Carlos Webster was fifteen the day he witnessed the robbery and killing at
Deering’s drugstore. This was in the fall of 1921 in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.
He told Bud Maddox, the Okmulgee chief of police, he had driven a load of
cows up to the yard at Tulsa and by the time he got back it was dark. He
said he left the truck and stock trailer across the street from Deering’s
and went inside to get an ice cream cone. When he identified one of the
robbers as Emmett Long, Bud Maddox said, “Son, Emmett Long robs banks, he
don’t bother with drugstores no more.”
Carlos had been raised on hard work and respect for his elders. He said,
“I could be wrong,” knowing he wasn’t.
They brought him over to police headquarters in the courthouse to look at
photos. He pointed to Emmett Long staring at him from a $500 wanted
bulletin and picked the other one, Jim Ray Monks, from mug shots. Bud
Maddox said, “You’re positive, huh?” and asked Carlos which one was it
shot the Indian. Meaning Junior Harjo with the tribal police, who’d walked
in not knowing the store was being robbed.
“Was Emmett Long shot him,” Carlos said, “with a forty-five Colt.”
“You sure it was a Colt?”
“Navy issue, like my dad’s.”
“I’m teasing,” Bud Maddox said. He and Carlos’ dad, Virgil Webster, were
buddies, both having fought in the Spanish-American War and for a number
of years were the local heroes. But now doughboys were back from France
telling about the Great War over there.
“If you like to know what I think happened,” Carlos said, “Emmett Long
only came in for a pack of smokes.”
Bud Maddox stopped him. “Tell it from the time you got there.”
Okay, well, the reason was to get an ice cream cone. “Mr. Deering was in
back doing prescriptions – he looked out of that little window and told
me to help myself. So I went over to the soda fountain and scooped up a
double dip of peach on a sugar cone and went to the cigar counter and left
a nickel by the cash register. That’s where I was when I see these two men
come in wearing suits and hats I thought at first were salesmen. Mr.
Deering calls to me to wait on them as I know the store pretty well.
Emmett Long comes up to the counter -”
“You knew right away who he was?”
“Once he was close, yes sir, from pictures of him in the paper. He said to
give him a deck of Luckies. I did and he picks up the nickel I’d left by
the register. Hands it to me and says, ‘This ought to cover it.'”
“You tell him it was yours?”
“No sir.”
“Or a pack of Luckies cost fifteen cents?”
“I didn’t say a word to him. But see, I think that’s when he got the idea
of robbing the store, the cash register sitting there, nobody around but
me holding my ice cream cone. Mr. Deering never came out from the back.
The other one, Jim Ray Monks, wanted a tube of Unguentine, he said for a
heat rash was bothering him, under his arms. I got it for him and he
didn’t pay either. Then Emmett Long says, ‘Let’s see what you have in the
register.’ I told him I didn’t know how to open it as I didn’t work there.
He leans over the counter and points to a key – the man knows his cash
registers – and says, ‘That one right there. Hit it and she’ll open for
you.’ I press the key – Mr. Deering must’ve heard it ring open, he calls
from the back of the store, ‘Carlos, you able to help them out?’ Emmett
Long raised his voice saying, ‘Carlos is doing fine,’ using my name. He
told me then to take out the scrip but leave the change.”
“How much did he get?”
“No more’n thirty dollars,” Carlos said. He took his time thinking about
what happened right after, starting with Emmett Long looking at his ice
cream cone. Carlos saw it as personal, something between him and the
famous bank robber, so he skipped over it, telling Bud Maddox:
“I put the money on the counter for him, mostly singles. I look up – ”
“Junior Harjo walks in,” Bud Maddox said, “a robbery in progress.”
“Yes sir, but Junior doesn’t know it. Emmett Long’s at the counter with
his back to him. Jim Ray Monks is over at the soda fountain getting into
the ice cream. Neither of them had their guns out, so I doubt Junior saw
it as a robbery. But Mr. Deering sees Junior and calls out he’s got his
mother’s medicine. Then says for all of us to hear, ‘She tells me they got
you raiding Indian stills, looking for moonshine.’ He said something about
Junior setting a jar aside for him and that’s all I heard. Now the guns
are coming out, Emmett Long’s Colt from inside his suit . . . I guess all
he had to see was Junior’s badge and his sidearm, that was enough, Emmett
Long shot him. He’d know with that Colt one round would do the job, but he
stepped up and shot Junior again, lying on the floor.”
There was a silence.
“I’m trying to recall,” Bud Maddox said, “how many Emmett Long’s killed. I
believe six, half of ’em police officers.”
“Seven,” Carlos said, “you count the bank hostage had to stand on his
running board. Fell off and broke her neck?”
“I just read the report on that one,” Bud Maddox said. “Was a Dodge
Touring, same as Black Jack Pershing’s staff car over in France.”
“They drove away from the drugstore in a Packard,” Carlos said, and gave
Bud Maddox the number on the license plate.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from The Hot Kid
by Elmore Leonard Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
William Morrow
ISBN: 0-06-072422-6
