Gunman's Song

by Ralph Cotton

  Dawson shook his head, saying, “Um-hm,” under his breath.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Shaw asked.

  “Nothing,” said Dawson, standing up himself. “If it’s expected of you, I reckon you best go get it done. I’ll go get the horses ready.”

  Dawson left the Desert Flower Inn and took his time preparing the horses for the trail. A half hour had passed when he’d arrived back at the hitch rail out front of the inn, leading Shaw’s buckskin by its reins. Another five minutes passed before Shaw stepped out onto the boardwalk carrying his hat in his left hand. The sun had begun to break over the eastern edge of the earth. As Shaw placed his hat atop his head and stepped down from the boardwalk, Sheriff Neff called out, “Shaw! I want to talk to you.”

  Shaw and Dawson both turned at the sound of the sheriff’s voice and saw him walking slowly across the street toward them, a rifle cocked and held in a fire-from-the-hip position. Behind the sheriff two of the town councilmen stood watching. “What’s this all about?” Dawson asked Shaw under his breath, his hand poised near his pistol butt.

  “Easy does it,” Shaw replied to Dawson. “It looks like he’s just needing to make a show before we leave…let everybody know he’s worth his keep.”

  “Shaw, you’re not welcome here anymore,” said Neff, stopping fifteen feet away, appearing to take a stand. “I want you and your friend to get out of my town.”

  “Yep,” Shaw whispered sidelong to Dawson, “this is just a formality. I’ll give him what he needs.” He raised his voice. “I don’t want no trouble, Sheriff,” Shaw said, making it a point to lift his gun hand away from his holster. “We’re not breaking any law.” Even as Shaw played along with the sheriff’s farce, he kept his senses tuned warily toward the roofline, the alleyways, and the councilmen themselves.

  “I know you’re not, Shaw,” said Neff. “But there’s already been killing and there’s apt to be more if I don’t make you clear out of here.” Without making any menacing move with the rifle, the sheriff said, “Now get in your saddle and ride.”

  Shaw nodded toward a restaurant up the street and said, “Sheriff, can’t we at least go have breakfast first?”

  “No,” said Neff. “You can stop and eat alongside the trail. Now get going. This is my town and I run it free of gunfighters.”

  “All right, Sheriff, you win,” said Shaw. “We’re leaving.” Without making any sudden moves he stepped around the buckskin and up into his saddle. “Sorry for the trouble,” he said, touching his hat brim as the two turned their horses toward the end of town.

  The sheriff nodded and stood stonelike in the middle of the street until Shaw and Dawson rode past the town-limits sign.

  “Well,” said Dawson, glancing back over his shoulder as they rode away, “that beats all I ever seen. He had to know we were already on our way out of town.”

  “Sure he knew it,” said Shaw matter-of-factly. “The councilmen had to see it too. But it made everybody look good…and it didn’t cost us a thing.” He gave his buckskin a nudge with his boot heels and quickened its pace. Dawson shook his head and stayed a step back from him.

  They rode to the fork in the trail and had started to head north when Shaw looked back and said, “Somebody’s following us from town.”

  Dawson looked back at the rise of dust along the flatland, but he wouldn’t have had to see the dust; a hundred yards away a lone rider had come up out of a dip in the land and rode toward them, waving a bowler hat back and forth in the air. “It’s Caldwell,” said Dawson.

  “I might have known,” said Lawrence Shaw, turning his mount a bit, ready to ride away. “It looks like everywhere we go we’re going to have that undertaker hanging around behind us.”

  “I swear I’d almost forgotten all about him,” said Dawson.

  “I can see why. He’s not an easy man to remember,” Shaw said, gazing toward Caldwell with no interest.

  “Shouldn’t we hold up to see what he wants?” Dawson asked, seeing Shaw was ready to ride on.

  “Why?” said Shaw. “It’s not likely he’ll miss us.” But he stayed the animal anyway, and lifted his canteen from his saddle horn and drank from it while Jedson Caldwell raced his horse along the trail.

  Reaching them, Caldwell slid his horse to a halt and turned it sideways on the trail facing them. “Whew!” he said, “for a while there I thought I’d lost you fellows.” He fanned himself with his bowler hat and caught his breath. “Do either of you mind if I tag along a ways farther? I’m not ashamed to tell you that I’m afraid to travel alone out here.”

  Dawson and Shaw looked at him, noting that both his eyes were black and his nose was swollen and bruised. Neither of them said it was all right for him to ride with them, but neither of them turned him away. “What in the world happened to your face, Caldwell?” Dawson asked.

  “Oh, this,” said Caldwell, playing his injury down. “It’s nothing, really. The barber I helped prepare the dead did this to me.” He offered a painful smile. “Apparently he considered my offer of services to be competitive to his business. He was friendly as could be while there was folks around…and not too hard to get along with while I washed the bodies and covered their wounds. But once I’d done most of the work, he grew belligerent…then abusive, as you can see.” He gestured a hand at his bruised and battered face.

  Showing no interest in Caldwell, Shaw gave Dawson a flat expression, capped his canteen, and turned his buckskin back to the trail. But Dawson stayed beside Caldwell, the two following Shaw a few feet behind. “Is it all right with him, me coming along?” asked Jedson Caldwell.

  “It’s all right,” said Dawson. “Just stay out of his way.”

  “Where are we headed?” Caldwell asked.

  Dawson checked his expression as he said, “We’re heading after Willie the Devil and Elton Minton, the two who left town in such a hurry yesterday.”

  “Oh,” said Caldwell, seeming concerned. “So there could be shooting if you catch up to them?”

  “I believe that’s a possibility,” said Dawson. “Are you game for that when it comes down to it?”

  “Well, I would be,” said Caldwell with hesitancy, “except that barber took away the gun you gave me. Do either of you have another one?”

  “No, that was the only spare I could come up with,” said Dawson.

  Listening, Shaw slowed his buckskin, reached inside his saddlebags, and took out the Colt he’d taken off of Sammy Boy White. He held it out at arm’s length and gave it to Jedson Caldwell. “Whatever you do, Caldwell,” Shaw said, “you better not lose that gun.”

  Caldwell looked frightened, saying, “Wait a minute, Mr. Shaw! Perhaps I’d better not take it then!”

  “Take it,” said Shaw forcefully, riding on without looking back at him. “Just don’t lose it.” Then he said to Cray Dawson, “Why don’t you teach him how to shoot that gun first chance you get? It might make the world safer for all of us.”

  “What did he say?” Caldwell asked Dawson, sounding jittery.

  “Never mind,” said Dawson, gigging his horse forward. “We’ve got a long, hot ride ahead of us. Just relax and take it easy.”

  PART 2

  Chapter 11

  Barton Talbert stood on the abandoned gallows at Brakett Flats and looked south toward the Anacacho mountain line. It had been almost an hour since he’d first spotted the two thin, wavering figures riding toward town in the scalding midday heat. The first thing he’d said to Blue Snake Terril, who sat beside him, one haunch perched sidelong on the gallows rail, was, “Where’s Bo Kregger?”

  “He was out behind the old cemetery a while ago,” Blue Snake said, squinting toward the two distant riders.

  “What’s he doing back there?” Talbert asked.

  “Shooting cans,” said Blue Snake. “Didn’t you hear him?”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right,” said Talbert. “I wasn’t thinking there for a second.” He tossed a glance toward the cemetery, from where three shots rang ou
t in rapid succession.

  Blue Snake looked him up and down, realizing how nervous and preoccupied he’d been lately. Then he looked back out toward the riders, saying sarcastically, almost to himself, “Kregger must figure if Fast Larry Shaw shows up and throws some cans at him, he wants to be prepared.”

  “I know you’ve got no use for him, Snake,” said Talbert, “but the plain, simple fact is, we need Bo Kregger.”

  “Like hell,” said Blue Snake. “I can handle Shaw.”

  “I’m not saying you can’t,” said Barton Talbert, “and like as not you’ll get a chance to prove it before this is over. But I’m saying we need somebody like Bo Kregger just in case you can’t handle him. Fast Larry Shaw is still the fastest gun alive.”

  Blue Snake spit and shook his head. “This whole thing is such a stupid mess, anyway. None of it should have happened. You go out of your way to stop by a man’s house to pay him your respect; damned if you don’t wind up killing his wife. What are the odds of something like that happening? You idolized the man! Now he’s out to kill you.”

  “You know I idolized him, and I know I idolized him,” said Talbert. “The problem is, Shaw ain’t going to hear of this all being a terrible situation that got out of control.” He also shook his head slightly, recalling the event in his mind. “How do you tell a man you killed his wife but didn’t mean to?”

  “Just like that,” said Blue Snake, giving a slight shrug. “You say, ‘Shaw we killed your wife but we didn’t mean to.’ If that won’t stick, then you settle with him, man-to-man. You don’t go hire some other gunman to take care of your business for you. It’s my belief that all these fast guns are a little loco to begin with. The less you get tangled up in their world, the better off you are. I might be nothing but a damn half-breed outlaw and cattle rustler, but I’m smart enough to stay away from those crazy jackrabbit gunfighters.”

  “Well, she’s dead, and I can’t call it back and change it,” said Talbert with a sigh of finality. “We got to deal with Shaw and get it done.” He stared harder at the riders through the shimmering heat. “I almost wish that was him coming.”

  “So do I,” said Blue Snake, studying the figures closely as they neared, “but it ain’t; it’s the Devil.”

  “That’s what I thought too,” said Barton Talbert. They watched in silence for a moment; then Talbert reaffirmed, saying, “Yep, it’s the Devil, all right. But that’s not Brother Sidlow with him.” There was a sound of concern in his voice.

  “No sign of Donald Hornetti either,” said Blue Snake, the long tails of his bright Mexican neck scarf fluttering on a hot Texas breeze. Around Blue Snake’s neck a strip of rawhide held a Colt .45 hanging down his chest like some religious object. He wore black leather gloves with the fingers and thumbs cut off. His own fingers were ingrained with dirt and black gun oil. His thumbnails were painted bright blue but badly flaking. “Who’s this peckerwood beside him?”

  “I’m wondering that myself,” said Talbert. He slapped a sand flea that had worked its way up through the wiry beard stubble on his cheek. Then he picked the dead flea off and flipped it away. Watching Willie the Devil and Elton Minton ride onto the main street, Talbert said, “I told the Devil not to bring me anything but good news about my brother…. Let’s go see what’s he got.”

  “It ain’t good, I’m already thinking,” said Blue Snake, rising from the gallows rail.

  Turning and walking down the gallows steps, they looked at two small boys who swung back and forth, playing on the hangman’s rope, each supported by one bare foot in the noose. The rope creaked eerily with each pass. On the bottom step a dark bloodstain marked a time long past when someone had killed the hangman, dragged him his gallows into an alley, and stuffed him headfirst down into a rain barrel.

  “You kids get the hell out of here,” said Talbert to the two boys. Then he called out to the empty storefronts and closed doors and windows, “Somebody better get these knothead kids out of here! I bet I end up pistol-whipping some mommies and daddies in a minute!” He looked menacingly along the deserted boardwalks, where the only sign of life was an occasional gunman who leaned against a pole with a rifle in his arm and a bottle of whiskey hanging in his hand. The buildings were silent as stone except for the small saloon, where both large windows had been busted from the inside and shards of glass littered the street. Beyond the broken windows a banjo played feverishly, its rhythm speeded up and goaded on by random gunshots and loud laughter.

  On their way toward the two approaching riders, Talbert and Blue Snake saw a dark-haired woman run out from a building with a worried look on her face. She chastised the two boys loudly in Spanish and shooed them away from the gallows with both hands. “Gracias, Mamacita,” Talbert sneered at her. “Now keep them the hell out of my hair! If I wanted to be aggravated by kids, I’ve got a dozen of my own scattered out some-damn-where!”

  The widely flared legs of Blue Snake’s Mexican vaquero trousers stirred a low swirl of dust at his boot heels. His big Mexican spurs rang out like small bells with each step. By the time they gone fifteen yards, a couple of the gunmen had stepped down from the boardwalk and joined them. “What’s the deal coming here?” one gunman asked, nodding toward Willie the Devil and Elton Minton as they slowed their tired horses to a walk.

  “Beats, me, Curley,” said Blue Snake, his hand around the bone handle of the pistol hanging around his neck. “You’ve seen as much as I have.”

  Curley Tomes noted Blue Snake’s hand, flaking painted nail and all, and he tightened his grip on the rifle cradled in his arm. Another gunman drifted in beside Curley Tomes and asked in a lowered voice, “What’s the hash, Curley?”

  Curley gave him a barbed sidelong glance. “Do I look like I know every damn thing, Stanley?”

  “Pardon the hell out of me then,” said Stanley Little.

  As Willie the Devil and Elton Minton halted their horses and started to step down into the middle of the street, Barton Talbert said, “Don’t even get out of the saddle unless you’ve got some good news for me, Devil.”

  Willie the Devil stopped midmotion, swung his leg back over the saddle, and sat down. “It’s all bad, Bart,” Willie said, letting out a breath of dread.

  Barton Talbert gave Blue Snake a look, then said, “Get on down, Willie. Tell me everything.”

  This time Willie and Elton both stepped down. Elton looked around nervously at the gunmen staring at him. “Who is this scarecrow?” Blue Snake asked, sizing Elton up with a sneer of contempt.

  “This is Elton Minton, Bart,” said Willie the Devil, addressing Barton Talbert directly instead of answering Blue Snake.

  “Where’s my brother?” Talbert asked, barely giving Elton a glance.

  Taking his hat off, Willie the Devil shook his lowered head. “Bart, ol’ pard, I hate to say it, but poor Sidlow is dead…there was nothing we could do about it. Not one damn thing.”

  “What? You lying son of a bitch!” Barton Talbert shoved him hard, causing him to lift his lowered head and hold both hands out to keep Talbert back away from him.

  “Please, Bart! Listen to me!” Willie pleaded, seeing Talbert’s hand snap tight around his gun butt. “It’s the truth; we couldn’t help him!”

  “Who killed him?” Talbert hissed. “That damned Sheriff Neff? I’m going right now to that little pig rut of a town and shoot his eyes out!”

  “Uh, no,” said Willie, “it wasn’t Neff. It was Fast Larry Shaw.”

  A sick look came over Barton Talbert’s face, but he tried to hide it. “Oh…” His word trailed off as he considered it. Then he said, “Fast Larry Shaw be damned! I’m still going to Eagle Pass. Shaw’s going to pay!” He spoke loudly enough for all the gathering gunmen to hear him, yet there seemed to be less iron in his tone than there had been only a moment earlier. “How did it happen? Face-to-face? One-on-one? Everything on the up-and-up?”

  Willie shook his head. “I swear I can’t say, the way it all happened so fast. Me and Hornetti had alread
y set up a way to kill Fast Larry,” he continued, not giving the details in the exact sequence in which they happened. “Neff was escorting Sidlow to the jake, if you can believe the sheriff’s version. But then ol’ Sidlow, God love him, he tried to make a break for it, like any freethinking man would do! And that damned Fast Larry saw him and shot him over and over in the worst sort of way!” Willie seemed to be on the verge of weeping. “It was terrible! And there was me and Hornetti, couldn’t do a thing about it. I was sickened by it!”

  “Where is Hornetti?” asked Blue Snake, looking around as if the man might suddenly appear.

  “He’s dead too,” said Willie the Devil. “Fast Larry’s pard shot him dead. Poor Donald fell all the way from a window atop the saloon.”

  “Shaw’s pard?” said Talbert. “You mean Shaw’s got somebody riding with him? Another slick gunfighter, I reckon?”

  “Oh, yes, no doubt about it,” said Willie, “this man is just as cold-blooded and lightning-fast as Shaw! It would have been nothing short of suicide for me to try to take them both. Shaw called out to everybody around that if they rode with you they were fair game. Said he wanted you to know what happened to Sidlow. Sounded like he’s out for a showdown, just like we figured. I ran into Mace Renfield and some pards of his in Turkey Wells on our way here. I know Mace has been aching to kill Shaw for a long time. Maybe he’ll just up and do it, save us some trouble.”

  “Yeah,” said Barton Talbert, “maybe…but I can’t chance hanging my hat on a maybe.”

  “I know,” said Willie, “and it’s a damn shame what Shaw done to those two good men…both Donald and Sidlow shot down in their prime! I tell you again I was sickened by the whole thing!”

  “You seem to sicken pretty easy for a man who doesn’t do much,” said a deep voice from off to the right of the other gunmen.