Outlaw Lawman (Leisure Historical Fiction)

by Paul Bagdon

  I had a real sick feeling about this horse race, and I wished I weren’t there. Better yet, I wished neither the kid nor his hot Appaloosa were there.

  The report of a pistol on the prairie is a flat pop. A shotgun is something completely different. There’s a big boom that echoes about before it dies. The only thing louder than a shotgun is a Sharps or a Springfield.

  I should have left right then—after I heard the deep bellow of a shotgun. I hadn’t seen a scatter gun on the outlaw’s saddle, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. It could have been a cutoff sheathed tight to the saddle fender or in or under his bedroll.

  After a few moments, the outlaw loped his sweated black around the far end of town and came to us.

  The kid walked out of an alley between a couple of buildings. I was pleased to see that—it’s easy enough to kill a horse, I guess, and I was glad the kid walked out onto the street.

  He strode up to the man he’d raced against and slapped him across his face. There isn’t much more demeaning to a man than to be slapped.

  “You killed a horse that had a whole lot better breeding than you have, you piece of shit,” the boy snarled.

  The kid stood back, his hand right over the Colt he wore.

  “Why, goddamn,” the outlaw said. “We got us a real gunfighter here.”

  The kid backed up a half step. His right hand was an inch above his pistol. “You killed my horse,” he said, “because he was faster’n your horse.”

  The outlaw stepped out a bit from the other men. “You think you can take me, boy?”

  “I’ll tell you what—either I can or I’ll or die trying.”

  I stepped in front of the young kid and drew. I put a couple of slugs into the outlaw’s chest and stepped over to him to make certain he was dead. He was.

  “Look here, mister—this wasn’t your fight. You got no right to step…”

  “I’ll tell you what boy: this piece of trash would have kept talking to you a bit and then when you were about to answer, he’d have killed you.”

  “I’m faster—”

  “You’re a whole lot stupider,” I interrupted. “Fast isn’t all that important: accuracy is—and so is knowing the tricks.”

  For the first time, the young man’s emotion showed in his eyes. They glistened a bit, and he wiped them with the back of his hand. “He was a good horse.” His voice cracked on the word “horse.”

  “I’m sure he was, boy. But you’ve got something to do right away: buy a horse at the livery and get the hell out of town. This group is ugly already, and if you give them a little more time and a little more whiskey, there’s going to be a bucketful of trouble.”

  “But…but you were the one who gunned that man.”

  “Yeah. I was. But they won’t see it that way—at least not completely. In their thinking you caused the race and you caused the outlaw’s death. Go on, kid, beat it.”

  “I don’t have any money to buy a…”

  I gave him a fifty from my vest pocket. “You do now. Collect your tack from your Appy, buy a horse, and haul ass. Hear?”

  “Yessir, I do. Thanks. I don’t know why you’re doing this.”

  “ ‘Why’ doesn’t matter. Just get moving.”

  He turned back toward the alley he’d cut through to collect his saddle, bridle, and gear.

  The outlaws stood around their dead comrade, looking down at him as if they’d never seen a corpse before. There was as much emotion as there’d be if one scorpion died in a nest of them.

  “Sumbitch cheated at cards, too,” one outlaw said.

  Another slapped at his shirt pocket. “Shit,” he said. “I’m outta makins’. Luke, lemme have a smoke, will ya?”

  I walked away from them and went back to my hotel. I’d figured at least one or two would have tried to avenge the man on his back in the street. No one did—no one gave a damn.

  Chapter Two

  I figured there was no sense in going back to my hotel. My nerves were wound too tight to sleep and I’d just writhe around on the bed listening to the street noises.

  I crossed the street and thought I’d try one of the saloons I hadn’t yet visited. It was pretty much like the last one, but this place had the distinction of a large poster of a nude woman behind the bar. I stepped up and ordered a beer and took a closer look at the poster. It was punctured in a couple dozen places with bullet holes.

  There was a pretty good crowd. All the poker tables were filled, and men were waiting for someone to bust out and free up a seat. A half dozen or so whores were circulating, their false smiles and makeup that looked like they’d put it on with a trowel an attempt to hide their ages.

  A prostitute in Texas is worn out and used up by the age of maybe thirty. After that, everything begins to sag a bit and the look in their eyes as they work a crowd is no longer sexy or appealing: it’s desperate.

  I pushed my nickel across the bar for my beer and took a sip. I was surprised that it was icy cold. Not many gin mills made enough money to have ice cut and stored for them, but damn—that coldness sure improved the flavor of the beer.

  I heard yelling from the second story and looked up. A pair of men were swinging at each other, noses already bloodied, faces showing that they’d received some hard blows. Finally, one fellow slammed his opponent in the gut with a roundhouse right that sent the men through the railing above the second floor. He tumbled to his side as he fell, arms waving. He landed on a poker table, smashing hell out of it in an eruption of cards, money, beer, and whiskey.

  The bartender was a big man and didn’t appear to be at all agile, but he surprised me by planting one hand on the bar and vaulting over it in a smooth, clean motion. He grabbed the guy who’d taken the dive by the back of the collar and the back of his denim pants and launched him a solid ten feet directly through the batwings—headfirst.

  I found it odd that the only people who showed any interest in the fracas were me and the bartender. But I guess I need to add the whore who was outside and about to push open the batwings when the fist fighter opened them with his head. She went down like she’d been hit by a canon ball, sprawled out on the dirt and horseshit of the street.

  There’s a strange phenomena about cussing: it sounds logical and normal coming from a man, but from a woman—even a beat-up old whore—it jangles a fellow, makes him sort of cringe inside himself. The woman who got slammed by the flying outlaw was a fine example. Of course, I’d heard all the words before, so it wasn’t that. I think it was a couple of things. For one, she hooked and threaded the words and phrases together in a manner I’d never heard before, juxtaposing the outlaw’s parentage with his sex activities. Secondly, it was a sad thing to watch her do it. I’m not sure why that was true, but it was.

  The piano player in the joint was good. Rather than rattling off a repetitious and boring series of the standards such as “Buffalo Gals,” “Oh, Suzanna,” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” this fellow had some genuine skill at the keyboard. I turned to face him, hooked a heel over the bar rail and watched and listened. I ordered another beer and would have liked a taste of that good whiskey I’d had during my talk with Mack, but doubted that I’d get anything other than the swill served to the general customers—redeye that tended to give a man the blind staggers and a hangover that made death welcome.

  I was sucking my beer and enjoying the music when a sudden silence settled in the saloon. The piano player kept playing, but conversations at the poker tables and around the bar stopped for a moment, and all eyes swung toward the batwings. Mine joined them.

  The man who had just entered must have been Billy Powers. Nobody in his right mind would dress as this fellow was dressed—not unless he had plenty of followers, and a very fast gun.

  He wore an oversize Stetson that he must have had custom made, and from beneath it flowed a cascade of shoulder-length blond hair in the style of George Custer. His face was clean shaved and composed of angles: a somewhat prominent jaw, tight skin over sh
arp cheekbones, and lips that were thin, straight lines. He was maybe 5′ 10″ and carried a small roll of flab around his waist. He was wearing a buckskin coat with long fringes hanging from the sleeves. His shirt—white, with pearl buttons—was tucked into the waist of a pair of white pants. His boots were highly shined.

  He carried a pair of Colts, tied low on his legs so that his fingertips fell naturally to the butts. Three men crowded in after him and placed themselves in positions to defend him—one on each side and one in front. There was nothing fancy about their apparel. They were everyday thugs.

  The conversations picked up where’d they’d left off, but were quieter, more subdued. Powers strode over to the bar and with a slight motion of his head sent the fellow who’d been standing next to me scurrying away.

  “My name is Billy Powers,” he said. “I own this town.”

  I met his pale blue eyes. “My name is Pound Taylor,” I said. “I don’t own much of anything.”

  “You used to ride with Zeb Stone, right?”

  I nodded.

  “A good man, Zeb. We palled around as young bucks. Ol’ Zeb could shoot, even back then. One of the fastest, most accurate pistol men I ever came across.”

  “He could shoot,” I said.

  “He was killed robbing a bank, right? And you was with him. How’d you get out of jail? Word I heard was that you were going to be strung up.”

  “Some friends busted me out,” I said. “Actually, they were Zeb’s relatives—two brothers and his father.”

  The bartender had hustled over with a bottle of that good whiskey and a pair of glasses and set them on the bar between Powers and me.

  “Care for a drink?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” I said. I filled my shot glass as well as Powers’s.

  Powers slammed his; I sipped at mine, enjoying that fine smoky flavor.

  “Some folks say you’re a ‘slinger, Pound. Is that true?”

  “Hired gun? Hell, no. I can take care of myself and I’ve been lucky so far.”

  Powers poured us each another shot. “Ya know,” he said, “there’s probably a dozen men right here in this saloon who could leave you bleedin’ in the streets after a fair, man-to-man gunfight.”

  “Wonderful. I’m happy for them.” I poured my shot down and pushed away from the bar.

  Two of the outlaws who’d come in with Powers were rapidly in front of me.

  “That’s real cute,” Powers said. “You got a mouth on you that’s gonna get you killed one day, Pound.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I had no more chance of getting through the two outlaws than I had of holding a stick of dynamite and touching off the fuse without being blown to hell. One already had his pistol unholstered, and the other’s hand was on the grips of his weapon. And, there were Powers’s Colts to clean up if I somehow made it through his men.

  I turned back to the bar. “What is it you want from me, Powers?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “See, my boy here, Jacob, is real fast with his Colt an’ accurate enough to shoot the hair off a tick’s nuts at a hundred yards.” Powers nodded toward the man who hadn’t yet drawn. He inhaled a deep breath and went on. “I figured matching you an’ Jacob, here, would make a good contest. Here you are a shootist an’ bank robber an’ killer. An’ Jacob, he’s like a hound looking for a bitch in heat to test himself against. Maybe he isn’t near as good as he thinks he is—or I do, for that matter. Seems to me, you two boys facin’ one another would settle things out. Ya know?”

  “I’m not a gunslinger, Powers. If your cretin friend here is looking for trouble, he needs to go somewhere else. Gunfights aren’t circuses.”

  “ ‘Cretin’—that means dumb, right?”

  “Yeah. It does. And any man who goes into a gunfight to please his boss is as stupid as a bucket of piss.”

  Powers laughed and took a step to his side. Jacob filled the spot Powers had left. Jacob was tall and appeared to be in his early twenties. His face was comely; he apparently hadn’t been in the outlaw life long enough for it to leave its mark. His eyes were black, oily looking, intense, and they met and held mine. He smelled of pomade and bay rum.

  “Seems to me you got no choice here, gunman. You’re gonna fight me whether you like it or not. If you won’t draw, I’ll put a couple of rounds in your gut an’ while you’re bleedin’ to death, I’ll carve a notch in the grip of my pistol. So, like I said, you got no choice in the matter.”

  I smiled. “Come on, Jacob—do you go by Jake?—there’s no reason for us to fight. Hell, we don’t even know each other. It’d be plain silly for one of us to end up dead just to give your boys a show.”

  I picked up the bottle of whiskey, took a shot glass from behind the bar, filled it, and pushed it in front of Jacob. “Let’s have a drink and talk a bit.”

  The outlaw’s eyes showed quick confusion, which is exactly what I was looking for. I put my right arm over Jacob’s shoulders like an old friend—then grabbed the back of Jacob’s head and smashed it facedown onto the bar. The snap of cartilage was loud and distinct, not unlike a dry stick breaking. Blood gushed from each nostril. I pulled the kid’s head back by his hair and crashed it into the bar again. Jacob, unconscious, crumpled to the floor.

  I drew, my Colt trained on Billy Powers’s chest.

  Powers, for his part, was laughing loudly. “Goddamn!” he roared. “If you ain’t a hardcase, I guess I never seen one,” and broke into laughter again.

  Several of Powers’s men had drawn their weapons; Powers shut them down with a desultory wave. “Git Jacob outta here,” he said. “He’s messin’ up the nice clean floor of this fine establishment.”

  Powers paused for a moment. “How about holstering that Colt, Pound? Makes me a bit edgy to have the sumbitch pointed at me. Nervouslike, ya know?”

  “I lower my gun and your boys fill me with holes? No thanks.”

  “No. Shit, no. I already waved them off. We’ll have a drink is all, an’ then you go on your way. You got my word on that as a Son of the Confederacy.”

  “How do I know your word is worth a cow flop, Powers?”

  “I guess you gotta gamble on that.”

  “Yeah. I guess I do.” After an excruciatingly long few moments, I holstered the Colt.

  Powers poured us each a shot. “You woulda shot Jacob’s ass clean off,” he said. “Damn fool has been snortin’ around like a elk at rutting time, looking to prove he was a fast gun. He ain’t bad, but he’s stupid. An’ stupid gets more men killed than fast.”

  The piano started up again, poker games were resumed, and the noise level in the saloon returned to its normal raucous sounds.

  “Grab the bottle an’ let’s go on back to my office where we can talk,” Powers said. “The racket in here’s nuff to drive a man loopy.”

  “Office?” I asked.

  “Well, hell’s bells, it’s just a little room, really. I have one in each of the joints in Gila Bend.”

  I followed Powers to the end of the bar. He opened the door, reached back, and grabbed a lamp from a hook on the wall, leaving the four men who were playing poker at the table under the lamp essentially with no light. Not one of the four said a word; not a single one even looked up.

  It was a fairly small room—perhaps twelve feet square with a couple raggedy stuffed chairs and a table from the bar. Powers waved me to a chair. He sat behind the table. I set the bottle on the table in front of us and he took a couple of tumblers from a little shelf behind him and poured a solid three inches into each.

  “I noticed you picked up the bottle with your left hand,” Powers said. “An’ I noticed your pistol is on your right side.”

  I shrugged, as if the whole thing was of no significance, and picked up a glass—with my left hand. “A man either learns some habits or gets killed,” I said. “I do the right-hand, left-hand stuff without thinking about it.”

  Powers grinned a wolf’s grin. “What would you say if I told you I had a 12-gauge taped real
nice under this table, aimed at you square on?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. I can’t draw and fire faster than you can pull a trigger on your 12-gauge. What I can do is this: watch your shoulders, your eyes, the way you’re breathing. Are you sucking little clumps of air like you’re ready to make a move?

  “If it was time, I’d roll off this chair and plant at least one .45 in your head. ‘Course it’s possible—hell, likely—you could see my move and cut loose with your scatter gun. Either way, we’d just be trading lives—and that doesn’t make much sense to me. But if that’s what you need, let’s do it.”

  Powers laughed. “You sure got everythin’ all figured out, ain’t you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Might be possible I could use a man like you, Pound.” There was no more laughter in his voice. He was talking business.

  “Know this, Powers,” I said. “I’d a whole lot prefer to be in hell with a toothache and a white-hot iron stuck up my ass.” I snorted derisively. “Jesus. Backing down ribbon clerks and sodbusters and scaring women in town and taking things from the gin mills an’ the mercantile without paying for them isn’t the way I go. That’s chickenshit stuff. You know that, and so do I.”

  Powers stood. “Listen here now…” he began.

  “See, Powers, you’re not quite as bright as you think you are. You stood up and away from the 12-gauge and you must know I’m faster than you and I could send you to hell in a hair of a second.”

  “You think you…”

  “It’s not what I think, it’s what I know. I could put five rounds in your chest and head before you cleared leather.”

  “Go ahead an’ do it, then. I don’t give a good goddamn about nothin’ since Bobby Lee handed over the Confederacy at Appomattox.” The words had the taste of a schoolyard dare.

  Powers touched a raw and open cut on me. “Look, I fought for the Confederacy. We waited for a good chance to shut down the Northern Aggressors. Gettysburg could have done it—and if we’d taken that, Washington was next, and the whole goddamn war would have been over. It didn’t turn out that way, though.”