Chapter 101

Tulsa, Indian Territory Sunday, July 28, 1889

While Moses, Isaac and Little Eli were loading the horses, the engineer yelled and waved to Eli again just as he stepped down from the Pullman carrying Little Eli’s traveling bag.

“Marshal, if we’re gonna make a fast run down to Abilene like you want, the fireman will need some help from your bunch to keep up the steam,” he yelled above the noise of the locomotive.

“We’ll ride up here with you. I want to keep this this thing red hot and smoking until we hit Abilene. What’s a normal run for you?”

“Usually thirteen-and-a-half to fourteen hours with all the stops and without a layover in Fort Worth.”

“And if we run her wide open with only two stops for water?”

“We should cut close to four hours off that.”

“That’s not good enough,” Eli said and turned to help Moses, Isaac and Little Eli up into the cab of the locomotive.

“How many of them coal shovels you got onboard?” Eli asked the fireman.

“I got three, and they’re scoops, not shovels. One’s ‘bout wore out though.”

“You show these young men how to scoop coal at that boiler and they’ll spell you. I want to make Abilene by an hour after midnight!”

“Marshal, it’s nigh on to 3:30 now,” the engineer yelled as they backed out past the last switch onto the mainline.

“I know that, now get this damn thing lined out on these tracks and let’s get the hell out of here!” Eli yelled at the man above the noise of the engine.

“Eli, you and Isaac watch that fireman when he scoops coal in that firebox. I want one of you on either side of that opening, throwing coal until they tell you to stop!” Eli told them, pointing to the coal scoops hanging on the side of the cab.

The fireman was stripped to his waist, his face covered with soot. He had a wide, faded red bandana tied around his head to keep the sweat out of his eyes and another one hanging out of his back pocket.

Little Eli and Isaac stripped their buckskin shirts over their heads and grabbed a scoop from the rack, hanging their shirts and gun belts on the hooks in place of the scoops. Tying their bandanas around their foreheads, they stood and watched the fireman swing his coal scoop. He never stood up straight, always bent at the waist with legs spread wide as he scraped his heavy iron scoop across the bottom of the coal bin, loading it to swing it back and bounce the bottom of the scoop against the opening of the firebox causing the coal to fly across the grates of the fiery furnace to the back side of the boiler.

“If yer gonna make ‘er blow smoke at th’ moon, yer gotta throw coal all th’ way to th’ back of ‘er throat!” He yelled above the roar of the steam engine as they rolled southbound out of Tulsa. They were gaining speed with each turn of the eight, fifty-six inch, cast iron drive wheels.

“Yer gotta keep yer eye on both water glasses and make sure they’re full-up. Yer gotta keep that needle on th’ steam gauge just inside th’ red if yer wanna get th’ most outta ‘er. She’ll outrun a haint, if yer’ll tickle ‘er belly ‘n feed ‘er good!” The fireman yelled at the Bucks, then grinned at them.

With Little Eli and Isaac scooping coal as hard as they could into the open firebox door, the fireman would occasionally throw up his hand and step in front of them to grab the iron rods at the bottom of the firebox. He pulled the rods out, then shoved them back in hard. He rattled and shook the rods vigorously, grinning up at them the whole time.

“What does that do?” Little Eli asked as the man stood next to him, wiping the sweat from his face.

“Yer gotta keep them cinders shook down through the grates into the ashpan so’s the fire bed can get air up through there. It takes a lot of fresh air to fire this big ol’ girl when she’s breathin’ hard like this.”

They stopped in Durant in southern Oklahoma Territory to take on water before heading on into Texas.

At the watering station in Durant, the railroad men were ready for the locomotive. They’d been shown the telegraph message telling them the train was coming through commandeered for an emergency run to Abilene by United States Marshal Eli Crow.

The two men operating the spigot on the water tower yelled encouragement at the engineer and the men in the cab.

“Y’all sure had this big ol’ girl strung out and struttin’ her stuff gettin’ down here. We heard about how fast she was running when she roared through Muskogee headed this way. They said she was blowing smoke up past the clouds and the cinders were sparkling behind her for a mile or more like a swarm of fireflies!” one man yelled as they laughed and waved them on when the water spigots were raised.

With reservoirs filled and the saddle tanks topped off, they rolled out of Durant, cheered on by the railroad employees and many of the local townspeople who had come out to see the commandeered locomotive come roaring through their town at sundown.

Out in the open country once more, the roar of the steam engine filled the air, the wind screaming past the open windows of the cab. The floor of the cab was vibrating and the big locomotive was rocking from side to side as the engineer pulled the rope, making the whistle scream across the prairie. Black smoke belched from the tall stack and hung in the air for miles long after the train had passed.

At their stop in Fort Worth for water, they dropped the first coal car, hooked up to the second one and were rolling again in a matter of minutes.

“Marshal, we’re clocking some good time. I believe we’re gonna make it there by a little after 1:30, almost like you wanted,” the engineer yelled at Eli, pulling his pocket watch out and flipping the cover open to show him the time.

“When we get close to Abilene, shut the steam off and let her roll free into town. Don’t take us all the way to the train station if there’s a place for us to unload the horses before we get there,” Eli told him as he leaned close for the man to hear him.

“The old stockyards are back this side of town. We can get your horses off there and you can ride on in.

“What’s going on down there anyway, Marshal? You never did say.”

“They got my boys!” Eli spoke grimly, never looking at the man, just staring deep into the glow of the open firebox as he spoke.

“Marshal, do you want us to hold steam and be ready for you to make a hard run back to Tulsa when you get your boys?”

“Yep. Don’t let her cool down too much. The way I figure, we’ll be here no more than an hour at most. But we can make a normal run back if all goes well.”

“Damn, Marshal. I was hoping we could let this Ol’ Girl strut her stuff some more, and two-step back to Tulsa like she was dancin’ on the rails coming down here!”

1:30 am
Abilene, Texas
Monday July 29, 1889

A few miles east of Abilene, the engineer eased the throttle back and waved to the firemen to stop feeding coal.

Little Eli and Isaac stood up straight, stretching their backs and relaxing for one of the few times since leaving Durant. They looked at each other with grim faces and reached out to bump fists. Each of them knew this could possibly get bloody before they got their brothers out of Abilene.

“Dad, you got a plan?” Little Eli asked his dad when Eli turned to look at the two of them. They had pulled their bandanas off their foreheads and were wiping the sweat, soot and coal dust off their faces, necks and arms before pulling their buckskin shirts over their heads.

“Eli, I don’t know a thing about Abilene or how it’s laid out. We’ll just have to find our way around and find out if they have our Bucks in jail or not. We need to see how bad they’re beat up and what it’ll take for us to get them out from down here without any of us getting killed.

“You and Isaac be ready for whatever comes up. Watch your backs and kill any man who stands in our way when we go in after your brothers.”

“Moses, I want you to lay back and stay out of sight. Keep a good watch over us at all times with that Sharps. You may want to get your scope off as soon as we get our horses on the ground. It’ll be of no good to you in the dark anyway.”

“Kill anybody that you think is about to make trouble for us. I wish we could get word to the Blasingame men that we’re here, so we could find out for sure where our Bucks are.”

The engineer had walked out along the boiler and closed the cover on the reflector of his kerosene lamp on the front of the engine, then released most of the steam pressure before letting the locomotive slowly roll into the east side of Abilene.

Just as they coasted to a stop near the loading docks at the old stockyards, they saw two riders come out of the dark, walking their horses alongside the tracks toward them.

“Get ready, we got riders coming!” Eli told them.

“Dad, that looks like Mr. Ward and Mr. Wade,” Little Eli said jerking his dad’s sleeve as the two men rode under a streetlamp.

“It is them. They must have known we’d be getting here about now.”

When Ward and Wade Blasingame saw Eli, Moses, Little Eli and Isaac step down from the cab of the locomotive, they were relieved. They knew the men from Tulsa would be arriving in the early hours before daylight. They had only been here half an hour, hiding in the shadows hoping to catch them before they rode hell bent into town looking for the four Young Bucks.

“Eli, it sure is good to see all of you get here this quick. Let’s get over there out of the lamplight around these corrals and we’ll give you the lowdown on what’s happened and where the Bucks are being held,” Wade said as they stepped off their horses to greet the men from Tulsa.

“How are our boys? What happened down here anyway? Why was there a fight in the first place?” Eli asked as they walked into the shadows of the feed barn at the edge of the corrals.

“Eli, this has been brewing for a few years now, but I’ll get to that part later. It came to a head Saturday night when we took the Bucks and our girls to the community social that’s put on each week. There are some young men, two of them the younger sons of the local town marshal, who think they can run roughshod over anyone they pick out. They look for a chance to start a fight, then they’re joined by their friends who are nothing but a gang of bullies.

“While we were at the community social, those two and one of their friends behaved rudely toward Samantha, and Ezra took exception to it. They shoved him and he quickly put the three of them on the floor. The town marshal was upset that his sons took a beating, but finally after making threats and rude remarks about the Bucks, he allowed us to leave. We thought it was over with, until we took them to the station to meet the train. That’s when all hell broke loose!

“I’ll tell you right now that before it was over, there were well over two dozen of them who came after the Bucks on the docks at the train station, Eli. Wade and me, along with the mayor and some local men, joined in the fight but none of us are fighters. All we could do was keep some of them occupied while your four Bucks beat the living hell out of the rest of them,” Ward Blasingame began as they told Eli and the others what had happened.

“Eli, I have never seen four grown men fight like those four Young Bucks can fight. Whoever taught them the art of fisticuffs taught them well because they did beat the living hell out of more than sixteen of them,” Wade picked up the story, then continued...

“I got to tell you, Eli, they killed eight of them right there on the docks. I mean literally beat them to death with their fists and the clubs they took away from that bunch. There are two more of them who may not live. There was blood all over that loading dock when the fight was over!”

“How bad did they hurt my boys?” Eli growled, his eyes drawn down tight, his voice gritty, and filled with anger.

“They each have some deep cuts that needed stitches, along with some scrapes and bruises. All of them have skinned knuckles and Ezra has some broken ribs from being hit across the back with one of those wooden clubs. We’ve had the doctor check them and he told us they were all in a hell of a lot better shape than any of that other bunch who survived the fight.”

“Where are they being held?”

“They have them in the county jail at the courthouse, guarded by the sheriff’s deputies. I’ve talked to the sheriff and he thinks most, if not all the charges will be dropped, but he doesn’t think the town marshal will let it go that easy without a fuss. We agreed with the sheriff that the safest place for them was in the county jail with his deputies guarding them until you got here. He’s a friend of ours, Eli, and we trust him to do the right thing, regardless of the legalities involved,” Ward explained.

“If any of them have permanent injuries, I’ll personally kill every God-damned lawman in Abilene who let this happen to my Bucks,” Eli told them, then turned to walk off into the dark alone.

Moses started after Eli, but Little Eli reached out to put his hand on Moses’ arm to stop him.

“I’ll go, Moses. I can talk to him when he gets like this.”

“Go to him, Eli. I can’t stand to see my friend hurt like this over his sons. Get him to talk about it or he’ll let it get so big inside him, he’ll kill any man who stands in front of him. I’ve seen him do it before and it don’t matter if they have a gun or not, when Eli Crow gets like this, he’s gonna kill somebody and you can damn well get ready for it,” Moses said as he pulled Little Eli close.

Moses turned to Ward and Wade Blasingame when Little Eli walked into the shadows to find his dad.

“Tell me how Pike is. Is he hurt bad?” Moses asked, his voice full of hurt and anger at the thought of his son being beaten by grown men.

“Moses, he took some awful blows to his head, then brushed off Cecily after she’d wiped the blood from his eyes. He stood right in there, back to back with Caleb and Micah after that. They beat the hell out of half a dozen of them with their bare fists. He’ll have a few permanent scars on his face and forehead from the stitches. His fists are skinned and bloody, and he’s got bruises on his body, but the doctor said he was alright otherwise.

“You gotta be proud of that Young Buck, Moses. He can hold his own with any man who walks until they gang up and come at him three at a time. I’ve never seen a young man fight like that, unless it would be Ezra.

“Ezra was like Eli is right now. He had a look on his face that even scared Samantha and the women. He stood in there and took all they threw at him, sometimes from two and three at a time. He even took a club to his back, and then turned to take that club from the man who snuck up from behind and hit him. He killed the man with one blow of that club, then staggered over to kill another one who held Caleb while two more were beating him. There’s no way in hell I’d ever make Ezra or any of your Bucks mad at me or my family,” Wade told him.

“We meant for them to be tough and learn to fight like that,” Moses said, then took a deep breath to steady his voice.

“We knew all along they’d have to fight their way into manhood and fight their way through life, just from being half-breeds and being our sons,” Moses told him, his voice full of emotion.

He turned his head toward the shadows with tears in his eyes as he thought of what they’d told him about his young son taking a beating, then standing in there like the rest of the Bucks, beating the hell out of men who were years older than him.

“Dad?” Little Eli spoke as he saw his dad in front of him with his arms outstretched, his hands on a rail as he leaned forward against a corral with his head down.

“I’m over here, Eli.”

“Dad, we need to get with the Blasingame men and find our Bucks. I want to go in with you, no matter what we have to do, no matter where they are.”

“I knew you would, Eli. We’ll let Moses hold back and cover us from a distance with his Sharps. We’ll be better off without the Blasingame men going in if we get caught in a fight. No offense to them but they’re not used to this kind of stuff.”

“I know, Dad. We need them to show us where they are and help us try to get them out without a fight first, don’t you think?”

“You’re right, Eli. I know I’m too mad right now to think straight. Just help me get this part thought out so we can get your brothers safely home from this place.”

“Dad, they said the sheriff thinks most, if not all, the charges will be dropped. What if we can get a judge to release them in your custody tonight and answer the charges later if they have to?”

“Damn, Eli, you got a good steady head on you! Let’s go find out if there’s a local judge who has the authority to do that. If we can get them out tonight without any of us getting hurt in another fight or gun battle, they’ll have hell getting them back down here to answer any of their damned made-up charges!”

“Let’s go now, Dad. Just remember, I got your back no matter what happens down here.”

“Eli, you scare me sometimes the way you can keep a cool head about you and still fight like my Pa could.

“I reckon I ought to tell you right here, Son, I already know about the five men from Texas who were killed outside Tulsa a few years ago. Doc told me about part of it and about patching the man back together who’d been beaten to within an inch of his life. He said the man mumbled out of his head the whole time he was putting him back together. The Constable told me the other part and I put you and the Bucks in that picture. I knew right then, it was you who planned that and my Young Bucks who took care of them.

“Let’s go get your brothers, Eli. Thanks for coming to talk me down some. I was trying to cool off so I could think better.