The Crossed Guns

THE CROSSED GUNS

  By RUSS DURBIN

  Copyright © 2012 by Russ Durbin

  Cover Design: Charlene Lavinia

  The following story is fiction. It is loosely based on an actual historical event; thus, real names are used in creating a fictional story for your reading entertainment.

  THE CROSSED GUNS

  The tale of the Crossed Guns was, perhaps, my grandpa’s favorite story. Maybe he liked it best because he had known the people personally. You see, his daddy, my great-grandfather, was the town marshal of that quiet little settlement of St. Joe, Missouri, hidden away in the heart of the Ozarks. Grandpa, although only a boy of ten at the time, was an eye-witness to what happened there. This is his story.

  * * *

  I reckon nearly all young boys at one time or other have had a fascination for guns, and I was no exception. I never got tired of looking at them, so I guess it was no surprise when the crossed guns on the west wall of Mr. Howard’s parlor drew me like a magnet. I spotted ‘em right off when I went over there to take a pie my Ma had baked when the Howard’s new baby arrived.

  The guns were just alike, right down to their hand-carved walnut hand grips. They were in twin leather holsters, hand tooled in some Spanish design, that were hanging from identical gun belts on two pegs on the wall. One was a right hand holster and the other a left-hander.

  The guns gleamed with a light coat of oil. Although I had never seen Mr. Howard wearing a gun, I felt sure they were his. That was exciting ‘cause I had never seen a two-gun man before, although I’d heard my pa talk about a few he’d known.

  “Dangerous men,” he once said.

  Once or twice I saw Mr. Howard oiling the guns, but I never saw him shoot them. I was tempted to ask him about them, but I never quite dared. Something in his eyes told me a 10-year-old’s questions wouldn’t be welcome.

  Thomas Howard and his wife, Zelda or “Zee” as he called her, had moved to St. Joe in April of ’77 or thereabouts, as I recall. No one knew much about them, ‘cept that Mr. Howard had done some traveling through the western territories. Some of us boys had heard a rumor that he once rode with Quantrill’s raiders. Of course, no one really believed that, only it was exciting to think about. Mr. Howard was nervous and quiet-like but he always acted like a gentleman.

  The Howards kept to themselves an’ never went visitin’ much. Oh, they showed up at the county picnics and fairs a time or two, and ‘most always attended Kitchen’s Creek Church Sundays, ‘specially when the circuit-riding preacher came by for a big camp meetin’. But as far as anyone knew, they never had much truck with ‘house-visitin.’

  It was at one of the local fairs that folks in St. Joe learned Howard had a brother, Frank, although his last name was Woodson, not Howard. He lived in Laclede, the next county over. Folks say Frank Woodson also had him a farm somewheres over in Virginy. Nobody would have ever known they were brothers from their looks if Mr. Howard hadn’t introduced Frank.

  Tom Howard was a slender, wiry-looking man with quick, brown eyes that made you think of a caged fox. He was ‘bout average as men go, standing no mor’n five-feet, six-inches tall. By contrast, his brother was near six-feet with dark brown hair and clear, steady gray eyes that seemed to look right thru a body.

  Frank Woodson seemed friendly-like and enjoyed a good joke or a good shooting match. There was always a good one, sometimes even a turkey shoot, at the fairs. Mr. Howard and his brother never took part, ‘though it seemed as if Frank might take up the challenge a time or two. Once he even picked up a pistol and turned sideways with his left shoulder pointin’ toward the target. There was a little flicker of light in his eyes for a minute as he hefted the gun. Then the light winked out and he laid the gun on the table.

  Us boys was hopin’ he would go ahead and shoot ‘cause we once heard Judge Harper say Frank could shoot the spots off a playing card. He musta known him from some other place. Thinking of those crossed guns, I was hopin’ Mr. Howard would rise to the bait and try his skill. We were all doomed to disappointment.

  “Pa, why don’t Mr. Howard and his brother shoot at the matches?” I once asked.

  “Don’t know, son. Maybe they just don’t want anything to do with guns.”

  “You mean they’re scared?”

  “No!” he answered sharply. “I don’t mean that, and don’t you be sayin’ that to anybody, you hear?” It wasn’t Pa’s way to raise his voice, but that time he got a bit excited. “Those men aren’t scared. I think they just don’t want anything to do with guns.”

  He stared at his own Colt .45, which he had been cleaning. “If they ever got riled, both could be dangerous men,” he said, adding, “I sure wouldn’t want to tangle with either one.”

  I wondered about that statement. My Pa wasn’t afraid of anyone. He was the town marshal, wasn’t he? But why would he not want to tangle with them?

  It was along in April of ’82 when two men I hadn’t seen before rode into town. I ran to the jail to tell Pa, but he already had seen them and was buckling on his gun belt.

  “You stay inside, Mikey,” he told me. “They look like a couple of hardcases.” He walked out onto the porch, and I ran to the barred window to watch.

  “Howdy,” he nodded to the men as they reined in their horses on the dusty street.

  “Howdy,” one of the men said as he mopped his brow with his bandana. “Maybe you can tell us what we want to know, Marshal. We’re lookin’ for an old friend of ours—Je…uh, Tom Howard. Know him?”

  Pa nodded. “His house is the painted one with the shutters, ‘bout a half-mile or so outside of town. Can’t miss it.”

  “Obliged.” The man nodded casually, touched the brim of his hat as he and his partner urged their tired horses on.

  Pa stood with his hands on his hips, staring after them. “I don’t like it,” he muttered to no one in particular. I shivered with a sense of foreboding.

  “Mike, you stay here and mind the jail,” he said as he walked to the hitch rack. “I’m going to ride out to Howard’s place just to see what’s goin’ on.”

  “Can I go?” I cried. He shook his head. “Aw, why not? There’s nothin’ here to mind ‘cept an old empty cell. Why can’t I go?”

  “Because I said so!” As far as Pa was concerned that was the final word as he swung into the saddle.

  I didn’t like it much, but I stayed.

  The pinto Pa rode had barely reached the top of the hill on the edge of town when a shot, followed by two more, broke the stillness of the hot afternoon. The pinto broke into a run as Pa disappeared behind the hill. A couple of the townspeople ran after Pa.

  It seemed to me that time never moved as slow as it did that day. What could have happened?

  Finally, the two horses appeared on the horizon. The men who had asked directions appeared to be in no hurry as they rode into town. They hitched their broncs in front of Hank Wilson’s saloon as a buckboard topped the hill. The pinto was tied to the wagon and I recognized Pa’s tall, spare frame on the driver’s seat. Billy Handy, a town loafer who’d followed Pa out to the Howard place, was on the seat next to him.

  Pa halted the wagon by the jail and climbed down. A tarp covered a body in the wagon bed. I was just itchin’ to ask what happened, but Pa had no time for me then. But old Billy couldn’t wait to tell his story.

  “Goshamighty, I never seen the beat of it, Mikey,” he babbled. “Why, them two scalawags (he lowered his voice slightly as he nodded toward the pair loitering on the saloon porch) is bounty hunters.”

  “Bounty hunters?”

  “Yep. They wuz after Tom Howard, they wuz.” Here old Billy’s eyes got round. “They said they had proof positive he wuz Jesse James!”

  “Jesse James!” I fairly exploded.
br />   “Yep. Whut’s more, they said they wuz paid ten thousand dollars by Governor Crittenden to git him. Yer paw’s goin’ to ride into Mansfield t’night to wire the Governor, find out if’n it’s true!” Billy gulped and continued.

  “Whut’s more, they up an’ shot Tom, er..ah, Jesse, plumb in the back. Right in the back of the head. He didn’t have a chance. Yessir, they snuck up on him whilst he was puttin’ them guns—you know the ones, Mikey—back in them holsters on the wall.”

  Billy shook his head, “Poor Missus Howard. I don’t know whut she an’ the baby are going to do now.” Old Billy had plenty of listeners as he repeated his story, his imagination supplying more details than he could know.

  I was stunned. Who could believe it? Mr. Howard seemed nice, kinda nervous, but polite to everyone around St. Joe. How could he be the famous bank an’ train robber?

  Just then Pa walked out of the jail. “Mike, go tell your Ma what’s happened and that I’m going to Mansfield. Tell her not to worry. I’ll probably stay overnight and ride back tomorrow after I get my reply.” He started for his horse, then turned back. “Oh, and Mike, tell her to get some of the women folk to go out there to comfort Missus Howard.” Then he was gone.

  Although I was mighty excited as any youngster would be, I fell asleep at the supper table, and I was still tired the next morning when I got up to feed and water our stock. Then I went to town and opened the jail, the way I always did when Pa had to be gone.

  I was just fillin’ the jail’s water bucket at the pump along side the building when a horse raced into town and skidded to a halt in front of the jail. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw it was Frank Woodson, or, I guess it would be more correct to say Frank James, Jesse’s brother.

  “Where’s your paw, Mike?”

  “He’s gone over to Mansfield to wire the Governor. I…” Before I could finish, Frank wheeled, slid into the saddle and spurred his horse west in the direction of his brother’s place.

  “I’d better let those two ranneys know what’s up,” I thought as I broke into a run for the saloon. I bumped headlong into the shorter of the two men as I crossed the threshold.

  “Watch where yer going’, kid,” the man said roughly.

  “Hey, Frank Woodson….er, James, is in town,” I shouted.

  Instantly, both men were alert. “Where is he, kid?” asked the shorter one, grabbing me.

  “Leggo, you’re hurtin’ my arm.” I jerked away. “He’s out to his brother’s place,” I said, rubbing my arm.

  “Com’on, let’s…” The man broke off suddenly as he looked up. Frank James was riding hell fer leather back into town, a gun strapped to his waist.

  I knew, almost without looking, it was one of the crossed guns that had hung on the wall of his brother’s house. It was the left-hand gun. Then, I realized that one of the guns was Frank’s, the other Jesse’s. I wondered, irrelevantly, why I hadn’t thought of that before.

  Frank was off the horse, almost before it had stopped. The two men began to separate, and I ducked inside Wilson’s saloon, figuring the street was going to be no place for my Ma’s little boy.

  As he faced the two men, Frank’s eyes turned as grey as a winter cloud. They caught and reflected light like thin ice on a pond’s surface. He jaw was set and he was hatless. But when he spoke, his voice was soft, almost gentle.

  “Well, well. I didn’t think we’d ever meet again, Bob.” He had addressed the smaller man. “I see Charlie’s still tagging along just like he always did when we were kids.”

  Neither man spoke.

  “So you’ve switched sides and now you’re gunmen for the Governor, eh? How much did you get for this job, boys? Must have been a pretty good wad,” he continued, then added savagely, “because you always were a couple of murdering, thieving cowards! Too bad you won’t live to spend it.”

  Both men went for their guns. They were almighty fast, but Frank was faster. The Army Colt seemed to leap into his hand and become a part of him, an extension of his finger as it stabbed flame at the two men. Bob was blown over backwards as a small, blue-rimmed hole appeared in his forehead. Charlie, the bigger of the two, spun around and fell on his side in the dust. He never moved again.

  In the moment of silence that followed, Frank slipped the gun back in the holster and walked into the jail, unbuckling the gun belt.

  Frank James didn’t give Pa any trouble when he got home about noon. He gave himself up and went to trial for the murder of Robert and Charles Ford, brothers who some say had been with the James gang in its heyday. A jury in Laclede County acquitted Frank and he was finally pardoned by the Governor for his earlier crimes. A number of local folks testified that Jesse and Frank had lived good lives after they quit robbin’. Frank himself explained that he and Jesse had made a pact, never to touch a gun again. They crossed their gun belts and agreed to leave them on the wall of Jesse’s house as a reminder of their pact.

  “The only thing I regretted about killing the Fords was that I broke my word to Jesse,” Frank had said at the trial.

  * * *

  My grandpa would end his story by asking, “And what ever happened to the guns of Jesse and Frank James?”

  Then he would point to the far wall. “There they are, crossed just the way they were when I first saw ’em.”

  * * *