Winchester 1886
Page 27
Jimmy knew who it was. His brother, his always-solid reliable brother, Millard. And Shirley Sweet. Coming for him. Coming to save him. Coming right into the gun sights of Danny Waco’s big Winchester. The rifle that had killed his other brother, Borden.
Yet he wasn’t sure he could even move. His stomach felt as if someone had filled it with coal oil, then dropped a match. He managed to turn his head and could see the mangled remains of the Winchester Shirley had given him. The stock wasn’t there anymore, just some splintered wood and twisted metal, torn apart by the lead of a .50-caliber bullet, parts of which rested in his gut.
He thought about his pistol, but when his hand touched the holster, he felt only leather. The Colt must have flown out when his horse had been shot from under him.
“Jimmy!” Shirley Sweet’s voice.
The answer chilled him.
“Over . . . here.” Waco sniggered, spit out blood, and laughed again.
The man was crazy, but he could still finish Shirley and Millard before he died.
That made Jimmy move. He wasn’t sure he had it in him, wasn’t sure of anything, but if he could save Millard and Shirley, maybe that would make everything right with God, make him justified . . . or something like that.
He had saved that boy’s life out in front of the saloon. If he could just save two more lives. Not his own. That, he understood, was beyond hope.
Rolling to his side, a sudden searing pain almost paralyzed him. He was close, close enough to stretch out his right arm. His hand gripped the barrel of the remains of the Winchester, still warm to his touch, almost burning his fingers.
Another thought panicked him. Do I have any shots left in this rifle?
He rolled back over, braced the ruined end of the rifle against his side, and thumbed back the hammer. He also prayed. Prayed for the strength to pull the trigger, prayed for the weapon to fire.
Danny Waco spun around, coughed, pressed the Winchester Model 1886 in .50-100-450 caliber against his chest. He laughed and started to bring the big Winchester—the rifle that was supposed to go to Jimmy Mann’s nephew—around.
Still moving cautiously, tentatively, were Millard and Shirley. Jimmy could just make them out. He had to do this. Finish it. Before he was dead, too.
“That . . . thing . . . will . . . never fire.” His eyes full of laughter, Waco turned away from dying Deputy U.S. Marshal Jimmy Mann and drew a bead on Shirley Sweet. “It’ll never . . . fire,” he whispered again.
But it did.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Shirley Sweet lifted Jimmy Mann’s head into her lap. She refused to look at what was left of Danny Waco after that .45-70 slug had struck him in the back of his head. On his knees, Millard unbuttoned Jimmy’s vest, and tore away the shirt, then stopped, color draining from his face. Swallowing down the bile and blinking away the tears, he wadded strips of cloth into some sort of ball and pressed the makeshift bandage against that ugly wound. Or wounds. The bullet that had destroyed the rifle that once had belonged to her must have splintered into fragments, and most of those pieces had gone into Jimmy’s gut. But it was the bigger hole, the bullet he had taken when he had saved that young boy’s life back in front of the saloon, that would likely kill Deputy U.S. Marshal Jimmy Mann.
Changing her mind, Shirley looked at the dead outlaw—or at least what was left of him—and the rifle by his body. She looked at the rifle near Jimmy Mann’s right hand, or what was left of the rifle. It had been hers. She’d given it to the lawman, and he had used it—somehow—to save her life and his brother’s life. How it had even managed to fire befuddled the sharpshooter in her.
It seemed impossible, but Jimmy had gotten that mangled rifle to shoot. To kill Danny Waco.
Shirley blinked away tears.
“Mann!” That was the voice of the sheriff.
“Up here!” Millard yelled. “Waco’s dead. I need a doctor. Now!”
Jimmy laughed and spit out blood. “You need . . . an . . . undertaker.”
“Hush,” Shirley heard herself say. “You’re gonna be fine, sweetie. We’ll get you to the doctor’s office. We’ll . . .”
Again, Jimmy laughed. “You’re not . . . getting me . . . off this . . . hill.” He moved a finger on his right hand, pointing . . . or trying to point. “The . . . rifle.”
“It’s ruined,” she told him.
Jimmy’s head shook. “No. Not . . . that one.” He coughed before he could finish, squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, and pointed toward the one by Danny Waco’s body.
Millard fetched it and placed it in his brother’s hand.
It was the1886 Model Winchester Jimmy had been chasing for months. He had caught the killer of his brother Borden in the wind-blown cemetery of a dying Texas town. He had retrieved the stolen rifle, the one he wanted to give to his nephew.
But, Shirley had to think, at what price?
With a weak smile, Jimmy managed to open his eyes. “You’ll give . . . this to . . . James ... you hear?”
“I hear you,” Millard said.
That gave Shirley some comfort. Jimmy was happy. Satisfied. He had finished his job. Done what he needed to do.
By that time, the sheriff and others had gathered around. Some pointed at the dead outlaw, others at the dead horse. A few began removing the bodies of the two deputies shot dead by Danny Waco.
One man whispered, “By golly, I can’t believe one of us killed Danny Waco.”
“Shut up,” Shirley snapped. They hadn’t killed Danny Waco. This brave, determined lawman had killed Waco.
Jimmy lay there with his eyes closed. He wet his lips. Shirley could hear death’s rattle in the lawman’s voice when he spoke. “Might give . . . him my . . . badge, too. Maybe . . . Millard, you . . .” Another coughing spell silenced him.
Again, he opened his eyes and grinned. Blood trickled from one corner of his mouth. He managed to swallow, and said, “Gonna be . . . one . . . cold . . . winter.” He shivered. “Already . . . freezing.”
Sweat dripped from Millard’s face and mingled with the tears on his cheek. May in the Panhandle could be hotter than a furnace, and it was even hotter up on Boot Hill.
“You rest, Jimmy.” Millard had become resigned to the fact that his younger brother was dying.
Shirley tried to steel herself for what would soon, what must, happen.
“You deserve a long rest, Brother.” Millard smiled weakly. “You’ve traveled far.”
“Yeah.” Jimmy smiled, and Shirley thought he would die then, but his eyes filled with some sudden purpose, something he needed to say. He almost lifted his head off her lap.
“He’ll be a better man than me, Millard.” Jimmy said it without pause, maybe without pain, but he began slipping. “Me and . . . you . . . both.” He coughed again. “Badge and . . . this rifle. You hear?”
Millard nodded. “I hear.”
Shirley could tell that he seemed confused. The rifle, yes. She knew that Jimmy wanted his nephew to have it, that it was a gift for him before Waco had stolen it and stolen another Mann brother’s life. But the badge? That, Millard did not understand.
Shirley, however, did. She had never met the young James Mann, son of Millard, nephew of Jimmy, but she could picture him. She imagined him looking just like Jimmy in better days. She could see him, the young nephew of a lawman, wearing that brave but flawed lawman’s badge. Removing its tarnish. Standing proud.
Jimmy swore softly and chuckled again. “That was . . . some . . . journey.”
And Jimmy Mann closed his eyes one last time.
EPILOGUE
Fort Smith, Arkansas
Spring 1899
Katie Crockett pulled the empty mug from its place in front of Deputy U.S. Marshal James Mann. “You want another beer?”
They had finished two pitchers of the brew. Mostly, Katie had done the drinking. James had been too busy talking.
He shook his head. His hands lay flat on the table, not far from that big rifle, that big r
ifle that everyone joked about.
Katie finally understood. James had opened up to her, just a little. No, a lot. It had taken a lot of courage. And it had taken a lot out of the young lawman.
Silence filled the Texas Corner Saloon briefly, although no one but Katie had heard James’s story. She knew why. Another deputy marshal, fat, lousy, cowardly Riley Monaco had lowered his voice to a whisper, and the hangers-on were eagerly waiting to hear his stupid joke.
“You are a better man than your uncle, James,” she whispered. “Better lawman, too.”
The people erupted with laughter at Riley Monaco’s punch line.
Katie ignored them and stared across the table at the deputy.
He chuckled without mirth. “There are many who’ll argue that point.”
“Not with me. Thanks for telling me that.” He looked up, and she smiled. “Don’t fret. I won’t run off to the newspaper and give them an exclusive. That’s between you and me.”
He said nothing.
“You don’t go by Jimmy. I’ve never heard anyone call you anything but James.”
His head shook. “My name’s James. Jimmy . . . That was . . . that was his name.”
She could understand. He didn’t want to be his uncle. He had to be himself. He was his own man, and, from what she had heard about that wild young lawman, the man who had paid for that Winchester ’86 with his life, it was a good thing.
“How often do you think about him?”
James shrugged. He was still young, practically a boy, but his face was hard, and his eyes even harder. How long had he been riding for Judge Parker’s court? Three years? No, it was getting closer to four.
A lot of lawmen, a lot of experienced marshals, never lived that long. Life was cheap in the Indian Nations.
“On bad days,” James answered. “I think about Uncle Jimmy. Like today. But never when I’m on a job. Jackson Sixpersons told me years ago that that would get me killed.”
“He’s a good man, too,” Katie said, smiling. “Jackson.” She saw life in the young lawman’s face.
“Yes.” Warmth filled his smile. “Jackson is. The best.”
“The best.”
Katie’s smile widened, and it pleased her very much when James returned the grin.
The chatter died again. Men stared at the doors to the saloon.
Katie and James turned to find a tall Cherokee standing in the doorway, a big Winchester shotgun, a Model ’87 lever-action twelve-gauge, in his hands.
The Cherokee’s long hair was completely gray, and he wore spectacles and a mangled black Stetson. He also wore the six-pointed star of a deputy marshal pinned on a Cherokee ribbon shirt.
“Speak of the devil.” Katie wasn’t sure how old he was, but figured he had seen sixty years many years ago.
The Cherokee lawman’s face was impossible to read, at least, impossible for her to read. But James read it. They were partners. Had been for some time.
Deputy U.S. Marshal James Mann was already sliding out of his chair, standing and reaching for the rifle, that big Winchester rifle in .50-100-450 caliber, which he had lain atop the table when he had first entered the saloon.
Deputy U.S. Marshal Jackson Sixpersons nodded grimly. He didn’t need to say anything, not after years together.
Already, James Mann was moving toward the doors.
The Cherokee turned, leaving the entrance to the saloon and moving down the boardwalk to where his horse was tethered.
Now, Mann was moving through the batwing doors.
She knew where they were going. Off to the courthouse to get warrants, then cross the ferry into Indian Territory, and go chasing after some other outlaws. Murderers, maybe. Robbers. Whiskey runners. The worst lot of men, if you could call those hardcases men.
A team of two men going after who knows how many outlaws.
No, Katie figured, there were three of them. James Mann. Jackson Sixpersons. And the spirit of Jimmy Mann.
“Hey, Mann,” Deputy Marshal Riley Monaco called out from his perch on the bar. “That big gun of yourn will sure come in handy . . . iffen you run into a herd of wildebeests.”
His crowd of fans hooted and laughed and punched one another as they watched James Mann’s back.
James did not reply. The batwing doors of the saloon banged back and forth, and he was gone.
“Riley,” Katie said as she slid her chair back and pushed herself up. “Shut up.”
That prompted more laughter from the bar flies, who now began to tease Monaco.
Katie didn’t care. She went to the entrance, stopped the swinging doors with her hands, and pushed herself partway through, leaning out for a better view of two lawmen, watching, staring, and wondering.
Jackson Sixpersons and James Mann had mounted their horses. They let a freight wagon pass, and then they kicked their mounts into slow, deliberate walks down Garrison Avenue. Down the muddy street they rode, ramrod straight, determined, a tall, gray-haired Cherokee and one young deputy marshal.
Jackson Sixpersons rode a paint horse and carried a Winchester Model 1887 lever-action shotgun and a badge.
Riding a brown mustang named Old Buck—Jimmy Mann’s old horse—Deputy U.S. Marshal James Mann carried a Winchester Model 1886 in .50-100-450 caliber across the pommel of his saddle. He, too, wore a badge.
He also carried the name of Mann.
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Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
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