have another drink together later on.” He tousled my hair, then fixed his attention on his beer.
I tugged on his sleeve. “But I can’t go home,” I groaned.
“Why not?”
“On account of I came to town with Mister Scott, an’ he got kilted.”
“Oh. Shoot, I plumb forgot about that. Well, don’t fret none, we’ll find you another way.”
Caleb turned around on his stool and faced the other customers. With the coming of night, that crowd had begun to swell –there must have been upwards of eight people there.
“Hey!” Caleb said. “Are any of you fellers fixin’ to head towards –towards –" He shrugged and pointed at the door as I had done earlier. “Over yonder?”
Big John walked over, shaking his head. “The only feller that would be headed that way would be John Scott. And he won’t be leavin’ tonight, him bein’ dead and all.”
“Nobody?” Caleb repeated.
“Nope.”
“Let him walk!” Someone in the corner called out.
“Well, somebody has to take him home,” Caleb said, frustrated.
“You’re his drinkin’ buddy,” Big John pointed out. “Why don’t you do it?”
“Well, I would, but I’ve kind of got business to take care of in town tonight.”
Big John grunted. “It ain’t my problem, that’s all I know.”
I started to cry. When I cried –at least when I was at that age –it was not just a mere and simple weeping. I gushed a shower of tears accompanied by mucus and all manner of inhuman noises. It was the one real talent I had as a child. On this occasion my crying achieved its desired effect.
“Hush! Hush!” Caleb said frantically. “Quieten down, Chief, afore some cowboy comes in and shoots you for a mad varmint!”
“But I wanna go home!” I wailed.
Caleb sighed. “All right, all right, I’ll take you home, first thing in the mornin’.”
I sniffed. It was more to produce a sound than anything, because at this point trying to sniff back those floodgates was just a wasted effort. My face was glistening and sticky from the nose down. It mixed with the sasparilla taste that was lingering on my lips; it was a strange mixture.
“But –but where will I stay tonight?” I said.
“You can stay with me. I reckon.”
He didn’t seem overly anxious at the prospect, but I certainly was. The tears stopped immediately and I started grinning from ear to ear. I attempted to hug him in gratitude, like the little boys in storybooks do to their rich benefactors, but he pushed me away in panic. Grimacing in disgust, he took out an old handkerchief and handed it to me.
“Here Chief,” he said, “do something about yourself. I’m afraid my horse might lick your face, it bein’ dark as it is outside. I don’t think the old boy would live through it.”
“Are we gonna sleep under the stars?” I asked.
“Not hardly. I aim to find us a hotel room. Assumin’ this town’s got a hotel –I never seen one comin’ in.”
“We’ve got one all right,” Big John said. “It ain’t much to look at, though. I’d say that’s why you missed it.”
Caleb grunted at the bartender without interest. Then he helped me wipe my face. I didn’t need help, really, I only lost my initiative. Face-wiping to a child seems to be a useless endeavor, and was hard to get excited about.
“We’ll look for us a room,” he told me, “as soon as I finish my drinkin’. I was just gettin’ warmed up.”
I soon tired of the uncomfortable barstool, so I climbed onto the bar itself and stretched out. Big John objected vigorously, but Caleb pointed out that at least I wasn’t crying, and that seemed to bring the big man to his senses. I drifted in and out of consciousness, and Caleb used the crook of my arm for storing his empties. Finally I was as insensate as the drunk who still slumbered at the upset card table.
I came briefly to the waking world only a couple of times that night. The first time, I was vaguely aware of being picked up and thrown over Caleb’s shoulder like a gunny sack. I bounced up and down as he left the room and started down the dusty street with long strides. I didn’t mind it, though. The sound of his jingling spurs made me drift off again.
The next time I awoke, I found myself in a bed. It was very soft, and the room was dark. I struggled to open my eyes, but it was beyond my power. All I could do was listen to the voices, which sounded so far away I thought I was dreaming.
It was a woman’s voice that had first attracted my attention.
“What on earth is he doing here?” she said. Her voice was vaguely familiar, somehow. It seemed that I should know it, but in my stupor I was unable to put my finger on why.
“He’s stayin’ with me tonight,” Caleb’s voice answered. “His ride home got murdered this afternoon.”
“I suppose that’s no concern of mine,” the woman’s voice replied.
“Maybe not, but you’re concerned about somethin’, I’ll warrant. Else you wouldn’t have sent me that letter. How did you know where to find me?”
“Everyone knows you’ve been plying your trade in Nebraska for the past few months.”
“All right, I’m here. What do you want.”
She hesitated a moment. “That’s a silly question, really, Mister York. Obviously, I have need of your unique talents. There’s a certain job I want done, and I want to hire someone that I know will do it right the first time.”
I was getting sleepier by the second, and this conversation didn’t seem to be going anyplace worthwhile. Which shows how much I knew. But to my young mind, it was not half as interesting as some of the other conversations I had eavesdropped on at one time or another. All I knew was that some woman had hired Caleb to do some work for her – and that’s all I needed to know. It hardly seemed worth staying awake to listen to.
Hence, since even at a tender age the mention of work made me want to get to sleep as soon as possible, I dropped off completely.
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