By the Fire’s Light

My throat felt rough as gravel, and my eyelids heavy as a sack of wet grain. “How much longer I got to stay awake, Pa?”

“Just a little bit longer, boy,” Pa said, his tone steady. “You’ll get a chance to rest soon enough.”

He poked at the blaze with a stick, sending sparks swirling up into the dark like a scatter of stars.

“This is a damn fool thing, you know,” I grumbled, squinting at the flames roaring high and hot. “Got this fire blazing like a beacon, practically begging for trouble to ride in.”

Pa snorted, the sound sharp as a whipcrack. “That fire’s keeping us warm, you ornery cuss. A flea on a horse’s hind end’s worth more than all your gripin’ and groanin’.”

The snap of a twig and Pa muttered, “Go fetch my scattergun,” before calling, “Who’s out there?”

He straightened, his hand resting easy on the worn grip of his Colt. “All right, come on out now, afore I start shootin’. You hear me?”

A voice cut through the night, low and smooth as a river stone. “Hold up, mister. I mean you no harm.”

Pa’s eyes narrowed, glinting like steel in the firelight. “I’ll be the judge of that. Speak your piece—and be fast about it.”

“Please, don’t shoot,” the stranger said, stepping slowly into the glow. “I can explain.”

“Quit toyin’ with him, Pa, and plug the son of a gun!” I snapped, my patience frayed thin as old rope.

“Shut up, boy,” Pa barked, his gaze never leaving the man. “One step closer, stranger and the next one’ll be in your belly.”

The man froze, hands raised. “Please, sir, if you let me come up, you’ll see I ain’t no danger to you.”

Pa chewed on that for a moment, then tilted his head. “I reckon there’s more’n one of you out there, seein’ as you ain’t tucked tail and run by now.”

“If I had company,” the stranger said, calm as a still pond, “wouldn’t they be at your back already?”

Pa grunted–a sound that might’ve been a laugh or a curse. “Go on, then. What’re you after?”

“Just a place to rest for the night,” the man said, easing closer now. “A map or a line on the nearest town, and I swear I’ll be on my way come mornin’. Look at me—I ain’t in no shape to trouble you or yours.”

The man was without boots, and his holster was empty.

Pa squinted at him, then glanced at me. “I reckon this one’s a mite touched, ain’t he, boy?”

The stranger gave a faint smile like he’d heard worse. “I know this might tickle you some, but I’d mighty like to know if you can help me. What you got there?”

He nodded at Pa’s hand, where a twist of tobacco sat pinched between his fingers.

“Only the finest leaf in five states,” Pa said, offering it over.

“What’s your name, stranger?”

“Carl, sir,” he replied, taking the tobacco with a nod.

“Well, Carl, you’re welcome to bed down here tonight,” Pa said. “That’s about all I can do for you. Ain’t got no maps, but I’ll point you true come daylight.”

Carl settled by the fire, warming his hands. “Would you like to know what happened to me tonight?”

Pa grinned–a rare thing that split his weathered face like a crack in stone. “Let me guess—you was robbed by a man decked out in black?”

Carl’s jaw dropped. “Yeah, but how’d you know?”

“Well,” Pa said, leaning back, “I was sheriff of a town ‘bout ten miles east of here. Retired recent-like. Seen plenty of tales like yours.”

“You were sheriff?” Carl asked, eyes wide.

“Sure was,” Pa said. “So, was I right? That the yarn you was fixin’ to spin?”

“Yeah,” Carl said, scratching his head, “but this fella was different. Polite as you please, even while he was trussin’ me up. Kept sayin’ how cooperative I was. First, I wasn’t even sure he aimed to rob me—then it was over quick as a rattler’s strike.”

Pa chuckled, deep and low. “Well, ain’t that a hoot? You met Black Jack Holmes. Famous as they come ‘round these parts. You’re a lucky man.”

“Black Jack Holmes?” Carl echoed, like the name carried weight he couldn’t heft yet.

They called him Black Jack Holmes, a name that drifted through the saloons and stagecoach stops like a tumbleweed on a lonesome wind. Wasn’t no ordinary road agent, this one.

Most bandits’ would stick a gun in your face and snarl for your coin, but Holmes? He’d tip his hat, flash a grin that’d charm a rattlesnake, and ask for your valuables like he was borrowin’ a cup of sugar.

Folks said he’d robbed more coaches than there were stars over the Llano Estacado, yet half the tales swore he never fired a shot unless he had to—and even then, it was to wing a man, not bury him.

He cut a lean figure, Holmes did, tall as a cottonwood and dressed in black from boots to brim, with a coat that flared like a raven’s wings when he rode. That blackjack of his—a short, leather-wrapped club—was his mark, tucked in his belt like a preacher’s Bible.

He’d use it to rap a man senseless quicker than you could draw a breath, but he’d always leave ‘em breathing, tied neat with a knot that’d shame a sailor.

“No sense in killin’ a man over a few dollars,” he’d say, voice smooth as whiskey over ice, “when he’s apt to earn more for me to take later.”

Word was he’d been a gambler once, a cardsharp who could read a man’s soul in the flick of an ace. Some claimed he turned outlaw after a night in Abilene when a cattle baron caught him dealing from the bottom and swore to string him up.

Others reckoned he’d been a lawman himself gone crooked after seein’ too much justice bend for the rich. Whatever his trail, he’d washed up in the badlands east of the Pecos, a shadow among the mesquite, preying on the stage lines that rattled through the dust.

Take the night he hit the San Antonio-El Paso run, nigh-on ten miles from Pa’s campfire. The driver, a grizzled cuss named Jed Tully, told it later over a bottle of rotgut.

Moon was high, silvering the scrub, when Holmes stepped from the dark, his horse—a coal-black Mustang—silent as death.

“Evenin’, friend,” he said, polite as a Parson. “I’ll be takin’ your strongbox if you’d be so kind.”

Jed reached for his scattergun, but that blackjack flashed, and he woke up trussed like a steer, the box gone, with Holmes tipping his hat as he rode off.

“Much obliged for your cooperation,” he called, and Jed swore the bastard was laughin’.

Folks couldn’t figure Holmes. He’d rob a man blind, sure, but he’d leave a dollar in your pocket for a meal or slip a trinket back to a lady passenger with a wink.

Once, they said, he hit a payroll coach, then rode into the next town and bought drinks for the whole saloon—paid with the company’s silver. The law chased him plenty, but he’d vanish like smoke, leaving sheriffs cussin’ and posses lost in the canyons.

Some swore he had a hideout in the Guadalupes, a cave stacked with loot and guarded by a wolf meaner than sin. Others figured he just knew the land better’n God Himself.

Pa reckoned he’d met him that night by the fire, and maybe he had. Carl—call him what you will—didn’t fit the mold of a killer, and that blackjack tale rang true as a church bell.

But Holmes wasn’t a saint, either. He’d gut a man if pushed, and there were whispers of a Pinkerton he’d left cold in the dirt after a double-cross. Still, the frontier loved him for it—loved the gall, the grin, the way he danced on the edge of the law like a cat on a hot tin roof.

So, who was Black Jack Holmes?

A thief with a gentleman’s heart or a devil playin’ at bein’ good? Maybe both. Out there, where the sun blisters and the wind carries a man’s sins away, he was a legend carved in shadow and dust.

And if you ever saw a rider in black tipping his hat as he took your gold, you’d know—you’d met the man himself and lived to tell the tale.

“All right if I catch some shut-eye now, Pa?” I asked. “Good night, Mister.”

Pa said, “Come mornin’, head east. Town’s that way—folks there’ll sort you out.”

Carl nodded, curling up near the fire. I watched him as Pa got up.

That’s when Carl struck, his voice turning hard as flint. He sprang up, a knife glinting in his hand.

“Now, you’re gonna gimme everything you got of value, or I’ll gut you and your boy like hogs.”

I heard Pa chuckle as Carl said, “Think this is a game?”

Pa didn’t flinch. “Not at all. You reckon that famous Black Jack Holmes—the gentleman robber—would waste his time on a lowlife like you?”

“Shut your damn mouth or I’ll slit your throat.” Carl snarled.

“Knew you was a lyin’, mister,” Pa said.

“Drop that knife, easy now,” I said, my Colt flashing smooth as silk.

“I was only foolin’ with you,” Carl said.

“Yeah, well, I ain’t,” I said.

I stepped in close, my piece drawn steady.

Pa turned and held his hand out for the knife, “Much obliged for your cooperation, Carl.”

Pa grinned at me, “Well, boy, looks like we tangled with a different breed of outlaw tonight.”

That’s about when he saw the wanted posters that Pa had been busy burning when Carl interrupted him. He recognized the face in the line drawing as the man standing before him.

“Oh, son of a—” Carl started, but the fight was gone from him, and the night swallowed the rest.