Me and Red

   

                                                                                        Me and Red

                                                                               A Tale of Two Cowboys

   They killed me on a Saturday night in a case of mistaken identity. They got the wrong man, but they weren't far off the mark. Of course, I was unaware of the reason and would have been no happier had I known.

   Me and Red purchased those hats from a toothless, crinkled up old Mexican in a San Antonio dry goods store, but it would have been a stretch to call them "new." If it was the same old Mexican who sold them to us that had woven them, then he had done it long before, back when the senoritas were still batting their eyes his way, they not being the preferred style of the day. Those hats had been sitting around in that shop for so long that me and Red had to knock the dust off before trying them. Both hats were similar in style though, and in their shapes, being hand-woven by the same master. They were flat-topped, with high stove-piped crowns, and extra wide brims. They were woven from a pliable straw, strong, but lightweight. It was the type of straw that Chaz had suggested to me and Red as being good for the Texas heat. Mine was darker brown, with a leather band sporting an old coin on its front, the coin baring a snarling, scratching jaguar. Red's was lighter in color, almost white, with a braided silver band, and turquoise stones spaced evenly around. Those hats were of a style rarely seen in Texas, and never seen in Kansas, which was the reason we chose them. We somehow felt the need to stand out in this dramatic western land where everyone seemed large, and with unique personalities.

   It would have been easy for someone in Abilene who had never met us to assume that there could only be one such hat in town at a time, as those hats made a statement. Me and Red wore them as fighting cocks wear their crowns, our personalities adjusting to fit their jaunty appearances. I recall that when we first rode into camp with our new head-gear Chaz and the boys had roared their approval. For a brief moment we were the stars of the outfit, with everyone envious of the Tennessee gringos. We were some kind of proud, being the newest, and youngest of the bunch. Geraldo beamed his appreciation, "Bien, amigos mios! Ahora, tienes un estilo!" "It is good my friends, now you have a style!"

   Yes, sir. You bet me and Red were proud.  

   It was a hard two month trail up from Texas. The boys all being anxious for town, we drew straws to see who stayed with the herd. Knowing my luck, I was not surprised when I drew short, but I figured it was for the best. Those longhorns had been spooky for the last twenty miles of the drive, and the last thing I wanted was for our two month drive to end in a stampede scattering our herd over half of Kansas. It was past dinner time when Chaz got back with his cattle buyers, so I headed into town tired, but ready to make up for lost time. I felt better after a bath, and a shave, but my lids were heavy. A beer, or a whiskey would cut the trail dust, so I strolled through the opened doors of "The Cow-Town Palace" just as any sixteen year old kid with ten gallons of hat, two months of pay, and a Colt's revolver on his hip would. I strolled in like a mucho mal hombre.

   I saw it happening, although I scarcely believed it. They were spread wide across the room. Three had pistols, one a shotgun. I almost looked back, over my shoulder, thinking they were looking for someone else, but it wasn't so. Flame blasted at me from every direction, even as my own confused brain signaled for my hand to grab iron.

   Red had the disposition of a side-kick, rather than that of a hero. He just wasn't suited to play a great part in life's play. When we left Millington, Red's mother assigned me the task of keeping Red from harm, a responsibility I accepted, as I had been doing it for most of our lives already. Red was tough enough, and he was smart enough, but he didn't always think things through, especially when the pressure was cooking. Red's initial reaction to any surprise was anger. That hot fuse of his had a way of pushing him to the front of situations that he had no business being in at all, much less being out in front of. That's where me and Red found ourselves now, right up front in a bad situation. Red had been gambling in "The Palace" an hour before I arrived. He was gambling sober, as he was still a preacher's son, and therefore not a drinker. Red wasn't sure, but he thought he had heard the whisper from a bottom deal. Red being Red, he continued to play, keeping his bets low, waiting and watching to smell the skunk. It wasn't long before he heard it, and smelled it, again. Red was young, with only sixteen years. He had the look of a youngster, what with his fiery red hair, and his lightly freckled cheeks, but that youngster was game. Red called a man twice his size, and triple his age, a "no good, four flushing, sum bitch!" When he did, the "stooges" on either side of Red grabbed his arms and held tight while "Big" Jim Allard gave it to him good with both fists. Beaten to a bloody pulp, Red was thrown without ceremony into the dry arroyo behind the bar.

   Me and Red were partners. We had been since we were school kids back in Tennessee. We became partners because we had both caught the "Western Itch." When Greeley came out with his, "Go West" headline, it was as if he was talking straight at me and Red. We had missed the war, being too young, but we had no intention of missing out on the great western adventure, too.

   Red came by his nick-name honest. His hair shone cinnamon-tit red, while his temper glowed hot as a stove-top. His real name was Terrance Applewhite, a rather humorous mistake of identity if you think about it. Red's father was the preacher at the Millington First Baptist Church, and everything wild ever said about a preacher's kid came tied up in Terrance with a "red" ribboned-bow. 

   Me and Red hooked on with Joseph McCoy when we were fifteen years old, making him believe we were sixteen. McCoy put us on a steamer bound for an easy ride to Houston, and then a hard road through Texas, but we stepped off of that boat and into our dreams. It's true what they say, that everything is bigger in Texas. The men were tough, and the women were beautiful. The work was damned hard, but we were game, me and Red. Chaz took us under his wing. A real vaquero, Chaz Valero was a brush-popper. He worked the heaviest Texas thickets along the hottest border country, driving wild longhorns out of the thorny bushes three, and four at a time. Once me and Red got brave enough to try it ourselves we discovered just how tough it really was. From then on Chaz Valero grew to "Texas Size" in our eyes. At the start the steers were chasing me and Red out of the thickets, instead of the other way around, but we lived, and we learned. We listened to Chaz, and to Geraldo Velasquez, his partner. Around chuck at night we would tell them what we had run into during the day, and they would explain how to handle it the next time. In between the scratches, and the falls, and the heat, we slowly became better, and wiser. Soon we were chasing the steers ourselves, instead of them chasing us, and not without a little pride. We were working our asses off, but we were being treated, and we were being paid, like men... and we were loving every minute of it.

   One thing about Red, he didn't mind the work. In fact, the harder the work, and the more dangerous it got, the more Red took to it. When Velasquez said one evening, while riding to chuck, "do not go in dat ticket, senors. It ees where El Diablo leeves. El Diablo es two tousand pounds, with a horn broken off just so." Velasquez made a gesture with his hand to show us. "If you see dat bull mis amigos, go another way. No es bueno. There is better work elsewhere."

   The morning after that talk Red rode straight into El Diablo's thicket. We heard the roars from angry cattle, and the hollered "Sum Bitches," and the sounds of crashing brush. Chaz and I smiled at one another, waiting, sure that Red would come out fast, hell for leather, running for his life, but that ain't what happened. Instead, Red came riding out of that Devil's Den pushing El Diablo himself, along with a twelve cow harem! We fell in on his flanks, and together we drove his little herd to the holding area.

   "What in the hell, Red," Chaz asked? "How did you do that? Why did you do that?"

   "There was cows in them bottoms. McCoy is paying me to gather cows." And that was that!

   After two weeks of the hot and hellish work Chaz, Geraldo, Red and I had gathered over three hundred head of the biggest, meanest cow-critturs created by a vengeful God. When we joined up with Clay Peterson and his boys, all-together we tallied seven hundred and fifty, wild-as-hell, longhorn cattle. We might have never made Kansas were it not for El Diablo. That big bull set out in the lead like he knew where he was headed, and the rest of the bunch fell in behind. Don't get me wrong, it was still a job holding them all together. Anything that startled them cows would set them off to-running, and usually in the wrong direction. Our enemies were thunder, wolves, panthers, and Comanches, but something as simple as a pan clanking in the chuck wagon could start them running. We were living on a nervous edge for eight-hundred Godforsaken miles. Me and Red had found a surefire way to become men in a hurry, but that suited us fine. After all, being men was what we longed to be.

   There was a time that first trip to Kansas when I topped a rise to find Red facing up with three unfamiliar cowboys. I kicked up a trot, having an eye for trouble. Me and that chestnut of mine were twenty yards away when I heard it, "You sum bitch!" 

   

   When guns were drawn, I slapped spurs. That chestnut horse sailed into trouble belly to the ground and dirt flying with my Colt's .44 spouting flame from his back. One of those cowboys went down hard, and the other two were kicking dust to get away from there. I turned back to Red, who was still trying to get his gun out of its holster, as he hadn't removed the thong that held the pistol in its place. That thong was a necessary thing in that brush country we had been working if you expected to keep your pistol for any amount of time, but it was death for the man who forgot to unhook it when trouble came along.

   "Damn it, Red! What goes on here?"

   "It was that sum bitch Spinner Rapp!" Red was so worked up he was sputtering. "Said they was going to cut a third of the herd. Said we had their brands in our bunch. I told the sum bitch to go right to hell! He wasn't going to take one of those damned cows lest he took me, too!"

   "Yea? Well, next time, take the thong off of your hammer before you say something like that."

   Red looked at his holster with sheepish eyes, his Colt still strapped in. His face crinkled, red with rage, "Sum bitch! Lucky damned bastards is what they are. Sum bitch!"

   I looked down at the man I had killed. Red was wrong. That man had run plumb out of luck. A man dead who was surely a "son", if not a bitch, as well as being a brother, cousin, or friend. Someone like as not would be upset about that man's death. That someone would likely come looking for the man who had killed him. It was a nervous feeling for me, from there on out. I found that I could trust no stranger. That was the price of killing a man, and I found it a high price, indeed.

   When Red finally managed to pull himself out of the arroyo one of his eyes was swollen shut, his nose was more than likely broken, and some sorry sum bitch had kicked his balls, leaving them tender, and swollen. His only thought was to find his partner and go back after them sum bitches. The livery stable was dark, so he scratched a match on his jeans, found the lamp, and waited while it gathered fuel enough to cast its feeble glow. While he waited he saw the body laid out on the barn’s floor. A cold fear ran up Red's back. He knew before he looked. He held the lamp low, to better see the face. There was a hole through the cheek, but there was no mistaking Billy Winston, his partner, and his friend.

   "Sum bitch, sum bitch, sum bitch!" Red's mouth curled downward into a heavy frown. He allowed himself some deep breaths as he thought his way through to the obvious conclusion. "This is it, then," he said aloud to the motionless body lying in the dark barn. "This is it." That decided, there was no reason to wait.

   Red Applewhite was no gunfighter, but neither was he a coward. He pulled his Colt so he could check it's loads. 

   Billy was dead because Red had not been there to meet him. Red had not been there to help when his saddle partner had needed him the most. Something would have to be done about that. 

   Red had lost his hat. He had probably lost it when those "sum bitches" were kicking his ass. He reckoned he would go on over and find it. It was his hat, and it was a good one. Damn anybody who got in his way. His tussle of bright red hair stood at nervous attention as he crossed the heavily rutted Main Street, blood from his earlier beating still dripping in thick globs from his smashed lips. Red's left eye was swollen shut, but there was nothing wrong with his right, and one would do. That eye watched as a man sitting on the boardwalk in front of "The Palace" eased up from his bench and ducked inside.

   "Sum bitch!" They would be ready for him! Well, that was alright. Red was ready too, almost. He reached down to slip the thong from the hammer of his Colt. It seemed that Billy was still with him. He smiled grimly at that comfortable thought, and then he threw any remaining fear aside. 

   Three long strides carried Red into "The Cowtown Palace Saloon and Gambling Hall," where he stopped, pistol in hand. He felt pretty dog-gone good. His blood pumped freely through his veins, carrying a healthy dose of adrenaline along with it. Had Red looked down, he would have seen the damp stains from his friend's blood on the floor beneath his feet, but there was no looking down. Red’s attention was needed elsewhere. The four men were spread wide through the room, their tension sparking it with electricity; the same four from earlier in the night. Good. A barely audible, "Sum bitch" leaked from Red's smashed lips as he took another step forward and opened the ball. He raised the big Walker's Colt and, for the first time in his life, Red fired it at a man, at the man on his far right, at Big Jim Allard. When he did, the room exploded with sound. The first bullet that hit Red spun him sideways, allowing the next two to miss. That was the good news. When Red stopped spinning he faced the man on the far left. He snapped a quick shot at that one. This man was slender, and wore a yellow tie, with a pearl stick pin. It was funny to notice that now. Red had the satisfaction of watching "Stick Pin" fall before the shotgun blast knocked him back to the wall. The fancy-looking man with the shotgun was pumping it for another shot when Red sent two bullets into his chest, the bullets kissing crimson flowers upon the man's washed and pressed, "Go-to-Meeting" shirt. 

   He had done for three of the sum bitches! Red leaned heavily against the wall behind him, allowing it to hold him up on his feet. "Damn," he thought! "If only Billy could see me now! Red knew that he was dying, but there was no pain. In fact, it felt kind of good, bringing with it a numb, care-free feeling. He lifted the Colt toward the last man standing.

   The last man standing had been waiting. He had killed before, and relished neither the killing itself, nor the guilty dreams that followed. Not being a man to "notch" his killings, he was under no compulsion to be the one to shoot the ruddy-faced youngster down, and so he held back, hoping one of the others might do it first, but now it had come time to kill, or be killed. Reluctantly, the man sent his own .44 slug into the base of Red's throat. Red's hand tightened on his Colt, sending its bullet slamming into the rough-planked floor. Red wanted to raise the Colt once more, to aim it at the sum bitch that had killed Billy, but his arm would not respond. Instead, Red Applewhite slid further down the wall, alive, but choking on his own blood, the room growing dark around him. 

   From habits created by his chosen profession, Desmond Sampson replaced the spent cartridges in his pistol before moving. When through with the task, he walked over to the body of the red-headed boy propped up against the wall. Desmond counted five bullet holes besides the shotgun blast that had blown a hole through the youngster's stomach. He looked like a good kid, and he had been tough, as was proven by the bodies of three tough men scattered about the floor of the gambling hall. "This son-of-a-bitch had sand", Desmond thought unknowingly, offering up a compliment that Red would have appreciated, could he have heard it.

   

   Chaz and the boys carried us out to the banks of the Smoky Hill River. They put us up high, to avoid the flood waters, in a spot where the wildflowers mixed with the prairie grass. They wrapped us up in a single blanket, and then rolled us into our hole. Chaz said some nice Mexican words that swirled away to nothing in the warm prairie wind, but it was still a good spot. Me and Red became a part of the western lands we had dreamed of, a part of the lands we had worked in, and loved. We were a quickly forgotten part, but a part none-the less.

   Red Applewhite had no business being the hero. He was born to be a sidekick, but no one had ever bothered to explain that to Red, so he took on both hats down there in Abilene, and he wore them both well, hero and fool.

   A wise man has said that, "He travels the fastest who travels alone", and that might be true. Some other men believe that a man is destined to be born alone, and to die alone, and that might also be so. But me and Red covered some ground together, back in the day, and we strolled up to those “golden gates” as only cocky young men with ten gallons of hat, two months of pay, and a Walker's Colt can. We strode up there together, partners, and ready for whatever came next, each of us stronger for the other one beside him... me and Red.