West Texas 1868
The little seven year old boy shook uncontrollably as he squatted in the dark space, on the cool earthen floor. Smelling the loam, the musty dampness of dirt that never sees the sun, he felt like this might be what a grave would feel like. This must be what it’s like to be buried, like his little sister Nattie was last spring he thought. She had come down with the fever and died after a few days. He had watched his Pa tight lipped and solemn, shovel the dirt onto the small wooden crate down below them where they all had stood.
On that day almost a year ago it had been still, with not a spot of wind. He remembered looking down and watching the dust as it hung in the air, then slowly settled back down into the rough grave. All the while his mother had moaned quietly and cried with her hands over her mouth. His older brother Seth, thirteen at the time, had stood bravely just behind her with a tear and dirt stained face. Hands jammed into old trousers held up by suspenders, he quickly wiped again at his face and looked off at the gradual hill that rose off to the west of their cabin. His brother’s lips had been trembling and his chest hitched a couple of times, signaling the battle within him to remain strong and steady. The small boy’s memory of that day suddenly faded away as quickly as it had come.
Heavy walking above him had brought him back from that memory and he stared at a wooden trapdoor above him with a look of true terror, faced upraised and eyes wide, looking straight up as he waited for the bad men to surely find his hiding place. He imagined them grinning and leering while slowly lifting the small wood hatch in the floor, which currently hid him from view. Saw them pulling him up by the hair, kicking and screaming, out of the hole.
The noises had been going on for awhile and they were terrible noises. There had been screams and scuffling, stomping feet, men growling and cursing, breaking glass and wood splintering. He heard his mother’s muffled cries and her pleading with somebody to stop doing something and his brother Seth sounding hurt and crying loudly. He didn’t hear his Pa anymore. Earlier though, he’d been yelling and scrapping with somebody, least that’s how it sounded anyway. There had been about 6 or 7 gunshots at the beginning he thought, but he didn’t really know how many, because he wasn’t thinking too straight. He was past being scared now, way past that, and it almost felt as if he was dreaming this whole thing. He had retreated to a place far away and only time would tell if he could find his way back. Something had broken inside him and he had snapped like a dry dead twig.
Pulling his wide eyes reluctantly away from the trapdoor, he looked slowly around the darkness, which luckily wasn’t entirely black. There were thin shafts of light coming through the wood plank floor above, some cracks were only paper thin, some a little wider and these gave him just enough light. There were dust particles floating around from all the commotion up above and as they swirled and floated in and out of the lines of light. After awhile the bad noises above turned into a muffled roar as the small boy faded in and out of consciousness.
7 year old Tyler Parker was crouched in a square shaped area that was about five deep and just big enough for his whole family to be in. His father, Jared, had dug the crawlspace under the cabin for his wife and children about 2 years ago. The Parkers had never had to use it but Tyler had played in it before with the trapdoor open and his mother or pa around. It was meant for shelter during a bad storm that might blow up, or as a hiding place from Indian raiding parties, or just plain bad men like the ones above him right now. It could hold everyone but he was alone. There just hadn’t been enough time earlier this morning…….
After they had their breakfast in the morning, his Pa and Seth had been working on their plow harness and his mother had been washing some clothes in the tub outside, while he had been sweeping the floor of the cabin.
“Mother, we got some visitors comin’ callin’ on us” Seth said loud enough for Tyler to hear him from inside. “Up on tha hill, see ‘em?” he said with a little excitement and was pointing at them now. In west Texas during the 1800’s a visitor was an exciting occasion, a break in the routine of everyday hard work and labor by the entire family.
Tyler kept sweeping but he moved to the small window that looked out the front of the cabin, due west. Up there on the hill, the same one Seth had been staring off at the day they had buried Nattie, he saw three men on horses. They had stopped, silhouetted against the sky, looking down at the small cabin and farmstead of the Parker family.
He looked at both his folks and they stared at the three horsemen. A small smile, which had started up on his mother’s face as she hoped for somebody they knew, quickly faded. His fathers arm dropped after his wave went unanswered by the three riders on top of the hill. His usual stern expression got even more serious as Tyler watched him closely. There was a tense minute or so when the riders and his family continued studying each other.
Finally, Seth broke the trance and silence, “Pa, what do you think they ar….“ but he didn’t finish when he saw one rider begin to make his way down the hill to them. The other two riders fell in right behind him.
“Seth, get inside with your little brother…….Ma you too…..” his father had said without taking his eyes off the three riders.
“But Pa, I - “Seth once again was cutoff by Jared.
“Git boy……go on Seth…..now” Tyler’s father had said tightlipped while he continued to tighten a strap on the plow harness.
His mother dropped the shirt she’d been washing back into the metal tub and walked steadily over to Seth, taking a handful of the boy’s shirt when she reached him.
“Seth, inside with your brother….. goan now” she almost whispered, tugging hard on his shirt. She walked with Seth a few steps and up onto the short porch, ushering him inside, then stopped at the cabin door and turned again to look.
The riders kept coming leisurely down the hill towards them, they were close enough now for the Parker’s to see how bedraggled and scruffy looking they were.
“Jared……?” Tyler’s mother said hesitantly to his father.
“Git inside Mary, take care of the boys…..I got this” he said quietly back to her, never taking his eyes off the advancing trio of horsemen. “Inside now, hurry”.
She did as he said and came into the cabin quickly. Tyler and Seth were over looking out the small dirty window and she went to an old standup cupboard in the corner. She grabbed something, turned and walked to the supper table carrying his pa’s pistol and bone handled, big blade hunting knife. She looked at Tyler and tried to give him a reassuring smile, but couldn’t deliver one, her gaze going back out the door to the approaching riders and to Jared.
The first rider, who looked to be only about 20 or so, had on an old cavalry hat and was wearing a pair of greasy buckskin pants. He was within about thirty feet of his father when he reached across his waist and pulled a revolver, all in one swift motion. Bringing it over and up quickly, he aimed and fired without warning or a word spoken. The rider’s horse reared up and the man briefly struggled to bring him steady or he would have taken another shot. His pa, reacting to the sudden movement, began to duck and run for the cabin before the shot had rang out. The bullet grazed his shoulder spraying a mist of blood up in the air that they all saw. The riders behind also fired and his pa was hit in the right arm too. Seth slammed the shutters closed on the window and Tyler simply stood there frozen and wide eyed, looking at his mother.
His father stumbled and half fell into the cabin and Mary slammed the door shut, swinging a heavy wood slat down to hold it shut. She then grabbed the big Colt pistol from his dad’s army days, and gave Seth the hunting knife. His father snatched his Winchester rifle hanging on the wall and chambered a bullet, backing up from the door until the far wall stopped him.
“Mary, take the boys down in the crawl space” his father said through gritted teeth. He was bleeding badly from the arm wound and the arm hung weakly at his side. He held the Winchester one handed, with his other good arm and stared at the closed door.
She quickly scooted the table and floor rug out of the way, opening the little hatch that was cut into the floor. She grabbed Tyler and pushed him halfway down through the hole, motioning for Seth to come as well.
Without warning, the door to the cabin buckled inward with a tremendous bang and the window shutters over where Seth stood, cracked almost in two.
“Rancher! We mean to have whatever we want in there and we will……You better git out here quick like and we’ll think about sparin’ you and yourn if you do” came a roaring voice from outside. There followed some murmured talk outside between the three riders.
“Get off my property now.……. and I won’t kill all three a you sons a’ bitches!” Tyler’s father yelled, then fired a round about waist high through the weathered cabin door. There was an immediate howl and blood curdling scream from outside.
“Gawwwd Dangggit…….Red! he caught me one a good one……damn……it hurts bad Redddd!” the screaming man wailed and then bellowed his pain angrily.
His Pa had gotten a lucky shot in and working the lever action swiftly despite his lame arm, he readied the Winchester again while painfully leaning against the wall.
Mary looked over and saw that Tyler was still only halfway down into the hole, watching the whole thing unfold. Rushing over she gave him a gentle shove down. She motioned at Seth again, but he had backed his way over to the far corner and shook his head violently. He meant to stay up here with them and his look told her as much. She turned her attention back to Tyler.
She somehow managed a grin this time “Stay down there now my sweet Ty, you stay down there quiet as a mouse and don’t you be coming up till we tell ya to okay? Goan now Ty” and she gently pushed his head down further, dropping the little door at the same time.
He couldn’t see it now, but above him she had just drawn the heavy rug back over the hatch and began scooting the table back when the front door was shattered inward all the way this time. Across the room, the window shutter was splintered at the same time. Seth slashed with the big knife mainly out of reflex, down on a hand that suddenly shoved through the small window with a pistol. But a split second before the knife sliced through clear to the wrist bone, the pistol had fired and Jared was hit again. More shots followed, Jared’s Remington cracked at one of the riders charging through the splintered front door and the stranger was firing as he came through. Then Tyler heard the Colt Peacemaker his mother had been holding with two hands. It boomed twice and then stopped. Then his mother had let out an angry and long shrill scream.
Tyler did as his mother had told him and there he sat, down in that dark dirt, silent as a mouse for almost two days. At first, there had been all the fighting, yelling and shooting, then some more fighting and scrappin’ without guns. He had heard his mother and big brother crying and fighting with the bad men. Then, there was more cussing and bad talk. Soon after, all he heard was heavy footsteps up there. Nobody was talking anymore. But he knew they were up there just waiting for him to come up, trying to trick him. Even when he heard no more footsteps he hadn’t come up. Finally though, after two days he was so thirsty he just had to get out of that hole. As he pushed up on the trapdoor, he hoped the bad men were gone and hoped his ma wouldn’t be too mad at him.
The scene that greeted him was so horrible that he couldn’t even cry. So unimaginable for him that his mind must have shut down and wouldn’t let him recognize things for what they were. He had sat by his broken and shattered mother for awhile, patiently holding her cold hand and hoping she might wake up or get better, but she never did. He ignored both his parents open but lifeless eyes and tried to keep them warm with blankets. His Pa’s bullet riddled body was leaning against the wall and he wouldn’t get up or talk to Tyler, which meant he was still tired or still mad at the bad men. He was hard headed that way, so Tyler left him alone. Brother Seth’s awful tortured body looked almost normal to him and he set a cup of cool well water next to him in case he got thirsty. The two other men, the bad men that were lying in the cabin, he didn’t even look at or acknowledge. They might as well have been piles of wood to Tyler.
Eventually after trying everything he could think of, he thought he better go get help, because his family was still sick and they weren’t getting any better. So, seven year old Tyler Parker had started off for ol’ Billy Pinkerton’s place, their closest neighbor who was probably about 11 miles or so, straight west. He knew the way, his family had visited them on many occasions. Tyler went right over the top of the hill where the riders had been and just kept on walking. He made the Pinkerton place that evening. It was an amazing feat that Billy and Sarah Pinkerton never could quite imagine being accomplished by such a young boy. Tyler hadn’t said a word when they opened their cabin door, but he did finally cry, a sad quiet cry.
In fact, Tyler Calhoun Parker would not say another single word for another eight years. Sarah had just hugged and hugged Tyler that first night, it was the only thing she could think of to do. Then she hugged him some more and softly cried with him, while singing him songs she used to sing to her own children. At sunrise the next morning, Billy Pinkerton had saddled up and rode over to the Parker’s ranch. Later in the day, he returned pale and shaken, talked to Sarah briefly and then walked to their small barn, shaking his head slowly as he went. He wouldn’t return to the house until late that night.
Tyler would spend the next eight years with the Pinkerton family and he would forever be in their debt. They were good, strong and solid people who had cared for and raised him like one of their own. Until they died, he would ride out their way whenever he was close enough to get there. He always made a point of bringing Sarah some perfume, a scarf or something store bought from Landry’s over in Springtown. Ol’ Billy even got a brand new pair a boots from Fort Worth on one visit, well stitched boots that Tyler had patiently scraped and saved for over time. He’d handed the old man this gift, as a son would giving something to his father. The same way he’d given Sarah hers in the past.
When he was almost 16, working on the old Brazos Trail Ranch, Tyler had chased, shot and killed a rustler who had taken an earlier shot at him while he was standing watch over the BTR herd. Still saddled and looking down at the dead rustler with no emotion, another ranch hand by the name of Amory Bean, had rode up and happened to hear Tyler say the first words he’d spoken after nearly 8 years of silence. He told others later that Tyler had simply said, “Off our property now, you sons a’ bitches.” Then he had spat on the dead rustler’s body, looked at Amory without any real expression and rode slowly off.
Amarillo, Texas 1888
In his mind, he had been staring in a daze at the thin shafts of sunlight again. It came over him every once in awhile and he still couldn’t explain it. He had no idea how long it had been since he had heard something, or even moved, but it had been awhile. He frowned slightly as he came back to the present, tipped his hat down further and gently knocked twice on the bar with the glass tumbler.
“Another Mr. Parker?” the portly bartender with heavy sideburns asked him politely and then quietly added “It’s on the house sir.”
The bartender knew exactly who he was dealing with here, he knew the life story of Ty Parker like almost everyone else, knew this famous Texas Ranger well and the living legend that he had become.
“Sure, Sammy...…another.” he said glancing around the saloon. “Sure” he repeated absently.
He flipped another coin on the bar for Sammy anyway, winked at him and then looked over his right shoulder, sideways down the bar. There were two men standing about halfway down and they hadn’t been there the last time he looked.
Turning his body casually he looked straight down the bar and stared at them openly. They glanced back over at him and then away, trying to act indifferent and casual too. That was his boys alright, two train robbers, from down around El Paso way. Tommy Conner and Jeb “Red” Tanner had robbed four trains already and killed five people in the process. He carried their wanted poster in his saddle bag and studied their likeness many times, so there was no mistake that this was the right two. He had been trailing them for a month now and just barely missed them a couple of times as they slipped in and out of small towns all over Texas. At other times, they had stayed out on the plain and he would find their old campsites a day or two later. He had never lost the track though and had stuck with it as the two bandits ranged far and wide, in and out of the state.
As a Texas Ranger, he had jurisdiction all over the entire state of Texas and around the borders of most other neighboring states as well. He basically answered to no other law enforcement body, or person in Texas, except the Governor himself or maybe a superior with the Rangers. So, one way or another, they were his.
He was either taking these two back to old San Antonio in shackles to stand trial and hang, or leaving them somewhere dead out in the prairie. He actually preferred to kill them right here and now, but might make for a messy scene and some innocent people might get killed. He had no interest in shooting up a saloon in Amarillo unless he had to. That left dragging them back through the middle of nowhere and if they made any kind of problem or mistake with him – anything at all, he’d shoot both of them. However, common decency, what there was left of it that hadn’t been ripped out of him during his brief violent life, would then require him to bury the damn bodies and he’d just as soon not do that either. He had a particular distaste for it. Not in killing bad men of course, Lord knows he’d done plenty of that, but in digging the holes for them and putting them in that dark ground.
Ty Parker didn’t think he’d have any trouble with the one closest to him. The other one though, the much older one on the far side that he couldn’t see as well, had looked at him only briefly but it was with dark dead eyes. Eyes that had betrayed not only guilt, but a certain measure of evil he’d seen a few times before.
He finally sat his drink down and walked towards the swinging doors, keeping them in the corner of his eye as he went. When he reached the two steps that lead up and out of the saloon he stopped and turned, gun already out and so quickly pulled that it seemed he’d had it drawn the whole time. It was his father’s old Colt from so long ago and he had always used it. He took several steps through some empty tables to within about 15 feet of the bar and the two men. Sammy the bartender stood down where Ty had been drinking and Ty saw him out of the corner of his eye reach under the bar. Another man, a ranch hand who’d been in there all afternoon, slid his way down to the other end of the bar, watching Ty and the two men at the same time.
Since Ty had stopped turned and walked towards them neither had turned around, but they had been watching him in the saloon mirror behind the bar. He could see their eyes now staring at him in surprise, fooled into thinking he had been leaving and then frozen in place as he had walked up behind them.
“Tyler Parker, Texas Rangers” he said to the backs of the two men almost as if he was in a quiet, private conversation. Adding casually, but with a deadly meaning, “Sammy if you mean to help me, it’s much appreciated, but drop what you have and walk out of here. Sammy quickly sat something down with a clunk and swung through the little half door at the end of the bar. Several other onlookers either backed their way to the door or froze at the tables where they were sitting.
The older man, Jeb Tanner who had been shielded from his view somewhat said, “Ranger, we mean no trouble, we’ve got no quarrel with you or you with us, now leave us be.”
He was staring at Ty in the mirror and the dusty old cavalry hat he was wearing made Ty pause, even that voice had sounded familiar but he couldn’t quite place it, like a bad dream he just couldn’t quite remember – in fact, hadn’t ever fully remembered.
“Both of you unbuckle your gun belts and drop your holsters, then raise your hands.” Both finally did so but the man on the right with the cavalry hat and lifeless eyes took longer, much longer. Both still stared at the mirror.
With the Colt held rock steady and a tense, hushed silence in the saloon, Ty continued “You with the bowler hat on, keep your hands up and turn around slowly…..Slow I said….and ’member boys, I’d just as soon shoot you than have to take you all the way back to San Antone’.
Tommy, wearing the bowler, had slowly turned as ordered and finally looked squarely at him. Ty could then see how young he really was, old enough, but young all the same. His face was drained of all color and he looked as if he was going to feint dead away. He started to say something to his partner but only got four words out “Red, I don’t think….
“Keep your yappin’ mouth shut Tommy” his older partner growled quietly.
“Okay Colonel you’re next, hands raised and a slow turn…..do it now”
Ty stated menacingly to the man known as Red.
The man didn’t move and his hands had come back down on the bar, resting in mid air just above the bar. Tommy stared wide eyed at Ty, even more nervous now.
“Now……..and get your hands back up in the air……I won’t ask again” Ty stated plainly.
Still the man didn’t move and Ty thought he saw just a slight twitch in the man’s slightly upraised right hand.
When the Colt went off inside the small saloon it sounded as if a small cannon had been fired. Ty had lowered the gun slightly and shot the uncooperative man in the calf of his left leg. A whelp and a hiss came from the man as he slumped.
“I said move damn it….” Ty said with no emotion. Gun smoke hung in the motionless air.
“Blue, you got ’ta turn around now” Tommy said quickly, nervous as a cat and clearly wanting this to just be over.
But just after Tommy spoke and as Ty watched Tanner struggling to turn, Tommy had rolled to his left suddenly.
A split second late Sammy had then called out from somewhere behind them, “Mr. Parker watch out for….” But Ty reacted quickly, firing his second shot at the diving Tommy, thinking that he might have actually hit him.
The boom echoed inside the saloon again. Bringing his gun back to the already wounded man slumped at the bar, he then fired a third shot because Jeb ‘Red’ Tanner had already whirled around while reaching for a small revolver tucked inside the waistband of his pants. The man was hit and flung violently back against the bar and then he crumpled to the floor, finally coming to rest facing Ty in an awkward sitting position. The gun he had gripped briefly had clattered to the floor.
Without pause, Ty glanced over and through the tables at Tommy who had indeed been hit and a large pool of blood was already forming around his fallen body. The man’s eyes were open but his face already had the frozen look of the dead on it.
Turning back to the man slumped on the floor against the bar he walked forward and looked down at Tanner.
“Damn you Ranger…….I’m gut shot…….” the man groaned and he had both bloody hands squeezing his stomach, his body slumping forward slightly. Kicking the small dropped revolver away in the direction of where the rancher was, Ty continued to stare at the wounded man.
“You want to die now, or just keep bleeding out? Might take a day, hell maybe two – I’ve seen it happen, and I’ll make damn sure no doc works on you, so it’ll be a hard go. Your dead either way…..slow or quick…..Which’ll it be? Ty asked, then added “I’ll let you choose.”
Ty looked quickly over to where Tommy was laying and like he thought, the man hadn’t moved. He was dead.
Ty swung his gaze back at Red, cocked his gun and leveled it at the man.
Silence followed in the smoky saloon. The wounded man hissed and sat up straighter. Ty waited with his gun pointed right at the man’s forehead.
“Shoot me Ranger” Tanner said, coughing out a small amount of bloody foam.
Ty kept the gun leveled and brought his thumb up, then released the hammer gently and holstered his revolver. “Sammy, can you get my horse and another one from over at the livery stable?” he questioned over his shoulder to the bartender he still couldn’t see. As Sammy headed out he yelled after him, “Tell ‘em I’ll pay good money but I don’t need no dang thoroughbred.”
“Yessir. Yessir I’ll have ‘em out front right away” came the hurried answer.
Red hissed with pain again and said “Ranger, you said you’d shoot me if I wanted….” yelping painfully on the last word. “Please put me down now…..I caint’ have no more of this fire in my belly. Please.
“Didn’t remember you at first” Ty said slowly and almost to himself.
“Don’t know you, never seen you ‘fore…..heard about you though” Blue hissed the words out through gritted teeth.
“Hat your wearin’ looked familiar and seemed like I’d heard your bellowin’ before, but I still couldn’t place you” Ty said solemnly as if he was remembering as he went. “When I shot you in the leg though I saw the knife tucked in your left boot though…..that’s what did it for me.”
“Crazy talk…….what the hell’r you talkin’ bout Ranger?” Tanner wheezed.
“I’m talkin’ about one day my mother brought out the gun I hold and the knife you have in your boot because there were three bad men bangin’ on the door of our little ranch years ago. There will be carved initials on the bone handle of that knife and they’ll be “JP”, for Jared Parker, my Pa. Ty stated with a growing anger.
Jeb ‘Red’ Tanner stared up at him, very afraid now, but still not understanding.
But Ty would explain it all to him on the ride back to San Antonio. A long, slow ride that would take days, and a ride that Jeb ‘Red’ Tanner would never complete. There would be plenty of time to talk, plenty of time to think and plenty of time to widen those thin shafts of light.
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