PROLOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE TO THE READER
ATOP THE CREST of a tidal wave of unprecedented death and destruction, they poured into Texas— desperate, hard as nails, the men of blood. Men who were forged in the crucible of America’s bloody Civil War and tempered to the consistency of weapons-grade steel. Their conflict-acquired skills, stock, and trade often included brutality, murder, and a penchant for vicious mayhem. The unfortunate citizens who crossed the gore-drenched paths of those war-hardened gents referred to them as gun-men, shootists, gunfighters, or pistoleers—a grouping of benignly euphemistic terms that every man, woman, and child who lived between 1865 and 1900 understood to really mean
The frontier West’s slayers of men came from every sort of background imaginable. Prior to the great war of Yankee aggression on the South, many worked the land as hardscrabble farmers. At one time or another, some pursued employment as storekeepers, dentists, barbers, and butchers. Others worked as actors, doctors, lawyers, clerks, miners, buffalo hunters, Pony Express riders, or school-teachers. More than a few had once borne the badge of law enforcement officers.
Regardless of their previous backgrounds, upon arrival in the great Lone Star State, they plied whatever trade necessary to survive. In the process, a goodly number became double-dealing, card-marking, itinerant gamblers, swindlers, thugs, pimps, stock and property thieves, footpads, train and stagecoach robbers, con men, pickpockets, tricksters, rapists, murderers, and assassins of every stripe, variety, and type imaginable.
Life for such dangerous gentlemen (for the brotherhood of audacious hired gun hands, bandits, and charlatans proved almost entirely male) could generally be described as wicked, violent, and in most cases, extremely short. Death usually came for the men of blood by way of a gun or knife. And while a miniscule number of the most infamous slaughterers managed to die in their beds as the result of natural causes, or at the end of a legally applied length of oiled Kentucky hemp, most went to the judgment of their Maker surrounded by a roiling cloud of acrid-smelling, freshly spent gunpowder accompanied by the bitter, coppery taste of spilled blood.
A short listing of some of their names literally defines the
Perched on the razor-thin precipice between living to a ripe old age and an early death stood the guardians of law, life, liberty, and civility. Men charged with the protection of the weak and easily intimidated from those who would, without compunction, rob or murder any luckless citizens unable to defend themselves. Unfortunately, cold- eyed killers would commit such dastardly deeds for little more than the change an undertaker could find in a dead man’s pockets.
These stalwart defenders of law-abiding citizens, the edicts of God, and the rules of men included heroic figures like Texas Ranger Captains Lee H. McNelly and John B. Armstrong. Men of grit and backbone such as John R. Hughes, Jim Gillett, Heck Thomas, and Texas John Slaughter. And while these redoubtable gentlemen diligently served the state and their fellows as rangers, marshals, deputy marshals, police officers, and sheriffs, they often found that even their extensive experience and talent could accomplish little against the baddest of the bad men.
At such critical junctures, local, city, and state law enforcement officers often found themselves compelled to call upon a special breed of men who could bring the worst malefactors to book. Dedicated men gifted with nerves of iron. Men who would, without remorse, ride the practitioners of evil to ground like the brutish animals they really were, drag them back to justice, or kill them one and all.
What follows is a tale of viciousness and ugly death taken from the heroic adventures of one such man. A man who would, when circumstances required, do whatever he deemed necessary to bring evil to heel. In guarded whispers his numerous enemies called him Lucius “By God” Dodge.
1
“BLEW HIS THREE BIGGEST TOES CLEAN OFF.”
DON’T KNOW ABOUT anybody else, but until recently I’ve always been partial to hot weather—the steamier the better. Scorching sunshine coming down hot enough to bake blisters on a bayou-dwelling turtle’s hard-shelled back used to be just my cup of tea.
But, you know, for unfathomable reasons, if it gets too hot or too cold these days, I swear ’fore Jesus, seems like each and every one of my ancient hurts and past injuries start to aching something fierce. And usually, all of them at the exact same instance. Seems the rigors of advanced old age can sure enough border on a downright hellish torture at times.
Especially problematic are the numerous bullet holes in my antiquated, wrinkled ole hide. Last I counted there were eight of them. ’Course I might’ve missed a couple here and there. Way I figure it, if I’d a got shot about two more times, back when my teeth were still new and not worn down so much, my whole body just might’ve fell apart like a newspaper suit in a rainstorm.
Woke up around midnight. Horse killer of a heat wave must have blown through Domino and the Sulphur River country whilst I was asleep. I was hurting like hell from the blue whistler that motherless brigand Irby Teal put in the meaty part of my right side. Ragged vent’s just above the spot where my pistol belt used to hang.
As bullet wounds go, ole Irby’s unwanted outlet never really amounted to much—leastways not till here of late. Now she throbs like the pure dickens when excessive heat, or numbing cold, hits me just right. Damn that sorry-assed weasel for being a pretty good shot with a pistol, by God.
Anyhow, ole Irby’s antique pain got me up and prowling around the house in the middle of the night. That achy, scarred-over hole set me to thinking about how I came to have the ugly blemish on my hoary hide. As I remember the events surrounding the shooting and its later consequences, me’n Boz Tatum had been running buddies and man hunters for about three or four years back in ’82 or ’83—no longer certain of the exact year to tell the truth. Captain Horatio Waggoner Culpepper, commander of Ranger Company B, sent us down to Rio Seco ’long about then.
At the time, our loose-knit bunch of hard-eyed lawdogs was headquartered out on the banks of the Trinity River a bit north of Fort Worth. Before we left town and headed south, Cap’n Culpepper had me and Boz up to his pavilion. Personally gave us strict instructions as to the disposition of a stack of boot-wearing manure named Boston Teal, younger brother of the aforementioned Irby.
Remember as how Boz didn’t care much for the assignment from the outset. Wagged his leonine head back and forth, then mumbled, “ ’S a long damned way to Rio Seco, Cap’n. ’Bout as far south as a body can go in Tejas and not have to speak Messican like a native.”
Culpepper nodded. “That’s right, Boz,” he said. “Near sixty miles north of San Felipe Del Rio
From the corner of my mouth I said, “ ’S okay with me, compadre. Like it hot myself.”
Boz ran a finger across a dripping forehead, flicked a gob of sweat onto the sleeve of my shirt, then grinned.
Cap’n Culpepper, a smoldering see-gar clenched between his horsey teeth, stared off into space like a politician about to make promises he couldn’t keep. “Hell, I’ll own as how it is indeed a far piece, Tatum. Ass buster of a trip for a man on a horse. But Boston Teal is a murderous brigand. Man has personally delivered the souls of near a dozen innocents into the heavenly presence of a benevolent Jesus.”
“I done heard tell of even more’n that, Cap’n,” Boz said.
“True enough,” Culpepper continued. Hands clasped behind his back, he puffed away and paced to and fro, as though agitated. “Sad to say, you’re right as rain, Boz. I harbor not a single doubt that the evil-doin’ bastard has
