by Ralph Cotton
“It’s a cattle-shack, town near Turkey Mountain,” said Dawson. “Turkey Wells gets its water from the west fork of Turkey Creek. The station is the best place around there to swap out tired horses and pick up some snakehead whiskey. They went through there; you can count on it.”
“Snakehead whiskey?” Caldwell gave him a dubious look. “I’m almost afraid to ask you why they call it that.”
Dawson gave a thin smile, watching Shaw as he walked a few yards ahead of them. “They used to claim the whiskey drummers put rattlesnake heads in the whiskey barrels to give it a little bite. But that was mostly just some hot air blowing.” He watched Caldwell reload the Colt, noting that his small, delicate hands had already become more adept at handling the pistol mechanism. “So how does it feel Caldwell, getting the hang of gun-handling?”
“I don’t know if I’d say I’m getting the hang of it yet,” Caldwell replied, “but I must say, I feel like I’ve already learned a lot.” As he spoke, he closed the cylinder on the Colt and hefted the gun in his hand as if getting a better feel for the weight of it. “I think if I stick with it I could become self-sufficient.”
“That’s the spirit,” said Dawson, watching the young undertaker try to twirl the big Colt on his trigger finger.
The gun made only a half turn before the weight of it caused Caldwell’s finger to bend sideways and lose its hold. The pistol fell to the ground, landed on its hammer, and sent a shot whistling wildly toward Lawrence Shaw’s back. Before Caldwell even realized what had happened, Shaw had spun with his Colt out and cocked, pointed at him. “No! Please!” Caldwell shouted in terror, looking up at the open bore of Shaw’s big Colt, seeing the dead, expressionless look on Shaw’s face.
“Shaw, it went off!” Dawson called out in Caldwell’s defense. But Shaw had already seen what had happened, and had already lowered the tip of his barrel. His expression was still flat and indiscernible. “Dang it, Caldwell,” said Dawson. “Don’t try things like that until you get to where you know what you’re doing!” He stooped and snatched up the Colt from the rocky ground. “Never keep a full six load…always leave one empty, for safety, unless you’re in the middle of a shooting situation!”
“I-I’m sorry,” said Caldwell, visibly shaken, staring wide-eyed at Lawrence Shaw, seeing the unyielding look on Shaw’s face. “Mr. Shaw! Please! This was an accident! I had no idea—”
Shaw cut him off, saying, “Dawson, you better set up to boil some water. Strip up some clean cloth.”
“What?” Dawson asked, a puzzled look coming to his face.
“He’s put a bullet in me, sure as hell,” said Shaw. It took him two tries to slip his Colt into his holster. Only then did Cray Dawson and Jedson Caldwell see the trickle of blood running down the palm of his right hand and dripping to the ground. Shaw raised his left hand around under his right arm and winced in pain.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” Caldwell clasped his hands to his mouth, on the verge of tears. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorr—”
“Shut up, Caldwell!” Dawson snapped, hoping to settle him down. “Get a canteen off the horses! Hurry up!”
As Caldwell hurried to the horses, Dawson rushed forward and helped Shaw seat himself on a flat rock. “See what I meant a while ago?” said Shaw with a trace of a wry smile. “The fool’s already shot one of us.
“All right, but it was an accident,” said Dawson. “I saw it happen.”
“I know it was,” said Shaw, having difficulty raising his right arm so Dawson could help him get out of his riding coat. “But this is the worst time for it to happen. Of all the luck. I just get over a bullet graze in my left shoulder. Now he shoots me in my right. That’ll be the last I draw my Colt until this thing heals.”
Helping Shaw out of his shirt, Dawson remarked, “That was a pretty fast response for a man with a bullet in him.”
“Nothing quickens the blood like somebody shooting at you from behind,” Shaw said with a slight grunt, lifting his arm again, this time noticing how much his upper arm had already started to swell. “I just wish I knew who to ask, Why the right arm?” He rolled a skeptical glance upward at the wide Texas sky. “Why not the left?”
Caldwell came sliding down beside Dawson with two canteens, hastily uncapping one and handing it to Shaw. “So help me God, Mr. Shaw,” he said, his voice still trembling, “I wouldn’t have had this happen for anything in the world!”
Lawrence Shaw gave him his flat stare. “There’s hardened gunmen who would give anything they own to say they shot Fast Larry Shaw,” he said with a twist of irony in his voice. “You shot me before you even learned not to pack a sixth load.”
“Mr. Dawson told me the first thing not to load six unless I knew I was in trouble and needed it…I just forgot for a second.”
“A second is all it takes with a gun, Caldwell,” said Shaw, wincing as Dawson pulled him slightly forward and leaned around, taking a look at the bullet hole just above his right shoulder blade. He also took a glance at the healed but still tender-looking graze on Shaw’s left shoulder. Shaking his head, he went back to the fresh wound.
“Did it come out anywhere?” Dawson asked.
“Not that I’ve seen,” said Shaw, feeling around on his chest with his left hand as if making sure he hadn’t missed seeing an exit wound.
“Then it looks like you’ve got some cutting in store soon as we get you to the Turkey Wells station,” said Dawson.
“Huh-uh,” said Shaw. “I’m not going into that cowhand-shack town letting everybody know I’m not up to myself. I might as well hang a target board around my neck. That’s why I said get some water boiling.”
“I hate cutting a bullet out,” said Dawson. As he spoke he uncapped the other canteen.
“But you have done it?” Shaw asked.
“If I said no would it keep me from having to?” Dawson asked, raising the other canteen and pouring a trickle of water on the bandanna he’d loosened from around Shaw’s neck. He touched it carefully to the bleeding bullet hole and held it for a second.
“No, you’ve got the job,” said Shaw, “like it or not.”
“That’s what I figured,” said Dawson, already focusing his attention on the task at hand. He pressed firmly on the bandanna, soaking up the blood from the wound. Then he removed the bandanna and judged how long it took for the wound to well back up with blood. “Looks like it’s in there pretty deep,” he said. “Probably lodged up against a bone good and tight.”
“Whatever it takes,” said Shaw, “just get it done. The longer it lays in there, the better my chance at getting blood poisoning.”
Dawson turned to Caldwell. “Start us a fire and get some water boiling. Then unsaddle the horses and let them graze awhile. When I get the knife ready, you’ll have to help hold him down while I cut in there and get the bullet out.”
“No, he won’t,” said Shaw. “This ain’t the first bullet I’ve had in me. I don’t require holding.”
“Suit yourself,” said Dawson.
Caldwell built a small fire out of mesquite and scraps of downed oak branch kindling. When the flames stood steady in a bed of glowing coals, Dawson poured some water from a canteen into a tin pot and set it on the fire. Shaw watched, appearing uninterested until Dawson swished the long knife blade around in the boiling water. “Bring me a saddle over here, Caldwell,” said Shaw, watching Caldwell tear a clean shirt into long strips for bandages.
Caldwell stopped what he was doing, fetched a saddle, and brought it back to where Shaw sat a few feet from the fire, his bare back bowed forward, blood oozing from beneath the bandanna Dawson had wadded and laid over the wound temporarily. “Lay it across my lap,” Shaw said to Caldwell.
“Across your lap?” said Caldwell.
“You heard me,” said Shaw. “I need something to hold on to when he commences to cutting.”
Caldwell shuddered at the thought, but eased the saddle down in a way that Shaw could bow over it and wrap his arms under the far edge.
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“This ought to do,” Shaw said to Dawson. “Are you about ready?”
“Just about,” said Dawson, his sleeves rolled up, his hat off. He raised the knife blade and dried it on a clean strip of cloth from the pile Caldwell had torn. He began whistling steadily under his breath as he prepared the knife.
“I don’t need the entertainment,” said Shaw a bit gruffly.
“It helps settle me,” Dawson replied, going back to the whistling but keeping it even lower. Caldwell watched in rapt fascination, a pained look on his face.
“Caldwell,” said Shaw, “you want to get good at gun handling…I’m about to tell you something that will make you better than you ever believed you could be with a pistol.”
“What’s that, Mr. Shaw?” Caldwell asked hesitantly.
“It’s going to take me a week or more before my shoulder heals,” said Shaw. “After me taking a bullet from you, if you’re not handling that Colt to my satisfaction by the time my wound mends, you have my word that I’ll take that gun you’re wearing and bend the barrel over your head.”
Cray Dawson stifled a laugh and busied himself testing the temperature of the knife blade by holding it close to his forearm.
But Caldwell saw no humor in it. He looked terrified. “Mr. Shaw, please!” he pleaded. “I’ll never get proficient with a pistol in that short a period of time!”
Shaw ignored him and said to Cray Dawson as he bowed forward over the saddle in his lap, “I don’t mind if it’s a little too hot, Dawson. Let’s get it done.”
“I wish we had some whiskey first,” Dawson said, taking a deep breath, getting ready.
“I don’t require whiskey either,” said Shaw, getting a grip around the saddle with both arms, the pain radiating in his wounded shoulder.
“I wasn’t talking about you,” said Dawson on his knees, leaning forward over Shaw’s bowed back. He lifted the bloody bandanna, handed it to Caldwell, then said, “Here goes.”
“Oh, my, Mr. Shaw!” said Caldwell, growing faint as he watched the sharp point of the knife sink down into Shaw’s flesh.
“Caldwell,” said Dawson, annoyed by the man’s squeamishness, “you handle dead bodies; how can this bother you so bad?”
“It’s just different handling the dead,” said Caldwell. “I’m aware that they feel nothing. This is too painful! Oh, mercy!” he said, watching Dawson go back to the wound with the knife point.
Gripping the saddle until his whole body trembled violently, Shaw said in a strained and rasping voice, “No mercy for me, Caldwell…this is just a part of my game.”
Chapter 13
At the bunkhouse of the Turkey Track Ranch, Rafter One spread, Buddy Edwards stepped inside out of the noonday heat and looked around, his eyes taking a second to adjust from the stabbing sunlight to the darkened shade. At the far end of the long plank building he saw a slim young cowboy pulling a clean bib-front shirt over his head. “Hey, Vince! What’re you doing? Sully and us have been looking all over for you!”
“So now you’ve found me,” Vincent Mills replied in a not-so-pleasant voice. Before raising the shirt bib and buttoning it, he stuffed the tails down into his denim trousers and buttoned his fly. “Now what?”
Buddy had walked forward, but stopped and watched Vincent pick up his special Mexican handtooled holster from his bunk and swing it around his waist. Buddy shrugged. “I’m supposed to tell you to get back to work! Sully says you and me gotta round up stray calves from the basin and bring ’em back before dark. There’s a bitch wolf prowled in from the Llano plain. She’ll go through them calves like a kid eating rock candy.”
“Let her,” said Vincent Mills. He took his range Colt from his worn work holster hanging from a peg beside his bunk. Buddy watched him check it and shove it down into the hand-tooled holster. “I’m through carrying calves in my lap for the day.” He raised a boot to the edge of his bunk frame and tied the holster to his thigh. “Watch this,” he said, swinging his hands back and forth, clapping them in front of his chest. “Start counting,” he said with a grin.
“All right!” said Buddy, always eager to see his pal put on this little exhibition. Each time Vincent’s hands clapped, Buddy counted, “One…two…three.” But as he said “three,” Buddy saw Vincent’s Colt pointed straight out, its hammer cocked back, ready for action. “Gol-ly! Vincent, I swear, I never do see you draw the pistol! One second it’s in the holster; the next it’s in your hand! How do you do that?”
“Practice, mi amigo,” said Vincent, uncocking the Colt, and looking at it admiringly as he turned it back and forth in his hand; then he slipped in down into the holster. “While you and this bunch of steer jockeys are playing checkers or swapping each other tall tales, I’m out there drawing this pistol against the wind—shooting heads off rattlesnakes and prairie dogs.” As he spoke his hand effortlessly began drawing the pistol on a smooth forward swing of his arm, then slipping it back into the holster on the back swing.
Buddy Edwards stood staring, mesmerized, his expression that of a child watching a magician conjure miracles out of thin air. But then he caught himself and batted his eyes and said, “Vincent, we got to go. Will you show me that again tonight?”
“You go, Buddy,” Vincent said flatly. “I got plans.”
“Sully said we still got work to be done before we can go to town, Vincent,” Buddy persisted. “He said Mr. McNalty is talking about cutting some hands out of here anyhow, the way beef has dropped.”
Vincent Mills gave a sarcastic toss of his head. “McNalty is the owner; he can cut who he wants to cut, I reckon. Far as I’m concerned him and Sully can both kiss the broad side of my ass. I’m going to town and that’s that.”
“Why so early?” Buddy asked. “Turkey Wells station ain’t going nowhere.” He spread his hands with an uncertain grin. “Heck, I’ll go with you just as soon as I finish with them calves.”
“I’m already finished with them calves, Buddy,” said Vincent. “And you’re right, the station will still be there…but the person I’m going to see might not be.”
“You mean Lori Harmon?” said Buddy. “I don’t reckon she’ll be gone either by this evening.”
“No, I don’t mean Lori,” said Vincent. His expression grew more serious and excitement glittered in his eyes. “I got word from Tugs Albin that Mace Renfield is waiting in Turkey Wells for Fast Larry Shaw. Renfield means to face him off in the street and kill him!” As he’d spoken, Vincent had stepped closer to Buddy Edwards until he began tapping his finger on Buddy’s chest for emphasis.
Buddy’s eyes widened. “You mean there’s going to be a gunfight? Right there at the station?” But then Buddy cut a dubious glance at him and said, “Vincent, you ain’t funnin’ me, are you?”
“No, this is on the square and by the level,” said Vincent, the very thought of it causing him to also get excited. “A fellow who goes by the name Willie the Devil came through and tipped off Renfield that Fast Larry is on his way. The way I got it figured is, Shaw should be riding in sometime today. I wouldn’t miss being there for every wet-assed calf twix here and the Red!”
“Dang,” said Buddy, growing more interested, “the fastest gun alive coming right here…right here where we live!”
“That’s just a figure of speech,” said Vincent, “the thing about the fastest gun alive. There ain’t no such thing as the fastest gun alive.”
“Why ain’t there?” Buddy asked.
Because, pard,” said Vincent, “there is always somebody faster.” He tapped himself on his temple.
Use your head, Buddy. The world is too big for any one person to be the best at any one thing. You can understand that, can’t you?”
Buddy struggled with it for a second, then said, “No, not really…but I admit that I don’t know a whole lot. Not like you do, anyway.”
“Well, take my word for it. There is no such thing as the fastest gun alive.” As he spoke he once again began drawing and holstering his pistol. “Anybody who is
mighty damn good with a gun has the same chance as the next against a man like Fast Larry Shaw. Given the right timing, the right situation, I might beat him.”
“You’re not thinking about trying something like that, are you, Vincent?” Buddy asked warily.
“Me? Naw, don’t worry about that,” said Vincent, tossing the idea aside. “I’m going just to watch. But I ain’t so sure I couldn’t take Shaw or Renfield either one, if it ever came right down to it.”
“Whew, good,” said Buddy, letting out a breath of relief. “I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“Hey!” said Vincent, refocusing on his plans. “Do you want to go with me or not? I’m all ready to go!”
“Heck-fire, yes! I’m going!” said Buddy Edwards, snapping into motion, jerking his shirttail up out of his trousers. “Just let me put on my St. Louis shirt and wash my face! I’m ready!”
Lawrence Shaw, Cray Dawson, and Jedson Caldwell rode into the Turkey Wells station during the busiest part of the day. Out front of a long line of plank buildings with tin roofs, wagons creaked back and forth across sun-hardened ruts in the wide dirt street. Cow ponies stood at hitch rails out front of crude shacks and makeshift tent saloons, where the sound of banjos and mouth harps gave way to occasional shouts and fits of laughter. Behind the shacks and across a short rise of land Turkey Mountain stood five hundred feet in the air, looking down on its namesake with blank indifference.
Riding single-file with Shaw in the lead, the three maneuvered their animals toward a building that had a physician’s sign hanging out front—the only building there having a front porch with a roof over it. Shaw rode straight in his saddle, knowing that there would be those who would recognize him. Behind him Caldwell rode a bit slumped, and behind Caldwell, Dawson rode, keeping a watchful eye on building fronts and rooflines. When Shaw stopped and stepped down from his big buckskin, he did so with no regard for the pain in his wounded shoulder. But he turned to Caldwell as the other two stopped; and when Dawson had also stepped down from his saddle, he and Shaw assisted Caldwell down from his saddle and up onto the doctor’s porch. “I feel funny doing this,” Caldwell said in a lowered voice.
