The Return of Henry Starr, page 20
Henry Starr lay still with his body flat to the floor, and he felt the stone hard under him, and stone all around. This is the day that Henry Starr beats Jack-the-Devil, he thought, the day of my luck. Make my vision be, poof! and no tobacco needed. “I ain’t going with you this trip, Bill. But I’ll get out of the way and let you play your hand.”
“Henry?” said the complaining voice. “That ain’t you, is it, Henry?”
“I’m getting the keys,” he called, very loud and slow, “but I ain’t doing nothing crazy. I just want out of the shooting gallery. Just want me a nice quiet peaceful hanging, like my grandpappy always said I had coming.” There was a snort of laughter from the doorway side, and that gave him nerve to snake his arm out for the keys, and he heard a soft voice say, “No, let him, it’ll work better if …” And he knew just what they were thinking, he could see between their ears and behind their eyes today: if he swung the door open and ran for Bill’s end of the corridor they could blast him and follow behind the shield of his body, maybe get Cherokee Bill if he exposed himself to shoot past his friend. If he walked out their way they could use him for cover and rush Cherokee Bill behind it. And if he snake crawled Bill’s way they’d have that shotgun pointed right between his legs and just purely blow his asshole out between his eyes, so what did they have to lose?
“I’m opening the door,” said Henry Starr, rattling keys in the lock. “Just keep it all hokeydokey.” The door swung and creaked open. “I’m gonna go out on my belly, boys. I’m comin’ straight for the door. One of you peckerwoods shoots me, gonna make Judge Parker mean enough to spit.” He snaked out into the corridor and seemed to feel a cold blue wind blowing down toward Cherokee Bill. “He likes his hangings, the Judge does,” crawling on the gritty stone flags, light ahead, shattered window, “don’t like ’em spoilt, main attraction get all shot to pieces.” A quick glance to the back: pile of broken furniture, pallets, bunks, no sight of Cherokee Bill, but the ripping noise started again and somebody groaned, pretty damn ugly sound. “Ain’t no joke hanging a man when it takes a roll of baling wire just to hold all the different parts together.” Up ahead was the open door and the corridor going left and right. Henry Starr snaked toward it, got his shoulders through the frame. Someone grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him to the right behind the shelter of the wall.
He got up, batting the grit from his baggy prison suit. There were eight guards, with Marsden, the chief, at their head holding the shotgun, a bloody cloth wrapping his hand where Cherokee Bill had winged him.
“How in hell did that nigger get a forty-five?” Marsden yelled.
“I don’t know,” said Henry Starr. Neither of us would admit to believing he conjured it, would we? “I don’t know,” he said again quietly. “Would you like for me to go back there and get it away from him?”
“Ha ha,” said Marsden, with a stagy sneer. Then he looked at Henry Starr a second time, and there was a sudden quiet in the corridor inside which you could hear that ugly ripping sound from where Cherokee Bill and Eoff were lying in the stone dead end.
The quiet held on too long. “Dammit,” said one of the other guards, “what in hell is that nigger doing to Eoff? Sound like he’s cuttin’ on him down there …”
Henry Starr held his face very still and peaceful. Thinking about water helped him do it: smooth water in a pool, you can see the smooth speckled stones at the bottom. “No telling what he’ll do if his blood is up.” He paused to let them think about Cherokee Bill’s blood, nigger and redskin and peckerwood and Mex, like he was every kind of half-breed a man could be—and he thought to himself, wouldn’t it have been enough to say he was a Hair Twister, and it’s easy to get him angry, ain’t that what you would have said if you was really …
But he didn’t have time to think, he had to play the cards as fast as the dealer turned them up. Just thinking about Cherokee Bill with his blood up made Marsden’s eyes run back and forth like weasels in a pit, and Henry Starr said helpfully, “You boys could probably rush him.”
There was no answer to that.
Marsden’s shoulders slumped and he leaned back against the wall. “What’s your proposition?” He held his right palm outward, a gesture of denial before Henry Starr even spoke. “There’s no way I can let you out of here, Henry. And I can’t speak for the judge.”
But Henry Starr could see what was moving around under Marsden’s hair, and he had to calm his own face to keep the smile down, quietness like a bandanna drawn to the eyes. “Well,” he said sort of thinking about it, “you could go over now and ask the Judge if …” and he saw Marsden’s words flitting across his face before they touched his mouth and drew his breath. “Nnnno,” said Marsden thoughtfully, “no, it won’t do. I can’t take the time with that renegade cuttin’ on Eoff like that,” and his eyes flicked to Henry Starr’s and then flicked down. Lying: because old Judge Parker would never cut a deal just to save one of these fat-ass no-good guards one of whom had probably sold Cherokee Bill that pistol himself for a gold watch or just a set of smokes. “But I’ll talk to him, Henry,” said Marsden. “You’ve got my word I’ll talk to him and do my best to get you off.”
Henry Starr turned it over in his mind. Judge Parker would probably as soon pass wind in meeting as give Henry Starr a pass on the gallows. But Parker had a hatred for Cherokee Bill that ran deep as his spine. At the trial he’d as much as threatened to shoot the jury and hang the district attorney if they failed to find Cherokee Bill guilty, and when Bill’s lawyer had raised too many formal objections he’d told him to write out his will before he raised another. Anyone who stopped Cherokee Bill from cheating the Hangman had a claim on that hate, strong and true as a mother’s love, you could count on it. And Henry Starr hadn’t killed but one deputy, and that in circumstances. Maybe Judge Parker had lived close enough to the Nations to recognize that a life could pay for a life—Eoff’s (if he was still alive) or Marsden’s or one of these other guards here, for the life of Deputy Floyd Wilson who I swear I never meant to kill but he come on me so sudden from the back and I—
“All right,” said Henry Starr. “You give me a bucket of fresh water, a pouch of tobacco and some matches and forty-five minutes, and I’ll get you Cherokee Bill.”
What would he say? He would be giving Cherokee Bill to the Hangman. The wrong words would put his spirit on the black road of the giant’s ghostly vengeance. There was something in Cherokee Bill, some dark thing, some power, or how had he made the conjure work? Wilson’s ghost was bad enough. Cherokee Bill’s would be too much weight for him to carry. You see, Old Man, I remember what you taught me …
They brought him the water, slapped the pouch of tobacco and matches into his left hand, Marsden tapped his watch. “Forty-five minutes.”
“Bill! It’s me, Henry Starr! I’m comin’ down to you. There’s no tricks, I swear it. I’m comin’ down to talk.”
“Come ahead.”
He stepped into the corridor, a cold circle in the small of his back as if the eye of a ghost were sighting a pistol barrel on his spine.
The Man Who Owned the Dreamland
NORTH DETROIT AVENUE, TULSA
May 6, 1921
Bub Houston lived in a two-story white clapboard house on North Detroit Avenue, which he shared with his daughter and son-in-law. The houses on North Detroit were new and built to roughly the same plan, each with its patch of front lawn and evergreen foundation plantings and nearer the street a pair of spindly saplings that promised velvet shade to the coming generation: two rows of houses so alike it was as if a mile-long mirror ran right down the center line of the street. The only difference between the two sides was that every house to the west of the line was owned by whites, every house to the east by colored.
From his second-story sitting porch Bub Houston could watch Henry Starr riding that line all the way up from the intersection with Archer. Bub showed himself early, rising to his feet as soon as Henry entered the street, and the outlaw smiled at the old man’s courtesy and his choice of a stand. It was just the spot Bub Houston would pick, gave him height and a 180° line of sight and when he was on watch there—riding the same tipped-back bentwood chair he had ridden for twenty years on the front porch of the Boley Sheriff’s Office—there was nobody could cross that line he couldn’t have seen and stopped dead, if he wanted.
Behind Bub Houston’s house to the east stretched the roofs of Greenwood, where the colored lived, shingled peaked roofs giving way to square brick mesas and ragged tar tops. There were two colored high schools in Greenwood (Dunbar and Booker T. Washington), a colored public library, several colored restaurants, one big colored barrelhouse (Braxton’s) and a dozen blind pigs, two colored newspapers, colored churches, colored groceries, colored shoe stores, colored barbers, colored hardware dealers, colored gun shops, colored farm implement and feed stores, colored pharmacists and colored doctors and colored dentists. One of the most imposing of the brick mesas belonged to the Dreamland Theater, which Bub owned in silent partnership with his son-in-law, William Parker. It was the larger of two colored movie palaces, located right in the heart of Deep Greenwood, Greenwood Avenue north of Archer.
The matinee performance at the Dreamland this week, by special arrangement with the Pan American Motion Picture Company, had been a double bill of Buckskin Bill’s Outlaw Trail—retitled Buckskin Bill Against the Starr Gang for showing at the Dreamland—and Henry Starr, Scourge of the Southwest, which had been so rushed into release that there had been no time to provide a colored title for it. Since there was only one print of each film, William Parker provided a courier who picked up the reels of the second film while the first was showing at the Lyric; then after the colored showing, rewound and shuttled the film back to the Lyric just as the first was finishing; picked up the first film, which showed second at the Dreamland and was returned and exchanged again for the late afternoon and evening performances. It was an elaborate procedure, arranged at some cost, but worth it because it gave the Dreamland access to the first run of Pan American’s films, while it reassured Poole and Wilberforce that they were avoiding even the appearance of allowing white people and colored to drink out of the same bottle.
The operation required exquisite timing—as Henry Starr had told Bub (when the two of them sat over a beer in Braxton’s), it was almost as complicated as trying to rob two banks at once, and Bub threw back his head and laughed, and invited Henry Starr to come and get his hand shook at the opening and dinner some night later in the week.
“Howdy Bub,” called Henry Starr, dismounting, and the old man nodded down from the porch, “Henry,” and from inside they could hear the yipping of Houston’s grandson. “He’s here! Hey Ma! Hey! He’s really here…!”
Bub Houston smiled. “He been to the Dreamland every afternoon this week looking at Henry Starr. Sooner have dinner with the Scourge of the Southwest than Teddy Roosevelt or even Mr. Jack Johnson.”
Henry Starr winced a little, “I’ve got an alibi on that Scourge of the Southwest job, Bub,” and Bub said, “I’ve heard your alibis before. You can save this one for the indictment,” at which point William Parker opened the screen door—dressed in a cream-colored linen suit, smiling with cool politeness—and ushered him into the front parlor.
Henry Starr heard Bub Houston clumping down from upstairs. In front of him a man and a woman rose from a tufted loveseat and an easy chair, and a little boy about six years old half-leaped toward Henry Starr and was jerked back by his mother’s strong hand at the scruff of his shirt. The woman was tall and athletic looking, a match in height for William Parker, her skin a creamy light brown, with broad shoulders, long arms, and graceful long-fingered hands, her size and the sharp look in her eyes and confident smile marking her as Bub Houston’s daughter. The man next to her was heavily muscled, maybe taller than Bub Houston and as dark, with smooth tender-looking skin and a very high round forehead, but something about him made you mistake his size at first—a way of holding his body that suggested a folding of himself inward, and something about his eyes.
“Henry Starr,” said Bub Houston. “This is my daughter, Harriet Parker, and you’ve met my son-in-law, William.” He indicated the big man. “This here’s our good friend Dick Rowland—he’s the man hauls those pictures of yours back and forth,” and the man gave his hand to Henry Starr, more like a quick reluctant touch than a shake, and now up close Henry Starr could see what was strange about his eyes: they had that look you see in a baby’s eyes, not blind exactly because they get all the light there is, but it doesn’t connect inside yet, it just passes on through and shines back out again pure and bright and blank.
Bub looked around as if forgetful. “Now let’s see who else …”
“Grandpa!” yelped the little boy.
“Oh yes,” said Houston, “and this here is Shaker.” The old man’s face seemed to fill up like a balloon, his smile getting broader and broader as he looked at the boy.
“How do,” said Shaker as Henry Starr stepped forward and took his hand.
“That’s a good name, Shaker,” said Henry Starr. “How’d you come by it?”
It was a story he got to tell lots but he liked it so too much that it always came out tumbling. “My baptize name is William Chaka Tubman Houston Parker, Junior, because my daddy is William Senior, and Chaka the name of a black man used to be King of the Nation back over Africa. He was a black man, but Zulus are like Injuns only colored …” but at that he popped his eyes open and zigged them nervously from his father to his grandfather to Henry Starr and around again, because Grandpa says Zulus is sort of Injuns but Daddy get mad when he do, and maybe being named like that was maybe rude to Henry Starr for not being colored but an Injun, and and …
But it was all right because Henry Starr nodded, and looked seriously at Shaker’s father and Bub Houston, and said, “That’s a strong thing for a boy, to carry a chief’s name like that.” He looked down at Shaker. “Your folks must think you’re a man who can be counted on.”
Shaker was pleased so suddenly and fiercely that you could see it just freeze him for a second so he fairly buzzed until he could find a direction to let it out. “Right! so I got to help Clary with the …” and he raced his words out of the room, beating them to the kitchen.
Dinner was served by Clary, “a little-bit-Cherokee colored woman,” who worked for the Parkers: chicken soup with okra and hot peppers, a roasted loin of pork with chili barbecue, sweet potato pie and greens, and ice cream for dessert: cold beer for the menfolk and cold tea with mint in it for the women and Shaker. Most of the conversation was Shaker asking Henry Starr, and his grown-ups telling him to let Mr. Starr eat some of his food; to which Shaker could answer truthfully that he was eating his food, because Shaker already knew an awful lot about Henry Starr from his grandpa’s stories and he saw every movie Henry Starr had made three times this last week, and what he didn’t know he could guess or make up (not noticing the difference), so all Henry Starr had to do was give him openers and Shaker would fetch the rest of the tale
by himself.
“So did you really know Jesse James and Belle Starr and all them…?”
“Yup. I was just a kid, you know, but my grandpa’d take me to Aunt Belle’s ranch, and one time Frank and Jesse was there. Now I was too young to remember, but they tell me Jesse picked me up and …”
“Rode you round on his horse! And showed you how to shoot a gun and …”
They talked about the train robbery at Pryor Creek, and all the bank robberies from Tahlequah to Caney to Bentonville, and Prue and Owasso and Keystone right on down to the two-at-a-time robbery at Stroud “and I bet you were just about the greatest outlaw that … weren’t you, Mr. Starr? I mean when you rode into town like that, k-pow with your gang and everything k-pow! k-pow! and just come wham! into that bank and tell ’em who you was and they just fold up like they backbones busted and …” which was exactly the way it had happened in Henry Starr, Scourge of the Southwest to Shaker’s certain knowledge no fewer than three times that week.
Henry Starr put his silver down and looked round the table. Dick Rowland was eating slowly and with concentration, his eyes making no contact with anyone or anything outside the field of his plate. Mr. and Mrs. Parker were looking at each other in a silence of increasing sharpness, somebody got to take a hand with that boy, but they each liked to give him his head and would rather the other one checked him. Having finished giving William her look, Harriet Parker recovered her softness spooning another serving of the sweet potato pie onto Dick Rowland’s plate, as sure in the movement as if he had asked some of her, which of course he hadn’t. William Parker was dividing his purse-mouthed disapproval between his son and the bad man who had aroused his son’s criminal enthusiasm. And Bub kept shoveling his food down, looking up every once in a while to watch the boy going on, then back to his food grinning as if that look gave him a bigger appetite.
“I was a pretty good bank robber, Shaker—good as a bank robber is. But good as I was, son, I got caught. Got sent to prison for it.” This made William Parker set a little easier.
“Well,” said Shaker with a dismissive shake of the head, “but they snuck up on you, didn’t they? It ain’t like they could have got you fair. Even that white crack … even that Bucksican Bill, he never would go up against you, but only that Yankee you was with, that Slick McClain.”
“Can’t fool the boy ’bout what he seen with his own eyes, Henry,” said Bub with an evil grin.
Henry Starr puckered his eyes in discomfort. “Bub,” he said, “I’ve got an alibi for that one.”
Bub laughed. “Heard your alibis before, Henry.”
“Well now that’s true,” said Henry Starr softly, with a little grin. “Now I’d ’most forgotten that …” and he let the gap in his words draw their attention to him. “Now Shaker, you’re right about one thing: it took a mighty good man to put the law to me fair and square. There wasn’t but two men ever did in my whole outlaw career. And of them two there was only one that ever done it face to face, and not when I was wounded or took by surprise. Now I bet you ain’t even been told who that man was.” Henry let Shaker race memories around his story-riddled head, and while the boy’s eyes were blanked with inward concentration Henry Starr glanced at Bub Houston, who frowned, then shook his head, resigned to letting Henry go on.
