When the West Was Young Part 13

Buckskin Frank fulfils the requirements of some traditions much better when it comes to externals. He wore leathern fringes on his s.h.i.+rt and breeches, and his sombrero was bedecked with much silver. His weapons were always in evidence; a pair of silver-mounted revolvers were the most noticeable among them.

Because he called himself a scout some men used the term in speaking of him. He did not ride with the outlaws, although he often vanished from Tombstone for considerable periods; in town he was always to be found in some gambling-house or dance-hall.

Of women there were many who fancied him. And he could shoot to kill--from in front if the occasion demanded it; from behind if the opportunity was given him. A handsome fellow, and he had a persuasive way with him.

Whisky got the best of him in his later years, but that was after the period with which this narrative has to deal; and when he drank, it was not because of any brooding. The past held no regrets for him; thus far he had managed to handle every situation to his own satisfaction.

These are the two men; and as for Tombstone, it was booming. The mines were paying tremendously; business was brisk twenty-four hours a day.

An era of claim-jumping, faro-playing, dance-halls, the Bird-Cage, Opera House, Apache scares, stage hold-ups; and, of course, gun-fighting.

The Earps virtually ran the town government; they enforced the local laws against shooting up the place and so forth very much after the manner of Dodge City; and they were strong, resolute men. Buckskin Frank was on good terms with their henchmen; he was, if the statements of the old-timers are to be believed, anxious to remain in the good graces of these stern rulers.

John Ringo, on the other hand, was at outs with them; and soon after their advent into power he drifted away from Tombstone along with the other outlaws. To use the expression of the times, he was "short" in the mining town, which means that when he came there he had to be ready at all times to defend his life and liberty.

And now that you have seen the men and the town, the tale can go on; it is a mere recital of certain incidents which took place during the last year or two of John Ringo's life; incidents which show the difference between his breed of bad man and the breed to which Buckskin Frank belonged. To the chronicler these incidents appeal for that very reason. The days of the old West strike one as being very much like the days of old knighthood; they were rude days when some men tried hard to live up to a code of chivalry and some men made themselves mighty by very foul means indeed. And while we may not always be sure that the names which have come down to us--from either of these wild eras--are those that should have been coupled with fame, still we can be certain of one thing: the chivalry existed in both periods.

According to the code in the Middle Ages the challenge and the single combat were recognized inst.i.tutions; and they say that knights-errant used to go riding through the country seeking worthy opponents. And according to the cow-boy code in southeastern Arizona during the early eighties among the outlaws, a champion must be ready to try conclusions in very much that same way on occasion.

It was one of those traditions which some men observed and some--wisely--ignored. This desperado John Ringo was among those who observed it; and one day, like poor old _Don Quixote_, he found himself trying to force conclusions with men whose ideas were more modern than his own, which led him--like Cervante's lean hero--into a bad predicament and also brought him to a strange friends.h.i.+p.

The Earp brothers and their followers, as has been said, were ruling Tombstone, and the outlaws had fled into the country east of the Dragoon Mountains. But the outlaws did not fancy remaining out in the open country; sometimes they came back to town in force and hung about the place for days; always they were hoping to return permanently. And always the Earps were looking to drive them out of the country for good and all.

Eventually the situation came to a climax in the great Earp-Clanton gun-fight, and there was a long period when this battle was brewing.

During this period whenever they came to town the desperadoes used to stay at the Grand Central Hotel; and Bob Hatch's saloon, where the Earp boys and their friends were accustomed to take their "morning's morning," was directly across the street. Things came to a pa.s.s where the noon hour would often find a group of outlaws on the sidewalk before the hotel and a number of the Earp faction in front of the saloon, both outfits heavily armed, the members of each glowering across the street at those of the other.

Now Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and others of the law-and-order party had come here with big reputations from Dodge City, where they had taken part in more than one affair when the lead was flying. They had sustained those reputations by their deeds in Tombstone; they were champions--"He Wolves." And so one noontime when he was standing on the sidewalk among his fellow outlaws, John Ringo was seized with an idea.

He looked across the street at the members of the Earp party, who were regarding the desperadoes in ominous silence. The idea grew more powerful, until it owned him. He stepped down from the sidewalk's edge into the roadway, crossed it, and came to a halt within a few feet of his enemies. Addressing Wyatt Earp by name--so goes the story--

"This sort of thing," John Ringo said, "has been going on for a long time now. Pretty soon there's bound to be a big killing if it keeps up. Now I've got a proposition. You, or Doc Holliday if you'd rather have him, step into the street here with me, and the two of us will shoot it out, and, if you're game, why we'll do it holding the opposite corner of a handkerchief in our teeth. I give my word, my gang will stand by the result."

Wyatt Earp made no answer. What temptation that offer held to him one can judge only by the fact that he was a bold man who had a long record of large deeds to his credit. But also he was the recognized head of a movement for law and order, a movement which had already stopped indiscriminate street-shooting in Tombstone; just at this time he was being groomed in certain quarters as a candidate for sheriff, and the banner of his party was emblazoned with the word Reform.

It is easy enough to see how John Ringo was behind the times when he made that proposition on Tombstone's main street. It is easy also to imagine his feelings when without a word by way of answer or acknowledgment the members of the Earp faction stood regarding him. He turned his back upon them and he recrossed the street, and when he had gained the opposite sidewalk they were gone within Bob Hatch's saloon.

Johnny Behan was sheriff then, politically an enemy of the Earps and politically friendly to the outlaws. He was sitting in his office with young William Breckenbridge, his diplomatic deputy, when some one brought word that John Ringo had made a gun-play and was holding down the main street with drawn revolvers.

"Go and fetch him in," the sheriff bade Breckenbridge.

The latter found the outlaw pacing up and down before the Grand Central Hotel after the fas.h.i.+on of the cow-boy who has shot up a saloon and driven all hands out of the place. The two had met months before when the deputy was out in the eastern part of the county collecting taxes with Curly Bill as his guide and protector.

"What's up?" the youthful officer demanded, and John Ringo recited his version of the affair.

"Well," the other told him when he had finished, "the sheriff wants to see you."

The desperado shrugged his shoulders, but went along quietly enough; bail was easy to arrange in those days, and this was not a serious matter.

In his office Johnny Behan heard the tale and frowned. There were times when his cow-boy const.i.tuents became a source of embarra.s.sment to him; this was one of them.

"Guess you'll have to turn over those guns of yours," he bade the prisoner.

Ringo handed the revolvers to him, and he put them into a desk drawer.

There followed several moments of awkward silence. At length Johnny Behan arose and started to leave the room.

"Going to lock me up?" Ringo asked. "I'd like to fix it to get bail, you know."

"No charge against you," the sheriff said in the doorway. "You can go back downtown whenever you want to."

With which he pa.s.sed out into the corridor and forgot all about the matter. In the office Ringo stood scowling at the deputy.

"That's plain murder," he said at length. "Before I get a block away from here without my guns those coyotes will kill me."

Breckenbridge had been doing some thinking on his own account during the last few moments, and he realized the justice of this argument.

But the law was the law, and the sheriff was boss. It was not his business to interfere. He looked Ringo in the eyes, got up from his chair, opened the desk drawer--and left the room. And when he came back the guns and their owner had departed.

In itself the incident wasn't much to talk about. In those times all sorts of things were being done according to different standards from those which rule now. But it brought its consequences.

The days went by. In Tombstone politics seethed; the law-and-order party was making things hot for Johnny Behan, whose sympathies with the cow-boys gave him the support of the desperadoes, a support which in its turn brought the accusation that he was extending leniency to wanted men.

Over in the Sulphur Springs valley and the San Simon John Ringo nursed his grudge against the sheriff for having disarmed him when his guns were so sorely needed; he cherished that unpleasant memory while he directed the movements of Curly Bill and their followers, while he rode forth from Galeyville with them to raid the herds of border cow-men, or to ambush bands of Mexican smugglers, or to rob the stages.

And so gradually it became known among his fellows that their leader held a grievance against the sheriff, that he was biding his opportunity to play even with Johnny Behan for that blundering piece of thoughtlessness. John Ringo was the biggest man among them all, the brains of the whole crowd; they wanted to see in what manner he would settle the score. And finally the time came when he got his chance.

A man who rejoiced in the name of Kettle-Belly Johnson was the indirect means of bringing about this opportunity. He enters the story on a blistering afternoon in the little town of Galeyville.

It has been told in another of these tales how Galeyville was the bad men's metropolis, headquarters for all the rustlers and stage-robbers of Cochise County; how the place enjoyed a brisk prosperity through the enterprise of a wide-awake citizen who had established a cattle-buying business--and no questions asked. On the afternoon in question John Ringo was the only outlaw in the place; his followers were absent on some wild errand or other and he was putting in the time at a poker-game.

There were four men seated around the table in the dingy bar-room, silent as four owls, mirthless as high priests at a sacred rite.

Observing the full ceremonials which dignify draw-poker, they let the chips and cards do all the talking--and made signs when they chose to pa.s.s.

It has been said that John Ringo's face was sullen and his eyes were somber; the depth of his unpleasant expression had grown this afternoon as the shabbiness of his luck increased. Or was it luck?

He sat, of course, facing the door, and Kettle-Belly Johnson occupied the opposite chair. On the two other players, one of whom was flanking John Ringo on each side, there is no need to waste words; they belonged to the same breed as the poetically rechristened Johnson, the breed that got its name from shaking dice against Mexicans out of tin horns.

It was no more than natural that the desperado should ask himself whether he was right in blaming fortune for the cards which he drew.

There came a new deal and time to draw again.

"Two," John Ringo muttered.

Kettle-Belly Johnson held up a single finger; and when he had got his card, performed one of those prestidigital feats by which he made his living. And when this was accomplished--with the aid of a device known as a "hold-out"--his moist, plump fingers clutched a full house--jacks on kings. The betting went briskly to the bitter end.

John Ringo scowled down on the hand which beat his; pushed back his chair, fumbled briefly at his vest, and laid his gold watch on the table.

"Lend me a hundred," he growled. "She's worth a hundred and fifty."

But Kettle-Belly Johnson shook his head.

"Easy come," said he, "easy go. Get out and rustle some more cows or hold up the stage again. We ain't a-runnin' no p.a.w.n-shop."

John Ringo left the room without more words, and the three tin horns fell to cutting for low spade to while away the time. They had been at it just as long as it would take a man to go down to the corral, saddle his pony, and bring the animal up in front of the building, when the outlaw reentered. His single-action Colt's forty-five revolver was in his right hand; its muzzle regarded the trio at the table like a dark, baleful eye.