Last One Standing

by Derek Rutherford

  She smiled and said, ‘You’re Callum Johnson.’

  She knew me.

  Jimmy Stephens was at the far end of the bar talking to Lazy Lowe Holland and Two-Bit Tony who made their living bringing in goods from Chicago. They weren’t particular; you wanted guns, beans, whiskey, wheels, ribbons, glass, soap, anything, they’d source and ship it. Rumour had it that old Avery Latcham had them bring in a young wife for him. I’m not sure how true that was, but Avery did have a pretty wife these days and I don’t believe she could speak more than ten words of English, so how he won her over, if indeed Lazy and Two-Bit hadn’t been involved, I had no idea. Jimmy Stephens owned the Kings Head. He was from England and did his best to make the bar as much like an old English inn as he could. That was probably what he was talking about now, discussing with Lazy and Two-Bit on whether or not they could find some more items to add to the brass hunting horns and cane fishing rods he had hanging on the wall.

  Jimmy Stephens looked up, saw the cowboy – the cowgirl, but I don’t think he’d cottoned on to that yet – and started coming towards us.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked her, still reeling from her knowing my name.

  ‘I’m Lin Wu Jia.’ As she said her name she bowed very slightly, just a dip of the head.

  Jimmy Stephens was half way along the bar now. A fellow by the name of Dovetail Dave who managed a small carpentry business held out his glass and Jimmy paused to refill it.

  ‘How do you know me?’

  ‘You met my mother once.’ Her English was very good, although mother did sound a little like mudder. She had an accent, but it was subtle, as if she’d worked hard to lose it.

  I’d only ever met one Chinese lady before, so I knew who her mother was, and now a hundred questions filled my head. How had she found me? Why had she found me? Was this to do with my father? Her mother?

  But Jimmy was heading our way again.

  ‘I’m not sure you should be in here,’ I said.

  ‘Why? They don’t allow women?’

  I paused and she saw in my eyes what I was thinking.

  ‘Because I’m Chinese?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ It wasn’t something I’d ever thought on. Hell, why would you ever ponder on whether Jimmy Stephens would serve a Chinese woman? I guess it depended on what they’d do in old England.

  Jimmy, of course, was a gentleman. I do him a disservice to think he’d be anything else. He did a brief double take when he first stood in front of Lin Wu Jia – his mouth opened and closed without him saying anything and his eyes widened – but then he recovered and he smiled with both his mouth and his eyes.

  ‘Welcome to the King’s Head,’ he said. His accent sounded more English than usual. His smile was warm and inviting. ‘What’s your pleasure?’ I felt a pulse of jealousy – despite the fact that I had only known Lin Wu Jia a matter of seconds.

  ‘Just water, please.’ She smiled back at him. Water sounded like warder.

  ‘Just water?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  If there was a reason not to be welcome in the King’s Head – or any of the saloons in St Mary’s – it most probably wasn’t to be Chinese or female, but to drink just water. Yet Jimmy never even blinked. He picked up a jug off the shelf at the rear of the bar, filled a glass, and presented it to Lin Wu Jia, his eyes crinkling with pleasure.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome, ma’am,’ he said, and from the corner of my eye I saw a few heads turn. Nobody had paid any attention when Lin Wu Jia had entered the bar, but suddenly, with that ma’am, she was an object of scrutiny.

  ‘And I’ll have another whiskey, Jimmy,’ I said.

  He nodded, and said to Lin Wu Jia, ‘So what brings you here, then? Water aside, of course.’

  ‘Callum Johnson brings me here,’ she said, turning to me, smiling widely as if I alone was worth travelling around the world for. In that moment she looked like a dusty angel.

  It was early summer, early afternoon. But it was late so far as drinking time went for most of the men in the King’s Head. Some were drunk, some were heading that way, and one or two were already past it. The dry heat that settled in this windless town like a weight riled a few of them and gave others piercing head-aches. Some of the men were weary from life and from lack of good sleep, and others were bored with yet another day in the same place. Some had harridans waiting at home; some had no one. Most of them were here, not in the King’s Head, but in St Mary’s, because they were either running from something or searching for it. As the day warmed to oven-like temperatures, then patience evaporated, a need for stimulation arose, and a willingness to be cruel for the sake of it awoke within them. Most of all they just wanted to see someone hurt and belittled to make their own painful lives feel not so bad for a few minutes.

  ‘Ma’am?’ Nash Lane said. ‘You finally got yourself a girl, Johnson?’

  If there was one man in St Mary’s I actively tried to avoid, it was Nash Lane. I had nothing against him, but for as long as I could remember he’d appeared to resent me for something. He was sitting over by the door with Morgan Taylor. Both of them were big guys. Nash Lane made his living doing whatever manual work he could find – be it digging graves, digging footings for buildings, digging irrigation trenches, digging cess pits, building walls or helping put up timber frames. He was married, and Mrs Lane reputedly carried a stick with which she’d hit Nash at every opportunity. The bruises she often sported showed that Nash wasn’t averse to hitting her back.

  Morgan Taylor had been a marshal at one time, like my father, heading out into the depths of the Territory to bring the bad men back. I don’t know what he did these days – some folks say he’d lost his nerve – but one thing he did whenever he could was rile me up about not yet going after Moose Schmidt. A few folk in town knew what I was planning and a couple of them, such as Nash Lane and Morgan Taylor, had started to call me a coward when they needed some minor entertainment to spice up their lives.

  Along by the window a couple of other fellows turned to see what was up, grinning when they realized it was me that was the object of Nash Lane’s impending attack.

  It wasn’t that I was disliked, or unpopular. It was simply the fact that I was a kid on the verge of adulthood, a greenhorn. I’d just started drinking in the bars. I was an easy target. Maybe it was the fact that I had my future in front of me, rather than behind, and I occasionally talked about spending that future somewhere other than this place, where these men’s future had become their interminable present. It could have been the fact that Samuel Johnson had been my father, and a lot of them had been – still were – jealous of Sam, in awe of him, or just plain scared of him. He had been larger than life. There were even a few men in town who had been brought to justice by Sam Johnson and, having served minor sentences, were back in St Mary’s, holding grudges that would never quite fade away. Lastly, and maybe most irritating of all for these men, there was also the fact that there wasn’t a prettier woman than my mother in town, and for some reason they held that against me too.

  So, since starting frequenting the saloons of St Mary’s, I’d had my share of fights. Probably more than my share. I fought my corner best I could. Sam Johnson had taught me well – he’d showed me how a lot of the time cunning and strategy would win a fight just as much as muscles and technique. He also taught me how hesitation and non-commitment would likely lose you a fight. All of which was good, but you still had to practise and learn how to use such ideas in the real world. So I never shied away from confrontation. I was learning, the same as I’d been learning when I drew and shot that Colt over and over up in the woods.

  ‘A girl?’ Morgan Taylor said. ‘ ’Bout time. I heard those mares up at Crawford’s ranch get nervous whenever they see you coming.’

  Lin Wu Jia looked at me. I couldn’t read her expression. She had the glass of water halfway to her lips. Her hands were steady on the glass and her eyes were steady on me.

  ‘Easy boys,’ J
immy Stephens said. ‘It’s too hot for trouble. And anyway, the lady’s only just arrived.’

  ‘You get Tony and Lowe to buy her and ship her in?’ Nash Lane said, looking down the room at Two Bit and Lazy, who were both smiling, happy to be brought into the fray, no doubt looking forward to the ridicule I was about to be made to suffer. ‘Like they did for old Avery?’

  Now Lin Wu Jia turned and looked over at Nash and Morgan. I could see the muscles around her jawbone start to twitch as she made to say something. But Nash got in first now that he’d had a good look at her.

  ‘A Chinese! You couldn’t even afford for them to bring you a white woman?’

  ‘Boys,’ Jimmy Stephens said again.

  Morgan must have figured that he couldn’t let Nash do all the work. He said, ‘There’s Chinese whores down at the tents. She one of them?’ He looked at Jimmy and said, ‘You shouldn’t let them whores come in the front door, Jimmy. Our wives’ll stop us drinking here.’

  ‘She’s no whore,’ I said. My voice was quiet, but firm. I looked at Lin Wu Jia and then I turned and looked over at Nash Lane.

  He grinned back at me. A reaction was what he had wanted. He’d hooked his fish.

  ‘Chinese girl in the Territory,’ he said. ‘ ’Course she’s a whore.’

  Lin Wu Jia put her hand on my arm.

  ‘She’s pretty,’ Nash said. ‘But don’t you get falling for that, Cal. I’m just looking out for you, you know that?’

  Lin Wu Jia was turning now. Her coat rode open a little more and I saw she had a gun strapped to her waist. It was only a small gun, but it was a gun nonetheless and I didn’t want her drawing it.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said to her.

  ‘You got something of your father in you, after all,’ Morgan Taylor said. ‘He couldn’t keep it at home despite your mother being a looker.’

  ‘Perhaps she wasn’t giving it to him,’ Nash said. ‘And he had to find it elsewhere.’ The two men laughed.

  ‘Come on, we’re going,’ I said to Lin Wu Jia.

  ‘You let them say these things?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, you let us say these things?’ Nash mocked. ‘Tough little Cal who’s too scared to ride more’n mile into the Territory. Too scared to do the right thing by his daddy.’

  ‘Or by a Chinese whore,’ Morgan said.

  ‘Boys,’ Jimmy Stephens said.

  ‘They’re just jealous,’ I said, pushing myself away from the bar. ‘Washed up and jealous, and if what I heard is right even the whores down in Tent City won’t let ’em close. The smell, they say.’ As soon as I said this, I knew that Nash had won. He’d wanted a reaction and he’d got one. Now he could play the insulted man and the rest would follow the way a blast followed a lit fuse.

  ‘What’s that you say, son?’ he growled. He scraped his chair backwards and stood up. He was six inches taller than me and a lot heavier. All that digging had given him muscles that a grizzly bear would have been proud of. I’d fought with him a few times before – and lost every time – and knew that if I let him grab me, or even land one of his wild swinging punches, then I probably wouldn’t wake up for a week, if at all. In those previous fights there’d always been someone around to pull him off me. Today, looking about the bar, I had the feeling I was on my own.

  ‘Sit down, Nash,’ Jimmy Stephens said.

  ‘Hell I will. He accused me of whoring. Him with his own whore right there.’

  ‘He never said that,’ Jimmy said. ‘Anyway. . . .’

  Now Morgan Taylor rose too. His chair fell over and crashed on the floor.

  ‘He accused me of whoring, too,’ Morgan said, grinning and trying to look offended at the same time.

  I sensed Lin Wu Jia stiffening beside me, maybe getting ready to say something. I didn’t want that. She might have been the catalyst for the coming fight, but it would have happened anyway. Maybe if she hadn’t been there I could have just walked away – another of my father’s lessons was there’s always a time when confrontation isn’t the right thing. But there’s something about a beautiful woman that makes you want to prove yourself. Or do something stupid. Especially at that age.

  I took a step away from the bar, towards Nash.

  Behind me I heard Dovetail Dave breathe in sharply and say, ‘This is going to hurt.’

  Nash pushed a table aside and came towards me. Just one table and two chairs remained between us.

  ‘Callum,’ Lin Wu Jia said.

  ‘Boys,’ Jimmy said behind us. But there was resignation in his voice. I heard him sigh and say, ‘You break anything, you pay.’

  Nash grabbed one of the chairs by its back and flung it out of the way. His eyes were red-rimmed and there was spittle in the corners of his mouth. His cheeks were flushed beneath his two-day-old stubble, and I could hear his harsh breathing. That was about all that was in my favour – he was overweight and got out of breath just walking to the out-house. Little good that was going to do me in here. But . . .

  I circled anti-clockwise around the table towards the swinging doors of the saloon.

  Cunning and strategy.

  He saw what I was doing, but figured the wrong reason.

  ‘You getting ready to run, kid?’ he said. ‘Folks say you’re a coward.’

  ‘Ain’t scared of you, Nash,’ I lied. Peripheral vision told me that Morgan was holding back, grinning, happy to let Nash dole out the beating that they both figured I deserved.

  Nash snarled like an animal.

  I grabbed the last chair that was between us. It felt flimsy and like matchwood in my hand. Nash heaved the table aside and came for me. An oil lamp shattered on the floor and I heard Jimmy Stephens say ‘There goes another one,’ and then I was swinging that chair at the side of Nash’s head.

  He lifted his left arm to cushion the blow and simultaneously tried to grab the chair legs. I felt the chair connect with his head and the way the blow jarred up my own arm it must have hurt him. But he acted as if it was nothing. He was drunk on whiskey and filled with adrenaline and rage.

  He snatched the chair out of my grip and flung it behind him. His snarl turned into a roar and now he leapt towards me, arms out ready to grab me.

  The previous fights with Nash had taught me a little something. Last time out he held me in a bear hug until the final pocket of air had been expelled from my lungs and darkness had started to wash down over my eyes. Doc Mikhailov had smashed a bottle of whiskey on the back of Nash’s head that time, and maybe had saved my life. I had no intention of letting Nash do that to me again.

  I stepped to the side, rather than away from him. I grabbed his left arm and I pivoted, using his own weight and momentum to swing him around me and towards the batwing doors. There was a moment of surprise in his eyes, then his spine and the back of his head connected with the wooden door frame and the whole building shook. I saw blood spray into the air around the back of his head and then the momentum carried him through the door and onto the plank-walk.

  I followed him, running, and I barrelled into him. My shoulder hit him hard in the belly and I heard air burst from his lungs, then he was stumbling backwards, still off balance from my surprise pirouette back in the bar. He hit the ground about a yard out into the street but still managed to hold onto me, his hands grabbing my coat and pulling me towards him, searching for that death grip.

  Our faces were inches apart. There was madness in his eyes. His mouth was wide open. He gasped for air and I could smell his stinking breath and see the brown stains on his teeth.

  ‘You . . . sonofabitch,’ he tried to say, and I could feel his hands searching for each other behind my shoulders.

  I rammed my knee into his stomach. Hard.

  Again, it was if the blow was nothing to him.

  His hands clasped each other behind my back and I felt myself being pulled closer to his massive frame. I was on top of him, the sun was blazing down and dust was rising up around us. That dust was in my nose, my mouth, my eyes. If he secured his hold and start
ed to squeeze it would be all over. Maybe for ever.

  I twisted, found a few inches leverage, and this time I kneed him in the groin.

  His eyes widened and he grimaced and just for a second his hands parted.

  I pulled away from his grip, rolled over, and leapt to my feet.

  He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. I should have gone in hard then, kicking him. That’s what my father would have done. But instead I played fair. I kept my distance and gave him time to rise. He rolled over onto his arms, spat into the dirt, and gasped harshly for breath.

  As he stood up I was aware of people stopping across the street, looking at us, a few moving on, some waiting for the next action. There was a lot of movement behind me, too. Voices and boot-steps as folks rushed out of the King’s Head onto the plank-walk.

  Nash was still breathing heavily, and he was angrier than hell. He stood for a few seconds, arms hanging, head tilted slightly sideways. He called me some words that would’ve made the tent-city pimps wince and then he came for me again. But this time he was wise to my tricks and as he reached for me he was ready for my jinking move.

  He just wasn’t as quick as me.

  He got a handful of shirt and nothing else. I heard buttons rip and material tear and then I was free of him.

  ‘You . . . think . . . you’re funny?’ he said, spitting on the ground again.

  We did the same the thing once more, but this time I jinked the other way and he missed me altogether, his back was briefly towards me, and as he rotated to face me I hit him as hard as I could on the mouth.

  I may as well have punched a wall.

  Now he came again and this time, as I went to move, someone grabbed my arms from behind.

  Nash grinned.

  I tried to move, twisting and squirming, but Morgan Taylor held me tight. I knew it was Morgan, I could see his arms, his tattered cuffs, and I could hear him breathing right in my ear. He whispered, ‘Ain’t so good when you can’t run, is it?’

  I saw Nash forming a fist as big, and no doubt as hard, as a rock. He was grinning. Grinning and dribbling, and his chest was heaving and I saw there was blood in his mouth so I must have hurt him at least a little bit.