It was one of those usual Indian Summer Octobers when the sky is a bluer blue and the wind is windy, portending the incoming clouds and greyness that mark off winter form the rest of the year, when Jim Hatfield rode into Chokepointe Piste. He’d been gone a long time, so no one questioned or even raised a second thought to his hardened look. Oh, he smiled at those who spoke to him, his white teeth flashing in the dusky sunlight, but he eyes remained uninvolved and kind of like the sky over the Gulf of Mexico before a storm. Otherwise, he looked his usual self: tall in the saddle, his white hat hot quite hiding his jet-black hair, a straight back with his left hand on the reins and his right running free along his side and brushing his holster, his dusty boots held slightly forwards so he didn’t accidentally spur Goldy into a run for his life. He just wasn’t too happy.
Like every range rider, Jim rode straight to the saloon to wet his whistle. There’s a lot to be said for the healthful effects of fresh water or the succulence of cactus or aloe, but a man of the range needs a little more taste, a little more fire, and even though it was inevitably a shot or two of the rawest rotgut whiskey west of Boston, Baltimore or Baton Rouge, it was a welcome quaff indeed. But, unlike most saddlebums, drifters and cowpokes, Jim was a responsible man. He was a Texas Ranger. The Texas Rangers’ Texas Ranger. Jim Hatfield had obligations and he was not a man to shirk his duty. So, he only had one shot and then strode back out of the saloon. He looked both ways, up and down the boardwalk, and then crossed the street to the Texas Ranger office.
The glass-paned door was dusty, not having been opened or cleaned in his absence, and inside was musty and humid. Upon opening the door, the little office exhaled a great pent up sigh of hot air. Jim did not close the door. He jangled to the solitary desk and sat down in the old swivel chair. He dusted off the desk, took his hat off and set it at the far left corner of the desk top. From the stubborn desk drawer, Jim drew out a piece of paper, a pen and a bottle of ink. It was report writing time.
Later, after he closed up shop and took his golden sorrel to Kaikai’s livery that he discovered the wall. He stood there in the dusty roadway looking at its expressionless face. He looked up and down the length of wall before him and couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was doing there. Goldy snorted and shook his head.
“Kaikai,” Jim hailed the horse hosteller.
“Well, Jim Hatfield!” said Kaikai, jumping up from his chair. “When did you blow into town? Good to have you back.”
“Thanks. Good to be back. Sleeping out on the plains ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Cooped up schoolboy nonsense, eh? Bet your legs are sore, too.”
“I guess you can tell by the way I’m walking,” Jim smiled and patted him on the back as he moved into the darker, shadier interior of the great barn. “This old friend of mine’s tired too. You take good care of him.”
“Don’t I always?”
“You’re a good man, Kaikai.”
“Alot’s been happenin’ since you been gone,” ventured the stocky little man.
“So I see.”
“Oh, yeah. That too. Kinda splits the world into two difficult parts. Like a woman ain’t speakin’ to her man over somethin’ she ain’t talkin’ to him about ’cause if she tole him what was buggin’ her she’d be talking to him and she ain’t talkin’ to him.”
Jim began unsaddling Goldy. “Must not be too good for business, either.”
“No. It ain’t. I expect to make it through the winter but I ain’t too sure of the summer. Ain’t nobody thought o’ that, of what’s gonna happen tomorrow.”
“Depends on where your focus is, I guess.”
“I guess. People got longer noses than that there French guy. Still. . .damnedest thing I ever seen.”
“Me too. Worse than any fence out on the range,” sighed Jim. “Gimme the brush, will you?”
Kaikai did so.
“What the hell they got fences out there for?”
“Beats the hell outa me. Makes gettin’ around difficult. You have no idea how far I had to ride outa my way to get where I was going.” He decided against talking about the other kind of fence out there in God’s Country, the kind that was more or less invisible unless you looked at the kind of land it enclosed and the comings and goings of the blue-clad caretakers and the lost faces of the contained. Jim shook his head. His white brethren had such ironic names for things. Even the Great Wall of China did not keep the barbarians out.
“Why do people feel they have to own a piece of the world and keep other people off’n it? Downright uncivil, if’n you ask me.”
“Well, Kaikai, my man, I saw enough uncivility while I was gone to make any man sick.” Jim handed the brush back to Kaikai. “But. . .I don’t want to dwell on it now. I want to put my feet up and relax a bit. Maybe I’ll have better eyesight in the morning.”
“It’ll still be there, Jim.”
“I suppose you’re right. But I gotta rest anyway.”
The next day, Jim rode on out to Fort Fisher to make his report and catch up on shop talk but there was no one around other than the little secretary, Miss Brooks, a new face for Jim Hatfield.
“Hi. I’m Jim Hatfield. Where is everybody?”
“Hi, Ranger Hatfield. I’m Miss Brooks. Somewhere or other I lost my given name but, anyway, a secretary doesn’t need one, does she? No one knows who we are–not like you. Everyone’s heard of you. I’ve been waiting to meet you and now here you are! Right out of the blue yonder. You’re just as tall and handsome as your dime novels depict you to be.”
“You can’t believe everything you read, Miss Brooks.”
“Why’s that, Ranger Hatfield? Are you telling me your report here is fiction?”
“No, ma’am. I’m not. It’s not. It all has to do with rhetoric and writing one thing when you mean another. Using a lot of high-sounding words to impress you with your stupidity.”
“Oh, yes. Convincing people of a wrong thing just to convince ‘em. Um-hum. I’ve been there. I used to be a school teacher, you know.”
“What brought you out to the wild west?”
“Intellectual stimulation.”
“Things must be dull back East.”
“Dull. Yes. That’s one way to put it.”
“I see.” Jim shuffled his feet.
“The answer to your question is that they’re all out policing the wall that Gyorgy built.”
“I might have known it was his idea.”
“They draw walls differently in the East. You can’t see the walls out there. It’s called ‘it’s just the way things are.’ “
“Oh, yes. I know those walls. They’re out here, too.”
“Well, I guess I haven’t gone far enough, then.”
“Well, look, Miss Brooks. Since no one’s around, I’m going on back to Chokepointe Piste. That’s my station. You tell the Captain I’m back, will you?”
“Sure thing, Ranger Hatfield.”
Back in Chokepointe Piste, Jim didn’t rightly know where to go. His usual haunt was on the other side of the wall. He’d learned quite quickly which side was the good side. So, he went on to The Lone Star Inn & Bordello. No sooner had he swung through the batwings than a booming voice called out from the far end.
“Jim Hatfield!”
Jim looked up. There at a table just to one side of the backroom door sat his old buddy, Jim Griffin, writer extraordinaire.
“Long time no see, Jim Griffin,” he shouted back.
“Come on over and join me, Jim Hatfield. Ain’t had no one to talk to since you left town.”
“Where’s Buck?”
“Oh, he’s got his own place out north of town. A toll booth or something like that. Most disgusting block house you ever saw. Great big umbrella atop the roof, too.”
Jim sauntered over. “Do tell.”
“It’s all on account of that new guy that blew into town and now ain’t here no more. Name of Hellecchino. He certainly made things interesting around here.”
“Never heard of him,” Jim commented as he sat down.
“Nor did nobody. Goofiest lookin’ cowboy I ever saw.”
“Musta got his idea of how to dress from your books.”
“Hey, hey!” said Jim Griffin grinning from ear to ear. “Is that any way to say howdy-do?”
“Best I can do for a damn scribbler. At least you know somebody’s reading your books.”
“Only person I ever met. Here’s to ya,” and Jim saluted Jim with his sarsaparilla.
“How can you drink that stuff, Griff?”
“Ten o’clock in the morning. That’s how.”
“Hey, Randy?” called Jim to the bartender. “You got any coffee in the back?”
“I can heat it up, Jim,” suggested Randy.
“That’d be appreciated.”
And so it was that over more or less burnt coffee and sarsaparilla the two Jim’s told their tales, though mostly it was Jim Griffin, for he was not only a writer, he was a talker. He told about the things Hellecchino had done, especially the embarrassment of Clyde Moyen Bucket, the Millinery Bargaining Incident as it had come to be known. Jim Hatfield laughed fully and heartily, as if he had not laughed in centuries and now all of the pent up humanity came pouring forth in great puffs of sound. It was around noon before they took a break–before Jim Griffin ran out of talking points–and so they decided to go to Fancy Dan’s for some lunch.
“Can’t afford a place like that on a Ranger’s salary, Jim.”
“I’ll pay–if’n it ain’t on the house. You know how these people treat you ’round here.”
“Yeah,” Jim stood up, “and it gets to me sometimes. I can’t be a hero all the time. I’m only human.”
“Ain’t many o’ your type left, seems to me, buddy. Come on. Let’s go.”
The table in the far front corner, just outside the visible portion of the window, was the favorite of Jim Griffin. Indeed, he’d not sit anywhere else and if it were taken, he’d go elsewhere for his feeding. But this particular day, there weren’t too many customers. Jim Griffin ordered two shredded pork sandwiches on thick bread and two beers. “And bring the beer now. This man’s got a thirst to kill from riding through range dust.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Griffin. How are you, Ranger Hatfield? Good to have you back in town.”
“Thanks, Dan. It’s good to be back.”
As Dan personally brought the beers to the Jims, he smiled and said, “This’ll be on the house.”
“Rangers don’t take bribes, Dan.”
“Jim Hatfield!” said Dan straightening up and opening his eyes wide. “However could you think that of me?”
The three men laughed and Dan went back to his front desk and his new-fangled adding machine. He’d not had it long, perhaps a year, but the red paint on the handle had been worn off in spots and the metallic paint was chipped in places. The mechanical operating noise that was the drawback to any technology was a little more clattering that when he’d bought it. But apparently it still worked fine. Jim Hatfield noted a few new wall hangings as he looked around the place. Mostly old wanted posters in shiny black frames. Pictures of bad guys certainly were romanticized, thought Jim. They usually weren’t so grubby–or so well-got-up in some cases.
“So. . .tell me about yourself, Jim,” said Jim.
“Ain’t much to tell,” Jim said, drinking his beer and trying to avoid the subject. He looked out the window.
Jim let him have some time to himself, then suggested, “Chasin’ the bad guys gets to you sometimes, don’t it?”
“Sometimes the guys you’re chasin’ ain’t the bad ones,” drawled Jim.
Another pause imposed itself between the friends. Both took drinks of their beers, Jim Griffin wiping the suds from his mustache. Jim Hatfield, contrary to fashion, did not sport a mustache. He was clean shaven, what the women called devilishly handsome.
Although his eyes flashed that kind of sea grey that presaged action, Jim Hatfield spoke slowly, “I was sent out to round up the Indians. Put ‘em back in their places.” He didn’t speak for awhile again. “I couldn’t do it this time, Griff. I spent my time roundin’ ‘em up and then listenin’ to ‘em talk. There ain’t nothin’ dangerous ’bout ‘em.”
Jim Griffin knew that something was bothering his friend in a deep and abiding way, for he rarely spoke such poor English.
“God damn,” Jim Hatfield whispered and took another drink. “There’s a wall up out there, Griff, an’ I come back here and I find another kinda wall. Out there it’s a wall of words an’ ideas that just don’t fit reality. . .don’t fit the crime. That’s what it is, Griff. A crime. And al the talkin’ in the world ain’t gonna make it fit the facts. Not at all.”
“Prejudice?”
“Yeah. . .yeah. It’s that, I guess. But it’s bigger and so invisible it can be denied as it’s being built–not just by the builders, neither. Both sides got. . .both sides are stuck in the mire.”
Jim Hatfield finished his beer. Jim Griffin signaled for another.
“This’ll have to last me, Griff. I still got work to do.”
“You don’t hafta apologize to me, buddy.”
“Well, then, who the hell do I apologize to for what it is I’m supposed to be doing!”
“Calm down, big boy.”
“You ever been with the Indians, Griff?”
“No. Can’t say as I have. They’re kind of off-putting. Don’t smile much.”
“They ain’t got much to smile about. . .and their souls come out in their smiles. They don’t want that. They gotta keep somethin’ for themselves. White man’s taken everything else.”
The waitress, Lulu’s replacement, brought the sandwiches and plopped them down on the table. She turned and trundled back to the kitchen.
“She’s a saucy wench,” commented Jim Griffin.
“Saucy wenches ain’t the problem, Griff.”
“No. I s’pose not. Not out on the range.”
“It was easy trailing them,” began Jim Hatfield. “There was no attempt to hide their coming and goings. When I came upon them, I camped around their tee-pees. I told them why I’d come. They invited me in for dinner. After dinner, we sat around chatting, everyone speaking his turn until they had had their say. Then they quietly looked at me. What was I supposed to say to a bunch of people we raped of their self-respect? I felt sick to my stomach for my job.”
“You’re a Texas Ranger, Jim. You have a duty.”
“Not when my duty is hurtin’ others, I ain’t!” his eyes flashed grey again.
“Easy, boy. Easy,” calmed Griff. “Go on with your story.”
“I told that group that sooner or later they’d get caught. I couldn’t stop that.” Jim sighed, drank some. “The old one stood up and signaled me to follow him. We went outside. The sky was red and purple and orange all around its edge and creeping in on the grey-blue up top. A few stars glinted up there. He indicated the surrounding countryside in its eerie sunset light. He swept his hand over the whole of it. Big and open like I never seen it, Griff. I was bowled over by it. Then, he touched my shoulder. ‘Even a little freedom can keep a man from death.” Well, I spent the night and rode on the next morning. Next day, I came upon a different group of Indians–you know, Griff. . .they’re not all alike. So many different looks, so many different characters.” Jim stopped for another sip of beer. “This group was led by an old grandmother, Singing Cloud. She was very different, very different. I listened to her tell a story to the children.” Jim took another sip. “I saw. . .I saw in this story an ill-fortuned future. She showed me how prejudice is passed on and kept alive and I saw how some people must keep their hat alive in order to stay alive themselves. They kind of need it like people need air. This is her story, a best as I recollect. . .
‘The white man says, it is aggravating you can not talk to these people, they never give a straight answer but speak instead in circles.
Grandmother would laugh and try to explain, there are many answers to each question it is the seeking that brings the lesson.
White man writes his words in books hard answers in black and white, but how many times through the years are these answers proved untrue?
Red man tells his children if you ask then you should be seeking, there is no set answer the questions have many shadings.
White man says these are the rules I ask you answer it is that simple, what I say is so must be, I went to school and was taught this way.
Red man laughs and says to him, Mother Earth is my school what she tells she proves, in this life there are no rules everything is always changing.
White man says God rules my life, He approves my greed and strife, because my skin is white He loves my kind more than yours.
Red man answers with a question, did not Creator make all things, what then makes you better than the rocks, earth and trees?
White man says I have a brain, I can think, feel, love and hate, I know that I am right do not I rule all in sight?
Red man only laughs and laughs, if you had a brain you forgot to use it, your kind only destroys and what you rule is only in your mind.
Rise up say your prayers give thanks to your Creator, sing, dance, find true joy, live your life in humbleness.
We are equals all in the sight of our Creator, there are answers to every question it is up to you to find them.
The man who forces his truth on another has no truth, peace or happiness, he is forever on his guard afraid someone will take it from him.
Live to find peace, gentleness and unity of heart, let the feelings in your spirit guide you, each person knows right from wrong and there is no person better than another!’ “
“Sounds like she’s damning all white folk, not just the bad guys,” commented Griff.
“Yup. I was real uncomfortable staying there, so I made some excuse or other and slept out in the open. I told her they’d sooner or later find her but she just spat into the dirt and walked away. I roamed around for awhile, not really wanting to have anything to do with anybody, red, white or black, until some old man found me sitting on a bluff throwing stones into the stream at its foot. He took me back to his camp. He was a man of few words. But the next day he took me herb hunting with him. At noon, we stopped and had some pemmican, sitting in the shade of the only tree for miles. Don’t see how he found it. There’d been none all day. “See. . .how cruel the whites look. Their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and distorted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression. They are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something. They are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad.’ ‘Why are whites all mad?’ ‘They say they think with their heads.’ ‘Of course. What do you think with?’ ‘We think here.’ He tapped himself on the chest. ‘Why are you telling me this? I am a white man.’ ‘You are a different kind of white man. For you, the vessel floats freely on deep, alien seas.’ ‘I am afraid it is a new kind of sailing.’ ‘And what is more enjoyable, catching sight of new shores or discovering new approaches to old knowledge almost forgotten.’ Then he got up and went back to his tee-pee.” Jim finished his beer. “I stayed awhile with those people. But eventually, I had to come back.” He sat back in his chair. “I do not like my job any more, Griff.”
“What’re you gonna do about it?”
“I don’t know,” sighed Jim.
In the silence that followed, the other customer, who’d been sitting quietly, apparently minding his own business, scraped his chair back and stomped out. He stopped on the boardwalk and spit viciously, then mounted his horse and rode off.
“You gonna quit?”
“There are bad people out there, Griff.”
“Hell of a place for you to be in, buddy.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“Maybe I’ll write this into my next book.”
“And ruin your career?”
“I can always get the you-guy tortured and killed. Gotta satisfy the bloodthirsty public, you know.”
The both laughed.
Later, sitting in his office going over the mail, Jim Hatfield was interrupted by a dusty cowboy. The same cowboy who stomped out of Fancy Dan’s.
“Mr. Yabu wants to see you,” he said and remained standing in the doorway.
Jim looked up at him, realized the messenger wasn’t going anywhere and rose slowly to his full height. He put his hat on and strode over to the door, standing over the short cowboy.
“You gonna let me get my horse or you gonna stand there like a cow paddy waitin’ for the sun to turn you into a pancake?”
The dusty dude stepped out of the way. He mounted his horse and followed Jim to Kaikai’s. Then he followed Him all the way to Hacienda loco plátano where he dismounted, mounted the porch, opened the door and poked his head through the opening.
“That fella’s here.” And then he stepped off the porch and led his horse to the corral, where a group of ranch hands had gathered.
Gyorgy Yabu opened the door and stuck out his hand.
“Jim Hatfield! How are ya, buddy? Come on in and set for a spell.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, just turned and went back inside. He knew the Texas Ranger would follow. Jim did, quietly shutting the door behind him. He did not immediately sit.
“Siddown. Siddown,” Gyorgy gestured. “Don’t worry ’bout the dirt. The little woman’ll clean it up. There been dirtier’n you through this house.” Gyorgy chuckled. Jim sat. “What’ll it be? You must be mighty thirsty, ridin’ the range long as you been.”
“I’m working. Just water, thank you.”
“What it is, then!”
Gyorgy went to the bar and presently returned with drinks. Water for Jim, whiskey for himself.
“You’re a good ranger, Jim,” began Gyorgy. “The best.”
“That’s what people say,” replied Jim, not biting.
“You done everything you been asked to–and more sometimes.” Jim remained silent. “But this time I hear you was in derlixicon of your duty.”
“People say odd things. Others her how they want.”
“Selective blindness, eh?”
“Sorry, sir. I’ve never known anyone to see with his ears.”
Gyorgy laughed. “Oh, that’s a good one!” Gyorgy laughed some more.
Jim Hatfield was silent and still, all but his eyes, they were keen on Gyorgy, cutting him out of his surroundings, isolating the form of the man.
“How long you been a Texas Ranger, Jim?”
“Twenty years.”
“That’s a long time doin’ anything. I hear the pay ain’t so hot neither.”
“No, sir, it’s not. But being a public servant is what I like.”
“You ain’t no public servant, Jim Hatfield. You’re mine.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow you, sir.”
“I support the Texas Rangers. I foot the bill. I own the Texas Rangers. It’s my private club.”
“As you own Chokepointe Piste?”
“And all of the country round about.”
“Except that you have to wall off the parts you don’t like. You don’t own them, sir.”
“I do. I wall ‘em off an’ all they can do is bitch about it. If they decide to fight back, the law’s on my side. So it’s treason.”
“You don’t own all the law, sir.”
“Why is that, Jim Hatfield? I pay your salary.”
“Not any more, Mr. Yabu.”
Jim Hatfield carefully unpinned his star and set it on the table between them. Jim Hatfield stood up. Jim Hatfield walked to the door.
“Where you goin’ boy?!”
“I’m not your boy, Mr. Yabu. And I’m going out to live my life.”
“You can’t do that. There’s a job to be done.”
“You’ll have to do it yourself. You’re not writing my story any more.” Jim Hatfield opened the door.
“And the legend dies,” mused Gyorgy.
“Legends never die, Mr. Yabu, and the bad guy always becomes a lesson on proper comportment.”
“What the hell are you on about?” asked Gyorgy to the closed door. “Clyde!” Clyde Moyen Bucket slid out of the kitchen. “You hear what that boy said to me? You see what that boy did to me? We gonna let him git away with it?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Good. Meanwhile, contact that Ratso fella.”
“Roñoso Ratón. He’s on his way. But there’s a problem, sir.” As Gyorgy did not answer, Clyde continued. “He’s an illegal immigrant.”
“Not if I hire him, he ain’t.”
“But the people, sir–”
“I’ll fire him when the job’s done. Lied to me about his parentagion. Then he’ll be a damned foreigner taking good jobs away from Chokepointe Pisters. You git my drift?”
“We think alike, sir.”
“Let’s go fishin’. Problem solving is exhausting.”
But Yabu had other plans up his sleeve. . .
Tags: crawford, hellecchino, jim griffin, jim hatfield, law, pecos, secor
