Outlaw Lawman (Leisure Historical Fiction)

by Paul Bagdon

  I ate more of my breakfast until Lucas talked again. He averted his eyes as he spoke.

  “I’d bet my grannie’s ass that fella had some darkie blood in him, maybe from way back. He was as white as you or me, but there was somethin’ about the way he moved, and ‘course how he played that twelve string.”

  I figured it was a good time to leave the subject behind. “If you can put together some kinda list of the materials you’ll need to build the shelter and your time into it, I can get it off so it gets paid quick. I suggest you gouge the piss outta everything you need—it’s government money.”

  “Sure. I can do that. Thing is, I was thinkin’ of building the shelter with room for three horses, without them tusslin’ or chewin’ hide outta each other.”

  “But, Lucas,” I said, “it’s just me and Don. We really don’t need…”

  Lucas cut me off. “I was thinkin’ maybe I’d join on with you boys. I’m weary of makin’ whiskey an’ settin’ on Ma an’ Pa’s porch. I’m a man who likes some action, and I’d get that here. Right?”

  I couldn’t answer his offer quickly enough. “I’ll order up a badge and get you on the payroll, although the money doesn’t amount to a bedbug’s fart in a hurricane. I’m real glad to have you, Lucas, real glad. And I’ll look into that pardon.”

  We shook hands and the deal was set and sealed.

  Lucas started the project out back by erecting a good post and rail fence so the horses could soak up sunshine whenever they cared to. Don was right about Lucas: he was a hell of a carpenter. He put up a three-sided shelter with a small loft for hay storage in a matter of a few days, and he ran a pipe from our well that fed into a trough so the animals would always have fresh water. The whole project was a fine piece of work, and we moved our horses into it, packed some hay in the loft, filled the trough, and stood back to watch the horses’ reaction. Like I once said, a horse is damned near as smart as a sack of cow turds. The three of ours moved right into the enclosure and then stood around shagging flies with their tails. I suppose their new quarters could have been the gates to hell and they wouldn’t have paid any particular attention.

  We had to store our tack—saddles, bridles, blankets, reins, and the other miscellaneous things a horseman needs—just inside the rear door, a few feet from Don’s cell. I thought maybe we should get a cot or something for Lucas to sleep on—after all, it was only government money. But he said he was perfectly comfortable sleeping on the floor in the front office, so I didn’t push the matter.

  So. It was the hottest part of August, and there was precious little difference between when the sun was exerting its power or when it was full dark. The incessant heat made good dogs—even some cattle dogs—either go after their masters or tear hell out of other dogs. It was that kind of heat. Horses did some bucking in the morning when they were first saddled up, but they weren’t playing or screwing around: they wanted to get that rider off and maybe step on him. I’m not talking here about unbroken horses—I mean horses men had used and trusted for a long time. This goddamn heat would have made Jesus Howard Christ peevish: it sure did turn good men around.

  I didn’t pay much attention to fistfights in the gin mills unless the battle turned to guns. I figured it this way: let the dumb bastards settle their own disputes with their fists and boots.

  The three of us sat around the office. Lucas had made a sign that hung over our door outside, saying SHARIFF. Not only was Lucas a fine carpenter, he could make and letter the very ass off a sign.

  Lucas had done his sign work out by the enclosure, so neither I nor Don paid much attention to what he was doing. One morning he nailed it up and brought Don and me out to see it. Lucas had the proud and happy glint in his eyes of a schoolkid bringing home an A to his folks.

  I cleared my throat needlessly. “Well, Lucas,” I said, “it’s a beautiful sign—a perfect sign…except you spelled ‘sheriff’ wrong.”

  “Ahhh, shit,” he said dejectedly.

  “Probably ain’t three people in Gila Bend who’d know the difference,” Don said. “It’s a real fine sign, Lucas.”

  Lucas backed up a couple of steps, keeping his eyes focused on the sign. “Ain’t no use in doin’ a job of work unless the sumbitch comes out right.”

  I’d seen men attempt to fan a .45. Most of them were slow and inept. Lucas wasn’t. I was standing there looking at him and I barely saw his draw, it was so smooth and so fast. He fanned the hammer on his pistol so that the six reports sounded like one. His left hand—the fanning hand—didn’t move more than a few inches. The boys I’d seen had made elongated, sweeping motions that looked clumsy and slow—both of which they were.

  Bits, shards, and splinters seemed to jump from the sign. Lucas reloaded his pistol and dropped it back into his holster.

  “Well, anyways,” he said, “it’s good I bought some extra paint an’ had some planks left over,” he said. “But Jesus Howard Christ on a bronc, what the hell difference does spelling make? Shit.”

  I considered it wise not to launch into a lecture on the importance of proper spelling in the English language.

  The three of us went back into the office. Lucas sat on the edge of the desk, his boot tapping on the floor in a frenetic nonrhythm. Don was reading a dime Western with the title across the front cover, Saving Sweet Sally—Dan’l Boone Enters the Fray! Underneath the title was, A True Adventure.

  I’d looked at the magazine earlier but had to give it up when ol’ Dan’l put slugs directly down the barrels of the guns of the miscreants who’d captured Sweet Sue.

  I pushed some papers around, none of which meant much of anything. I’d written to the judge about putting Lucus on as a deputy and about a pardon for him with the same stipulation mine carried.

  Our postmaster opened the door, tossed my mail on my desk, and left. She wasn’t what you’d call affable.

  There was a letter from the judge. I opened it and read:

  …job was given to you along with great and highly beneficial benefits. However, bringing a mindless, bloodthirsty cutthroat such as Mr. Lucas Chambery would have no ameliorative function. Your request and petition here is hereby denied…

  I didn’t see any good reason not to tell Lucas about the judge’s refusal right then and there: holding on to bad news doesn’t do anyone any good.

  I handed the letter to Lucas.

  His face reddened. “I don’t read real good,” he said.

  I took the letter back and read its contents to him. His face didn’t change—I suppose neither one of us had anticipated a favorable response. Still, it was a disappointment. Lucas’s expression didn’t change at all, nor did the tapping of his boot, which, quite frankly, was driving me crazy.

  After a while he said, “The way I see, it’s a matter of bein’ in the right place at the right time. If I’d been in Gila Bend, I might could’ve been the one the judge offered the pardon to.”

  “I hope there are no hard feelings,” I said.

  “Hard feelin’s? Nah. Look, when I see a man who has somethin’ I might wanna have, do I have hard feelings against him? Hell, no—‘cept if it’s money or a horse.” He paused for a moment. “Or maybe a real fine woman,” he added. A moment later, “Or a spread of land I cotton to. An’ maybe a real good saddle.”

  I had the feeling that he could go on for quite some time with things he might resent others for having. “Well,” I said. “Are you staying on, Lucas? If you want to head on home, that’s fine. I don’t know as I’d blame you.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Lucas said. “It’s like I told you a bit ago: I was gettin’ right antsy with doin’ nothin’ but makin’ whiskey, settin’ on the front porch, an arguin’ with Pa. I’m staying,” he said, with a strong note of finality.

  “One thing you could do for me is to stop tapping that goddamn boot on the floor. Jesus, it’s irritating.”

  “Feisty today, ain’t you?” He grinned. “Sure, I’ll stop tappin’ my boot. I didn’t know it was gr
indin’ on you boys.”

  Lucas shoved his butt back on the desk a bit. The silence was wonderful. Then he began tapping his right index finger on the wood.

  “Ahh, shit,” I said.

  “Lucas, he’s always been like that,” Don explained. “Always tappin’ or fidgeting or hummin’ or some damned thing. He don’t mean nothin’ by it.”

  “Look,” I said, “I’d be pleased to buy you boys a beer. How’s that sound?”

  Both men were on their feet before my words faded.

  “I jus’ might take you up on that.” Lucas smiled.

  “Me too,” Don said. “I’m damned near thirsty enough to drink sand and enjoy the hell outta it.”

  We left the office and headed down the street, walking three abreast. I remember seeing a picture of Wyatt, Doc, and Morgan walking just like the three of us were, down the street in Dodge, I think it was. I admit I kinda liked the image.

  There were a half dozen horses tied in front of the joint that served the coldest beer, and that’s where we headed.

  The reek inside the place was, as usual, composed of sweat, stale beer, and tobacco smoke. We stood inside the batwings letting our eyes adjust to the murkiness. There were four card tables in Us and a half dozen or so fellows standing at the bar.

  Conversation stopped the moment we entered. The men at the bar moved back to the tables, carrying their beer and shot glasses.

  “Right lively in here,” Lucas commented.

  “We didn’t come here to visit with this bunch of backshooters,” I said.

  “Let’s drink us some beer,” Don said. He waved to the bartender and held up three fingers. The ‘tender looked at him and then looked away quickly.

  I walked down the length of the bar to where he stood. “My deputy ordered up three beers,” I said. “You’d best serve them up.”

  “I…I can’t serve you no beer or whiskey,” he said, his voice nervous and trembly. “If it was up to me, I would—but it ain’t up to me.”

  “Powers tell you to shut the three of us off?”

  “Yes…yessir, he did.”

  I went back to where Don and Lucas stood.

  “The ‘tender says Billy Powers told him not to serve us.”

  “No problem there,” Lucas said. “I can pull a beer as good as any man.”

  He vaulted over the bar and took three mugs from the shelf under the bottles and began to fill them from the barrel spigot.

  The men who’d been playing cards all stood.

  “Dammit,” I mumbled, “all I wanted was a beer.”

  Chapter Five

  A spokesman, drunk enough to appoint himself as such, approached us at the bar.

  “Hold on for a second,” I said. “I have something real important to say—something that needs to be said before someone gets hurt.”

  “Backin’ down, chickenshit?” the spokesman said. He smiled, showing a full collection of yellow-brown, crooked teeth. “Go ‘head an’ have your say,” he said magnanimously, as if he were doing us a giant favor.

  I cleared my throat and took a sip of my beer. I came away with a white foam mustache. “Deputy Lucas,” I said, “you pull a truly piss-poor beer.” I held my schooner up for all to see. “Lookit this goddamn thing—four inches of foam.” I hurled the mug at the mirror behind the bar. The breaking of bottles and mirror glass was wonderful to hear.

  “Pound, I hate to agree with you—or any goddamn body—against a relative,” Don said, “but I gotta be with you on this one.” He looked over at Lucas. “You’re a failure, boy. Now do it again an’ do her right.”

  “Yessir,” Lucas said. He began to draw a beer but stopped.

  “This here’s the problem—not my pourin’. Sumbitch of a spigot screws up. I can fix her, though.” He drew his .45 and put two bullets into the beer barrel, maybe an inch or so from the bottom. Beer spewed happily out of the jagged holes in the barrel.

  The spokesman came at me, swing crazily, but connecting with nothing but fetid, smoke-filled air. I dropped him with a single punch—a long right-hand roundhouse. The spokesman went down to stay for several minutes. I was proud of that punch.

  The others in the saloon charged, a couple of them brandishing chairs.

  Lucas watched Don and I tussle with the outlaws, and he downed a beer from one of his bullet holes. Then he vaulted back over the bar and joined the fight.

  There were a couple of strong, fighting men in Powers’s group, and Lucas went right for them. He kicked the first one in the orbs, which was good for at least three days of pain for the outlaw.

  The second tough came at Lucas in the Marquis de Queensbury stance and posture. Lucas grabbed up a chair and smashed it over the boxer’s head, and he went down.

  Look, I hadn’t done much bar fighting in the course of my criminal career and none before that. It simply made no sense to me. Nevertheless, two of Powers’s men were trading me off; first one would hit me and then the other. Neither one could throw much of a punch, but they were hurting me nevertheless.

  When I was floored for the third time, I decided I’d had more than enough. I drew my pistol and blew away one fellow’s knee. The other made a move to draw, and I shot him in the chest. The pair of gunshots stopped all movement and all sound in the saloon. The silence was a heavy, ponderous one, like the sensation a person feels when standing in a parlor gawking at a laid-out corpse.

  “Don, Lucas,” I said. “I guess we’re pretty much finished here. Ready to go back to the office and resume our crime-fighting efforts from there?”

  The area in front of the bar was littered with bleeding and moaning outlaws. The one I shot in the chest was dead, or at least was showing no signs of life.

  Lucas took a bottle from the back of the bar, pulled the cork, sniffed the whiskey, grimaced, and flung the bottle at the back wall, where it shattered. “Hog piss,” he commented.

  “The good whiskey is somewhere under the bar,” I said. Lucas checked for a moment and then exclaimed, “Woooo-weee! Lookit this sumbitch!” He put a Remington double-barreled shotgun on the bar. It’d been cut down so that the barrel wasn’t much longer than that of an army Colt. He picked it back up and broke the action, removed the two cartridges, and snapped the weapon shut. “Whoever done this knowed what he was doin’,” he said. “He ground down the safety cog so’s there ain’t no safety at all.” He grinned proudly. “This here baby is goin’ home with me.” Almost as an afterthought, he snagged a bottle of Kentucky bourbon from under the bar.

  Don stood in front of me inspecting my face. He winced a bit as he did so. “I’ll fetch a bucket of ice,” he said. “Your teeth OK?”

  “Seems like a couple of the front ones are loose, is all.”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  We made our way back to our office, not quite as vigorously as when we were heading to the saloon. Lucas showed little or no damage, but he was limping slightly. Don hadn’t been really hurt either; a cut above his right eyebrow that had already stopped bleeding and was crusting over, and a bruise on his jaw. I was the one who took a beating, and I felt somewhat foolish about that.

  It seemed like Don read my thoughts.

  “Here’s the thing, Pound,” he said. “You ain’t a fistfighter an’ never will be. Now, you take a man like Lucas: he’s built like a bull, he’s dumber than a cow-flop, and he doesn’t care a lick if he gets hurt or killed. Same thing kinda applies to me. I ain’t as dumb as Lucas, but I’ll keep on gettin’ up an’ fightin’ ‘til I’m dead.”

  “Damn right,” said Lucas, who apparently wasn’t bothered by Don referring to him as dumb.

  “You,” Don went on, “are a thinker type, an’ thinkin’ doesn’t do any good in a kick-ass fray like today. Plus, you’re a gunman.”

  “I’m not a…”

  “Bullshit,” Don cut me off. “You’re real fast an’ real good at placin’ a slug where you want it to go. That’s what I call a gunman.”

  “But…”

  “I seen a
few gunfights in my day,” Don continued. “You ever heard of Frank Leslie—they called him Buckskin Frank?”

  “From up around Tombstone, right?”

  “Yeah. I seen Frank take down a man who wasn’t half bad, but wasn’t a gunman. Frank put a round in his left eye an’ then two in his chest as he fell. That’s a gunman.”

  I didn’t reply.

  We sat in the office, me aching a bit, holding a bandana containing some chipped-up ice over my eye. It helped some, but not a lot. Lucas tugged the cork out of the bourbon he’d taken, took a good hit, and handed it to Don. Don sucked much harder than he usually did, and passed the bottle to me. I did that good bourbon justice and gave the bottle to Lucas, continuing the three-man circle.

  Even though we’d given a good, strong showing of ourselves, we were morose, quiet, vaguely dissatisfied.

  Some whooping silver mine workers galloped down the street, probably with pay in their pockets, more than ready to gamble, get drunk, and if enough money happened to be left, purchase the company of a soiled dove.

  After the workers went by, the usual over-heated, gritty silence moved in again.

  I was damned near asleep when Lucas broke that silence.

  “Shit,” he said. Strangely, there was dejection in his voice and sadness, too.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked.

  “Well, I know what Don said outside about me not being too bright is true, an’ I ain’t no school-teacher. But I know men pretty good.”

  He took a glug from the bottle and then scrambled for words. “Well…well…dammit, Pound, all we do is every so often whack hell outta some of Powers’s men. We cause a little trouble, but not much. It gets old, ya know? Hell, I’d rather be an eagle than a goddamn mosquito.”

  I was astounded at the metaphor Lucas had just employed. It was stronger than anything I’d read in recent literature. He cleared my confusion: “Sitting Bull said that once.”

  “Lucas is right,” Don said. “We’re jus’ screwing around and skirmishing. That ain’t no way to win a war. An’ I got a couple of stills to run, too.”