The Last Good Day

by John L. Lansdale

  “Where they goin?” Tommy said.

  “They don’t want no part of that tomahawk.” Rance dropped down from his horse and walked up to the man.

  “You goin’ to shoot me?”

  “You don’t know how close you came to dying just then,” Rance said. “He could have put that tomahawk between your eyes. I know. I’ve seen him do it before.”

  The man pulled a bandana from around his neck with his left hand and wrapped his wounded one with it. “Who are you lookin for?” he said, grimacing in pain.

  “Wanted to know if Sheriff Billy Shaw was on the train.”

  “I don’t know. Wagons took them all to town to eat a while ago.”

  “How long?”

  “Couple of hours, tops.”

  “When’s this train going to be ready to go?”

  “Don’t know that either, you ran my workers off and mangled me.”

  “Where does it stop next?”

  “Go to hell,” he said.

  “You’ll proably be there to greet us,” Rance said.

  B.W. stepped off the train. “Nobody on it.”

  “I know, he just told me,” Rance said. “Wagons took them all to town.”

  B.W. glanced at the man, walked to his horse, unwrapped the reins from the saddle horn and climbed on.

  “Better get that treated soon,” Rance said to the man and held up his handless arm up for him to see.

  Tommy rode up leading Buck and held the reins while Rance climbed on and they headed for town with B. W

  They saw a bunch of people climbing into the wagons to return to the train as they rode in. Billy wasn’t one of them.

  “Most likely he’s gone,” B.W. said. “He knows we would be on his trail. Let’s check the livery stable, see if he bought a horse.”

  They rode down the street until they saw the livery stable and rode up to the open door. Just inside the door, a man wearing a rebel hat with a wooden leg was dipping a hot horseshoe in a water trough, steam bellowing up. They dismounted and led their horses up to the man.

  “Howdy,” Rance said. The man laid the horseshoe on an anvil, set the tongs down and leaned against the horse he was shoeing.

  “Howdy,” he said.

  “We’re looking for a little man with blue eyes, may be wearing a rebel hat like yours with an ivory-handled Colt. Wondered if you seen him?”

  “Nope, ain’t been here,” the man said. He looked at Rance. “You too, huh?”

  “‘Fraid so, Forty-First Virginia,” Rance said.

  “Was with Jeb Stuart when he went down. Name’s Mackey. What you want that fella for?”

  “Kind of personal,” Rance said.

  Mackey nodded.

  “Maybe he stole a horse,” B.W. said, looking at Rance and Tommy.

  “What do we do now?” Tommy said.

  “Don’t know,” B.W. said. “Have a look around town, I guess, might be in one of the saloons.”

  “Thanks for your time,” Rance said, looking at Mackey.

  He nodded again and picked up the tongs.

  They mounted, turned around and rode up to a saloon and dismounted. “Hold the horses,” B.W. said and handed the reins to Tommy.

  Two rough-looking cowboys standing at the bar drinking whiskey with middle-aged, worn-out-looking whores were the only ones in the place except for the bartender. He was fat and red-eyed. He looked like he might be his own best customer. He wiped his bloodshot eyes and leaned on the bar.

  “What’ll you have,” he said.

  “Just lookin’ for someone, won’t be long,” Rance said.

  “You ain’t buyin’ nothin?’”

  “Not now,” Rance said. “Let’s go.”

  “Good advice,” the bartender said as they walked out on the street.

  “Now what?” B.W. said.

  “Beats me. No tellin’ where he is,” Rance said.

  A Wells Fargo stagecoach came rolling by. They looked at the stagecoach then each other.

  “Billy,” Rance said big-eyed.

  They hurried to their horses, climbed on and took off after the stage coach.

  B.W. galloped up beside the moving stagecoach, tied the reins on the saddle horn as he galloped along, grabbed the door, lifted his feet out of the stirrups and pulled himself inside the stage through the door window into Billy’s lap. Billy went for his gun but B.W. hit him as hard as he could with his fist, grabbing Billy’s gun and throwing it out the window, then drew his Colt and stuck it under Billy’s chin.

  Two spinsters on the opposite seat with frilly dresses, strapped sack purses hanging on their arms and bonnets on, broke into a screaming duet and put each other in a bear hug.

  “Shut up!” B.W. yelled and they turned the screams off and tightened their grip on each other, shaking like a wind-blown leaf.

  B.W.’s big black was running alongside the stage horses. “Looky there, Shorty,” the driver said. “Where’s his rider?”

  Shorty turned and looked behind them. “Two riders comin’, Zeb!” Shorty yelled. “The other one must be inside.”

  Zeb wrapped his hands around the reins and started reining the horses in and came to a stop. They jumped down from the seat with their shotguns. Zeb had his shotgun pointed at Rance and Tommy as they rode up and Shorty on the ground with his.

  “Rein them horses in and drop your guns,” Zeb said. “And get down off them horses.”

  “You in the stage coach, throw your guns out,” Shorty said.

  Rance dropped his guns on the ground and he and Tommy dismounted, holding the reins of their horses. Tommy stepped back from his saddle and leaned on his saddle bags. Zeb was waving the shotgun around like he may start shooting any time.

  “Keep still, Tommy,” Rance said.

  “Throw your guns out now,” Shorty said, looking at the stage.

  “What if I keep ‘em and hold on to these nice ladies?” B.W. said.

  “Don’t care,” Zeb said. “I’ll shoot you anyway.”

  “Did you hear that, Ethel?” one of the ladies said.

  “I did, Sadie,” the other one said. “He doesn’t care if this savage kills us.”

  “Alright,” B.W. said and tossed his Colt out and stuck his tomahawk in the back of his belt.

  “All of you, get out,” Zeb said.

  “Get out, Billy,” B.W. said.

  “He means you too,” Billy said.

  Billy grabbed for his saddle bags and B.W. shoved his hand away and pushed him out the door and he followed, leaving the saddle bags on the stage. He turned back to the ladies to help them out but they wouldn’t take his hand.

  “Don’t touch me, you savage,” Ethel said and helped Sadie off the stage.

  “He’s got a tomahawk stuck in the back of his belt,” Billy said.

  “Put it on the ground, Injun,” Zeb said.

  B.W. pulled the tomahawk from his belt and dropped it on the ground.

  “What’re you doin’ on my stage?” Zeb asked.

  “Was catchin’ up to this hombre,” B.W. said, looking at Billy. “He stole our money.”

  “That right?” Zeb said, looking at Billy.

  “No. I’m the sheriff of Buffalo Flats. They stole the money from the Pinefield Bank in Arkansas. I was takin’ it back.”

  “Well if you were, you’re goin’ the wrong way,” Zeb said.

  “Was trying to throw them off my trail and double back,” Billy said.

  “Don’t see no badge,” Zeb said.

  “That’s ‘cause he quit and ran off with the money,” B.W. said. “We got it from the bank robbers and left it with him for the bank it came from, then found out he took off with it.”

  “This gets more confusing by the minute,” Zeb said. “Guess I’ll have to tie you up and sort this out when we get to Daring.”

  “You going to tie us up, too?” Sadie said. There was something in her voice that made it sound like she might enjoy it.

  “No ma’am,” Shorty said.

  She looked
at her companion and sighed.

  Tommy eased his hand into his saddle bags and quickly removed the Colt and held it beside his leg.

  He took a step towards Zeb. When the two men kept looking at the ladies, Tommy took another step behind Zeb and stuck the Colt to the back of his head.

  “Put your shotguns down or I’ll blow a hole in you both,” Tommy said.

  “He means it,” B.W. said. “Drop ‘em.”

  Zeb dropped his shotgun, then Shorty. Billy made a run for Shorty’s shotgun and B.W. tripped him, stepped on his hand and he let out a yell.

  “Damn that hurt!” Billy said.

  “Was supposed to,” B.W. said.

  B.W. picked up Shorty’s shotgun and Rance Zeb’s.

  “Now what,” Zeb said.

  “Nothin’ unless you give us a reason,” B.W. said. “Ladies, get on the stage and Billy, you stay right where you are.” B.W. opened the stage door and picked up Billy’s saddle bags off the seat. “Guess you ladies don’t cotton to Indians so you can get on by yourself.”

  The two ladies helped each other back on the stage, sat down and Sadie stuck her arm out the window, shaking her fist at B.W. “The law’s gonna get you!” she yelled.

  “Pray for me,” B.W. said and grinned.

  “You can take your stage out of here if you keep going,” Rance said. “Billy stays with us.”

  “Might need them shotguns. Indians and such,” Zeb said and looked at B.W.

  “I’ll put them in the stage, you can stop and get them later,” Rance said. “But it better be a long ways from here.”

  “Or this Indian will scalp you,” B.W. said.

  Zeb and Shorty swallowed hard climbed up on the seat and Zeb picked up the reins. The horses’ harnesses rattled as he pulled the reins tight and they started off in a walk. Zeb cracked the whip over their heads. They broke into a gallop and were gone.

  Tommy came riding up with B.W.’s horse and handed him the reins. B.W. held on to the reins and took the saddle bags off his arm and looked in.

  “Looks like most of it’s still here.” He put the saddle bags on his horse’s neck where he could see them.

  “What’re we goin’ to do with him?” Tommy said.

  “Well,” B.W. said, “we got the money back, no sense killin’ him now. Billy, it’s not very far back to town. You can walk, buy you a horse and go on to California. Your gun is somewhere back on the trail.”

  “Got no reason to go now,” Billy said.

  “Better go to save your ass. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you,” B.W. said.

  “I know when it’s over.” Billy turned to the road, looked back and waved at B.W. and walked away, backtracking on the road to Buffalo Flats.

  B.W. mounted his horse, Rance and Tommy followed. They rode away, Billy watching as they topped a hill and disappeared.

  “Son of a bitch!” Billy yelled at the empty road and set out walking back to town, looking for the ivory-handled Navy Colt.

  18

  The horses were beginning to drop their head and walk slower. Time for a stop.

  They found a small creek further down the trail, washed up, unsaddled their horses, gave them some oats and tied them to a tree limb. They laid their weapons on the saddles, started a fire and put a pot of beans on and settled down for some rest. As usual, Rance handed out the orders for the night. He placed his coffee cup on his notepad to hold it down and started writing in it. B.W. got his whiskey from Tommy’s saddle bags and laid the money bags down beside him.

  “What’re you writing, major?” Tommy said.

  “The ABCs.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The ABCs, the alphabet. You have to learn how to read letters before you can read words. After I get them on paper we’ll start with four letters at a time until you know the alphabet.”

  “Boy, I wish I had some biscuits,” B.W. said to himself, looking around like they would magically appear.

  Rance and Tommy looked at B.W. and then each other and went back to talking.

  “After we eat some beans we’ll start,” Rance said. “It all kind of comes together. If you learn to read, you can learn to write.”

  Rance showed Tommy the letters and had him repeat them several times, then put TOMMY together for him to study his name.

  “Beans be ready after a while, B.W. You want any?” Rance said.

  “Don’t want no beans, want some biscuits,” B.W. said. He sipped his whiskey while Rance and Tommy cooked their beans, Rance teaching him the alphabet. For over an hour.

  “Beans are done, sure you don’t want none?” Rance said.

  “Naw, don’t think so,” B.W. said.

  “You been sucking on that bottle for the last hour like it was your mama’s tit,” Rance said. “You’re drunk. We have any trouble you wouldn’t be worth a damn tonight.”

  “Could kick your one-armed ass,” B.W. said.

  “You are drunk,” Tommy said.

  “Young man, I’ll decide what I am, not you,” B.W. said and turned the whiskey bottle up for the last swallow in the bottle. He dropped his empty bottle and fell over on his saddle asleep.

  “Guess he don’t get no beans,” Tommy said. “I’m goimng to pour out what’s left. B.W. got anymore whiskey?”

  “Don’t know,” Rance said. “No harm in havin’ a drink every now and then but some folks don’t know when to stop, and B.W. is one of them.”

  “Hope he don’t have anymore,” Tommy said.

  “He’ll get more,” Rance said. “He’ll wake up, feel bad ‘bout it and cut down for a while, then do it all again. Some people can drink and some can’t. My pa was a lot like B.W. Didn’t know when to put the bottle down. It’s why I watch myself with the whiskey.”

  “How do you know if you can’t?” Tommy said.

  “You don’t. Every time we stop for the rest of the way I’ll teach you more. By the time we get to Texas you should be readin’ some and writin’ a little.”

  “What do you think my pa will do when he sees me?”

  “Well, I don’t think he’s goin’ to welcome you with open arms or he wouldn’t have sent you away to start with. If he had anything to do with your mama bein’ murdered then that’s a whole different story.”

  “You think he did?”

  “If we can find the cowboy with the fancy boots we might know.”

  ”We got money now, why don’t we just go someplace and buy us a ranch and forget about Texas?”

  “Might consider that.”

  “What if I don’t want to go to Texas?” Tommy said.

  “Then maybe we buy that ranch.”

  “I’ll think on it.”

  “You do that,” Rance said, “now let’s get some shut eye.”

  B.W. sat up, picked up his empty whiskey bottle, squinted his eyes and looked in it, dropped it and eased back down on his saddle and closed his eyes.

  An owl got an early start on the night and a wolf’s howl in the distance made the horses uneasy.

  Rance picked up his Henry, checked it and his double-action Colt and sat back down against an oak.

  Tommy sat down beside him. “What if Billy gets a horse and shows up?”

  “He won’t. He knows better.”

  “I been thinkin,’” Tommy said. ”You said you thought the man that murdered my mama may be from Texas. Made up my mind. I want to go to Texas and kill that sonofabitch. She may have been a whore but she was a good mama and took good care of me.”

  “Leave the cussin’ to B.W. like he said. Nothin’ says we’ll find him but we can try.”

  Tommy laid down on his saddle.

  Rance looked up at the star-filled sky, it always made him think of Paige and his daughter. Taking care of Tommy made the pain a little more bearable and he fell asleep.

  As the morning sunlight tiptoed through the trees to the creek, he got up to build a fire to fix coffee. B.W. sat up and made a horrible face, rubbed his head, picked up his Henry and used it to get to his fe
et. He saw the coffee pot on the fire. “Think I could use some of that when it’s ready,” he said.

  “Why I made it,” Rance said.

  B.W. nodded, blinked his eyes several times. “Sorry, I drank too much last night,” he said.

  “You should be,” Rance said, “bad timing. Wait until you’re in one of those places you shouldn’t be. Next time we might need you.”

  “Thought you was lookin’ at me a little cockeyed,” B.W. said. “We’re not in the army anymore. I’ll do as I damn well please.”

  “Then find you another partner,” Rance said.

  “Didn’t know we were partners,” B.W. said. “Thought we just wound up ridin’ together by accident.”

  “If that’s the way you see it, me and the boy will move on,” Rance said.

  “What makes you think he wants to go with you?” B.W. said.

  “Ask him.”

  “You think you’re going to get any of this money you’re not,” B.W. said. and grabbed the money bags off the ground.

  “I don’t want it anyway, belongs to other people.”

  “Good, you’d probably give it to a church or something anyway,” B.W. said.

  Tommy came walking up with his hat in his hand. “What are you two arguin’ about? You woke me up.”

  “We just realized we don’t like each other,” B.W. said.

  “Why,” Tommy said.

  “Mr. Holier-Than-Thou here thinks I drink too much,” B.W. said.

  “Well, you do,” Tommy said.

  “I guess that’s what he told you,” B.W. said.

  “No. The major said his pa drank too much. You shouldn’t get so mad. We need you to be sober to survive.”

  “The kid’s right,” Rance said. “You said it yourself, it’s dog-eat-dog now.”

  “I need you both,” Tommy said.

  B.W. and Rance looked at each other. They knew he was right. They stood there not knowing what to do next, looking off into the wild blue yonder, gathering their thoughts.

  Rance was the first to speak. “I been wrong, too, could have got us killed by trying to return that money. Was talkin’ out of turn.”