The Hell Bent Kid Read online

  5

  Lohman Near His Finish

  At noon I started right out. But after a hundred yards the sun knocked me down. I must have laid there a long time.

  I had one dream right after the other now. I was waking between, trying to get up, then sleeping. So finally I slept right into the night. I had tried some walking by night and sleeping by day, but there was no day-cover to sleep under.

  Next day I saw some far-off riders, took off my shirt and tried to wave them down. But they didn’t see me or seem to. I saw no Boyds but hit plenty of water holes their herds had used up. I crossed plenty cow and pony tracks and some dry arroyos that meant hope. I found one small pool that was so bad I could hardly get the stuff down. It was scum-thick with small things moving slow in it.

  My hands were getting sore as well as my face. I could almost see my hands dry-frying.

  One place further along I picked up a couple of Comanche arrows and a little water gourd—empty. Later I picked up a headcloth from a young brave.

  Thinking of wet things, I got to thinking about a little bottle of horse linimint I used for Jimmy’s back. I got scared fearing I would drink some. I clawed it out of the bag and threw it as far as I could, seeing the cork come out, seeing it turn over and over spraying yellow stuff in circles. Then I regretted I threw it. Then I knew how smart I had been to throw it.

  Now I was walking slower, finding it helped to count the steps. The dance of the hills began—near, far, near, far. I saw I was walking slow and discovered I was crawling. I was on my hands and knees in the dusty grass pushing along.

  Now that I was crawling, I saw that if I covered my hands and the back of my neck with dust, they would get less burn. I was angry I had not thought of that before. My hands were so bad they had small holes starting on their backs.

  I began to feel like a gopher, pushing along, covering myself with dust. Trying to crawl and dig in at the same time weakened me both physically and mentally, and I finally realized I was a goner. So I just lay there and waited for it.

  It is probable I slept a long time. When I woke up I could feel something inside me, pushing me blindly without my will taking part. I began to measure the crawl by inches and the resting by seconds that I tried to count.

  When something moved ahead of me, I thought it was a snake, though nothing like snakes or gilas would have meant much to me then. But it was not a snake but a sick baby jack looking at me. It hardly moved when I reached out and grabbed it.

  I had gotten so weak I could hardly get out the knife to slit its neck quick and easy. Botched it, but it died right off. But then when I held it over my face, lying on my back, I could not get any blood in my mouth, my lips and tongue were that swole. I tried a few times. Finally, I had to be satisfied with the blood falling on my face, moisturing me a little. But the blood-salt made my cracked face and mouth burn.

  It may have been just as well. The jack might have been snake-bit. In my weakened state it might of finished me. And yet it might not of been that way at all. There are more differing ideas about snake poison than there are snakes.

  When I started crawling again, I began to notice how my rifle was slowing me, slung on my back. So now I unlooped the sling and found a little piece of rope in one pocket and with the sling and rope like a drag rope I began dragging the rifle along two yards behind tied to my middle.

  Mostly I crawled through grass that I was always hoping would be wet and cool but was dry. In the grassed-off places I would slow up to keep the dust quiet so as not to choke me.

  Toward the finish I could make only inches at a time. My ears got to roaring. The pain of my stomach sometimes rose up over the pain of my backside wound. Suddenly it seemed to me my legs were paralyzed.

  Not able to bend my knees, I began pulling myself along by the grass roots and yucca stems. I may have been moving at this time, or fooling myself. Believe I moved a little.

  The pain of the sun and the pain of the sores all blotted out in a general feeling of dryness and suffocation, which was just as well for me. I could stand that better and also it seemed my body got lighter to drag along.

  This, I figured, was not surprising as the water had all been baked out of me. I began to learn a great deal about grass roots and such and the small things that live in dry places—spiders, beetles and little small things like river crabs. I had never known they were there in such amounts. They kept my mind busy in the rest places.

  I believe I slept a long time the last day till towards night, then started crawling again, feeling my stomach scrape, but finding I could use my legs again. I heard a noise and listened carefully to be sure. It first sounded like water and I began to make noises in my throat that I had planned as yells.

  I listened again and was sure it was not water. It was some other sound I was not acquainted with. Then I thought I knew and began to try yelling again without success. It sounded like wind in trees.

  I crawled ahead and began to feel rocky ground. Then rising ground. Then more rocks. Then when my hand touched certain things I began to make grunting noises like a pig which I had planned as yells. Because what I touched I was sure was pine needles.

  Still I could not see. I lay there and then started crawling straight up, blind as I was. But then I eased to the right, knowing I must go around the slope, not up, or I might parallel water all the way to the top. I had to go faster. I was powered to do this, by the feeling of hope inside. So then I made a big hitch in my strength and got on my feet and made better time, jerking the rifle loose from the knots and the drag, for I could now use my rifle for a cane. I must of heard water fifteen times. I found it was always a trick of sound.

  But after a long time I seemed to hear water right at my elbow, feeling it was night. Next I felt water under my feet. Then I was hit in the face with what seemed a bucketful. Then I began to hear the little falls right in front of me. I had run into a little falls of water. I nearly drowned in it, floundering about in the pool below, feeling for the ground and heaving my rifle in that direction out of the wet. I felt pleased to hear it land solid and not too hard. I then floundered again, merely feeling and knowing it was water.

  I was careful drinking a little at a time. But then I got off my shirt, and held on to the bank of the little pool, lying in the water. I knew it would at present do the most good, soaking it up from the outside, instead of horse-wallering with my mouth as I had seen animals do and dying. My eyes got a little better then and there was shine above, either moon or stars, I could not tell which. So I saw a little rock shelf toward the downslope and went down there and laid down.

  6

  New Acquaintances for Lohman

  The first thing I knew the next day was the old man yelling. Then I saw him on a horse and a girl riding a mule with him and behind them a pack pony. They both started yelling. What I had taken for a rock shelf was part of a horse trail and I was laid right across it.

  The old man yelled again, and then the girl threw something at me when I rose half up. I ducked, thinking it was a stone, but it was just a piñon nut. Now I saw the hill trail.

  The old man stopped yelling when I closed my eyes and flopped back, not being able to speak yet but thinking, “Well, ride over me, you old fool.”

  I heard him say to the girl: “He’s hurt.”

  I could hear them get off their mounts. Then I opened one eye enough to see the old man over me and the girl dimly. The mule and the old man’s horse stood, but the horse they were leading, the pack horse, reared, and she quietened him.

  “What’s the matter, Sonny?” This the old man said.

  I tried to get on my feet, and then say something, when he said: “Na, na, na—just rest easy.” He pushed me down.

  After that it was vague and mixed. They gave me some water, then whiskey, then more water, then more whiskey. Then poured water on me gentle, then did something for my crease wound, then a blanket folded under my head, then one under me.

  Someone must have come along the
trail later, because I could hear the old man giving them fits about going around me. He made them circle me and then get back on the hard road, and it sounded like quite a few horses, but I never knew.

  But I judged that he felt it was lucky for them to come along. He got more whiskey for me from these strangers, though I could hardly get it down, and gave up a lot. I have never cared for taste nor effect of whiskey, even when sick.

  I slept then awhile and when I woke the dark was coming down. I talked a little then and explained to them about my crease wound. They moved me near the fire they had made and then the old man came and squatted down.

  “Yes, you’ve got a crease wound, but in the back of your thigh you were hit twice, and probably didn’t realize it so there is a bullet hole and a ball under the crease. It’s a wonder how you got this far from what you said.”

  I told him to get the ball.

  He went to the pack and got out one of these old muzzle loaders. He let me heft it and look at it. It had the champion long barrel. The stock was pretty and polished. The stock-shank where your hand goes was carved like the neck of a goose head and feathers.

  “Yep,” the old man said, “like they call it, a goose gun. Curio. Taking it to a man I know.”

  He unscrewed the metal part of the ramrod and laid her in the fire, and he and the girl began to go after the bullet. Between groans, I said: “How you trying to go for it?”

  The old man said he was kneading for it. He explained it was near the surface and they were trying to squeeze it like a boil to make it back out.

  “Cut it,” I said, “depending on the ball, it may have spread-eagled.”

  “Yes,” said the old man, “we’ll have to cut it a little.”

  After all that pinching I hardly felt the cut, but when he used the hot ramrod in the long hole I must have screamed so they could hear me at Socorro. I could smell my own meat frying. Being weak, I possibly fainted and did not wake up till next morning.

  My crease wound then felt like it was filled with acid, but being stronger I was able to stand it then without much fuss. They had corn with them besides the horse feed and the girl was making thick corn cakes in the skillet, then cutting from a bacon slab, cooking it in with the corn. I could see now she was a good-looking girl about 19 or 20.

  The old man had something yellow in his hand. Later he gave me pieces of it. It was an orange, second I had ever seen but never eaten.

  “Californio,” said the old man, and repeated it several times and then begun singing some kind of song in Spanish.

  One thing I noticed the girl wore was a silver letter H made kind of crude like Mex work always seems, and I thought it stood for her name at first. She later did not wear this pin and still later on did wear it and I found out after she was having some trouble with the way the clasp worked on the pin back and so I fixed it for her. It was very plain on her dress, this pin.

  I worked into that food all right. I was feeling good and sat up and talked to them both. When I tried it, I could move, but my thigh was still stiff with some swelling.

  When I got to my feet, this was at the point the old man said to the girl: “We’ll wait here for the people from the Boyds.”

  My rifle was laying over my half saddlebag and I reached for it.

  Never saw anyone hook a gun so fast as the old man. He shirt-carried a four. I had seen mostly fives. There I was half leaning toward my rifle, and the old man had thrown down on me.

  The girl threw her head back and laughed. Then she gave me a hateful look.

  I smiled at the old man and said: “Small muzzle.”

  “Yep, it is,” said the old man. “Sit down, Bub. I just took lead out of you, I don’t want to pour any in.”

  There was a long quiet after this, the old man appearing to be thinking. Then he said aloud, “Some misunderstanding here,” as if to himself. The girl said nothing.

  Right then I had my first real chance to study them good.

  He looked about 60 and I hoped I would be as good at that age. Found later he was 71. He was wiry. He had small, blue eyes like Mr. Restow’s, and wore his clothes loose. He wore fringed pants with the hind part out like an Indian or like chaps. He wore wonderful moccasins of the plains type with hard soles to protect against the cactus.

  They had hill patterns around the base of the uppers and Trails of Life painted on their instep. Some high-type squaw may have mixed the decorations a little but she surely knew how to make moccasins. His shirt was heavy, Spanish cut with neck strings.

  The girl she wore a blue dress, of the prettiest dark blue I ever saw, hung a little short to show her legs which was unusual and which I could see was bare above the knee, and high Indian leggins that covered her well and made her decent. She might have been older than 20, even 22. Her hair was black and back tight. Her skin on her face and neck seemed soft and bright. Her eyes were black. That girl was in good health. She was part Spanish sure, but maybe a little more mestizo. When she smiled her teeth looked better even than false ones.

  But she had no use for me. When the old man and I started talking again, she listened. Then she turned up her nose and laughed and said, “Kill him and be done with it, kill him,” and moseyed up the rise, and begun to tease her horse with a mite of sugar. Finally she got on him and rode him out of sight.

  I found that the mule she had rode was just for that day to ease the back of her horse after they had heavy-padded their more or less light pack on him. Their mule was really used for pack. When she had gone, the old man said maybe he could make her let me have her horse, or he would ride the mule, so we could all get along.

  I said: “She’ll give me nothing. She would do nothing for me.”

  7

  Lohman Does Some Shooting

  The old man laughed and said: “You kids are all alike. Can’t wait for nothing. Everything has to be settled quick. Hell, Bub, I got to find out about you. These things take time.”

  I said nothing, not wishing to crowd him.

  He said: “She’s just a little crazy. All women are. My folks I married into are Spanish. Nearly all women at my ranchero. Hell of a situation. Like a harem. Took on a passel of women. I’m taking her up to St. Loo at a school the sisters have. If we leave her down here they are feared at home she might marry the first three-toed bush ape who comes along.”

  I thanked him for explaining.

  He looked at me and squinted and said: “You are a kind of formal kid, ain’t you? Well, we have some kind of family pride, having some connections with the Maxwells. Know the Maxwells?”

  I said not.

  He said: “They used to own hell of a lot of land around here. Much less now. Still it’s considerable. Old Man Maxwell is mucha galoot.”

  He shoved his gun into his shirt. “Now just let your tale come out in chunks.”

  I told him my name. He said, “Oh, the Lohmans. Wasn’t your father sheriff at Toscoso awhile back?”

  I said yes that also two of my brothers, Nevin and Pete, had been peace officers.

  “And where are they now?”

  “They were both shot dead at age 21.”

  “You don’t say.” He looked at me hard. “Now let’s see. Something comes back to me. Nevin Lohman. Why, he worked for Hunter Boyd once. Why, hell yes, I recall Nevin. Well, son of a gun!”

  He was quiet a long time, thinking.

  “How about you and the Boyds now? The way you growled around in your sleep.”

  I said the Boyds were looking for me.

  “So I gather.”

  I told him they were people with easy-hurt pride.

  “Oh I know the Boyds,” he said. “They all walk with a short-dog strut.”

  I told him I had killed Shorty.

  “Self-defense?”

  “Yes.”

  “With a rifle-gun?”

  I thought awhile and he waited politely. Then I said, “I’ll tell you the real way it was. I was supposed to have shot Shorty Boyd, but did not. It was another w
ay.”

  “Want to tell me?”

  I told him I would. I told him I was left alone by my father with some people in central Texas he knew. Then I got my horse and rode up to see Mr. Restow about getting a job, on written advice of my father. I rode till late dark the second night getting up toward Twist and near the Restow ranch, and they was a schoolhouse on the road. I stopped to the schoolhouse and they was a dance going on, a scarcity of men and they asked me to stay.

  I said I stood there because I did not know how to dance. Then this girl came along and asked. I refused. Then she asked me for a glass of water. When I got one for her here came the Boyds—Tom, Otis, Shorty and some cousins all drunk.

  Shorty dared me outside and shot at me and this was the first I knew I had gotten water for his girl. But then his kin saw I was unarmed, and held him back. But they were mean-drunk and handed me a gun and Shorty who was never a shot and worse now with liquor shot at me again and I found my gun was empty.

  I said that then I ran in the schoolhouse and Shorty followed me there. There was a candle stuck on a table there. It was stuck in a States War bayonet, and the bayonet point sunk in the tabletop. I grabbed the bayonet, as Shorty fired again and rushed me, and just about stabbed himself in the ruckus. Everybody gave out that I shot Shorty. He died the next day.

  After I had stated this, which was true, the old man said nothing for a long time, just sat pulling out grass stems. He said: “Oh, it had to be bullets, being a gentleman’s war.” He laughed. “They are a mean crowd.” He would look at me, then away. “If the Boyds come here I doubt I will give you to them. I doubt that.”

  I thanked him.

  I told him then that Harley, the brother that had strayed off, we had not heard from in years. How Pete and Nevin had been shot. How I was riding to Socorro to help my father but now had no horse. I told him how Nevin was shot down near the Pecos, as far as we knew the facts. Then I recounted to him how after a long time my father sent me down there to get him dug up, bring him back and bury him on his own ground. And how Nevin’s hair had growed in the box, so he looked like a man with a porkopine for a head.