by Ralph Cotton
“It was your bullet that caused the problem,” Shaw reminded him.
“Oh, I’m not complaining,” Caldwell said quickly as Dawson reached for the doorknob and opened the door. “It just seems odd, I mean. Like when a young boy plays sick to take off from school, you know?”
“No, I don’t,” said Shaw without interest. He allowed Caldwell to enter first; then he and Dawson followed.
A white-haired doctor stood up from a threadbare divan and walked stiffly forward to greet them. Seeing that Caldwell had walked in a bit stooped, he centered his attention on him, saying, “Well, now, what have we here?”
But as soon as Caldwell heard Dawson close the door behind them, he straightened up and stepped to one side as Shaw came forward. “It’s not him, Doctor; it’s me,” Shaw said. “I took a bullet in the shoulder from behind.” As Shaw spoke, he raised his right arm slightly, as if the doctor could see the soreness. “This man cut the bullet out, but I’m obliged if you’ll check it and dress it clean for me.”
“Oh…” The old doctor’s word trailed off in concern. “Well, come on in here and let’s take a look at it.” He adjusted his wire-rimmed spectacles up on the bridge of his nose, giving Shaw a closer look as the three filed past him toward the wooden chair and a sheet-covered gurney in the far corner. “I’m Dr. Isenhower,” he said, “and you look familiar. I believe I myself once removed a bullet from your torso.”
Shaw stopped and turned to him before sitting down in the chair. “That you have, Doctor.” He slipped his left arm from his coatsleeve and eased the right sleeve down carefully. “It has been a long time, but your memory serves you well. I’m Lawrence Shaw.”
“Ah, yes, Lawrence Shaw, the gunfighter.” The old doctor nodded, rolling up his shirtsleeves with thick, clean fingers. “Now I understand why you have your friend here walking in like he’s got a bellyache. You can’t afford to have anybody see that you’re not up to your game, eh?”
“That’s right, Doctor,” said Shaw. “So I’m trusting you to keep quiet about my being here with a gunshot wound. This is my gun hand.”
“Of course,” said the doctor. He shook his head as he sat down on a three-legged wooden stool and scooted it over and around beside Shaw, giving himself a good view of Shaw’s back. “We wouldn’t want folks to know that you’re temporarily incapable of killing a person, now, would we?”
Shaw cocked his head toward the doctor and said, “I didn’t come here to be talked down to, Doctor. But what you just said is true…there’s men who’d come at me like vultures if they thought I was down in my arm. That’s not by my choosing. They’re the ones smelling blood, not me. You think this is something I want? I’d have to be a fool to want it.”
“My apologies, Mr. Shaw,” said the doctor. “Sometimes my sense of humanity gets the better of me.” He gave Shaw a slight nudge with his left hand beneath the bandaged wound, saying, “Lean forward for me.”
While the doctor examined Shaw’s wound and changed the bandage, Cray Dawson and Jedson Caldwell stood at the window, looking out onto the busy dirt street.
Across the street and to the right, a man wearing a tall Stetson with a Montana crown stood out front of a ragged saloon tent, holding a mug of beer in his gloved hand. As Dawson and Caldwell watched, three more men walked out of the tent, one carrying a bottle of whiskey, one twirling a long knife by a ring on its handle. “This must be Saturday night coming up,” Dawson said absently.
“Yes, it must,” Caldwell said, looking back and forth along the street, seeing two more riders arriving in town, coming in from the northwest. “It looks like every cowhand for fifty miles is riding in and liquoring up.”
Out front of the Ragged Tent Saloon, the men passed the bottle around while the one with the beer mug nodded toward the doctor’s office and said something to the others, causing them to also look in the same direction.
“They already know you’re here, Shaw,” Dawson called out over his shoulder. “I suppose Caldwell and me could take the horses around back. When you’re ready to go we can slip out of town.”
“That’s a bad idea, Dawson,” said Shaw from the back corner. “No gunman leaves town without a meal or a drink or two. That’s a sure way to get a bad rumor started.”
“What do you propose then?” Cray Dawson asked.
“We’ll go have a beer, ask if anybody’s seen Willie the Devil and Elton Minton. Then we’ll leave here in our own time.”
“I understand,” said Dawson, “but what if one of these drunken cowhands decides he wants to hang your name on his belt? Then what?”
“I’ll just have to be extra careful not to let that happen,” said Shaw.
“But if it does anyway, then?” Dawson asked.
“Then I just have to play it the best I can,” said Shaw. He turned to the doctor, asking, “Doc, can you paint that wound with laudanum once you’re finished, get it good and numb up there, so’s I can move without the pain stopping me?”
“That’s a foolish idea, Lawrence,” said the old doctor. “You can’t make something work when it’s in need of healing. That’s the law of nature.”
“So is staying alive,” said Shaw. “Paint it good for me…we’ll see which law is the strongest.”
“I’d tell you you’re crazy, Mr. Shaw,” said the doctor in a sharp but respectful tone, “but I’ve got a feeling you already know that.”
“It has crossed my mind some,” said Shaw, returning the old doctor’s wry sense of humor.
As the doctor continued to attend to Shaw’s wound, the two arriving riders turned their horses to a hitch rail and stepped down out front of another saloon farther down the street, this one a plank shack with a wide rack of white-tailed deer antlers fastened above the door. “Goodness gracious, Vincent!” said Buddy Edwards, looking along the street as if in amazement. “You can just feel something in the air today! I reckon everybody must know that Fast Larry is on his way!”
“Yeah,” said Vincent Mills, “that’s the feel of tension and excitement that always comes when a couple of big guns is on the prod.” He grinned. “I truly love that feeling.” Taking off his worn range gloves and shoving them into his belt, he walked ahead of Buddy into the Buck Horn Saloon.
At the crowded makeshift bar, a set of rough oak planks lying across the tops of a row on wooden whiskey barrels, Vincent called out above the steady roar of conversation, “Frenchy, pour us a couple of shots of rye and leave the bottle. Some beer too.”
As the bartender nodded and reached for two shot glasses, a beared face at the bar turned toward Vincent and Buddy. “Hey, Vincent! I thought I heard your voice.” Scooting sideways, forcing an opening at the bar, the man said, “Here, y’all step right in.”
“Much obliged, Parker,” said Vincent. He and Buddy Edwards squeezed in beside the man. “Guess what I heard was true,” he said, fishing a coin from his trouser pocket and laying it on the bar for the drinks.
“If you mean about Renfield having a gunfight in the making, you’re right,” said Parker Phelps. Then he looked surprised and said, “Say, what are you Turkey Track boys doing in here so early? I thought McNalty and Sully kept everybody busy till dark, even on Saturdays.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t show up with Fast Larry Shaw, the fastest gun alive, coming to town? I’d have to be nailed to the floor with guns held on me,” said Vincent, grinning, lifting his shot glass in a salute while beside him Buddy Edwards did the same.
Parker Phelps laughed, returning the salute with his shot glass. The three tossed back their drinks in a gulp. Then Phelps licked his lips and said, “You don’t have any notions about taking on Fast Larry Shaw, do you?”
“Naw, not me,” said Vincent, liking the idea that someone might even consider him worthy to face a man like Shaw. “Where’d you get such an idea as that?”
“Hell, it’s no secret you’re mighty handy with that pistol of yours. There’s some already saying you’d give Mace Renfield a run for his money.”
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br /> “Not interested,” said Vincent. He refilled their glasses as he said, “Besides, Mace has too many pards always around. The man who outguns him would be lucky to make it out of town alive.”
“That might be true,” said Parker Phelps, accepting the full shot glass. “Want to hear what the smart money is saying?”
“Sure, tell me,” said Vincent. Beside him Buddy sipped his glass of whiskey a little slower now that the other two weren’t noticing him. He wasn’t about to admit it, but he had no real taste for whiskey, or beer either, for that matter. He drank when he came to town rather than hear the rest of the Turkey Track hands tease him over it. The truth was, Buddy liked the world to move slowly and steadily. He didn’t like the way alcohol made everything spin out of control.
“Smart money has Shaw able to beat Mace Renfield ten to one,” said Phelps with a smile. “I bet Mace is madder than a pissed-on hornet over it.”
Vincent considered it, then said, “I can’t see Mace Renfield beating Fast Larry Shaw either, come to think of it. I know Renfield is fast…but he ain’t in Shaw’s class. Few men are, I reckon.”
“Well, that’s what the smart money is saying too,” said Phelps, “but to be honest I had to put a few dollars on Renfield. Just think what it will pay if he’d happen to win!” He winked. “Of course, it doesn’t hurt nothing either for a man like Renfield to see that I’ve got faith in him, eh?” He gave Vincent a friendly nudge.
Vincent grinned. “I suppose it never hurts to get on Renfield’s good side.”
Before either one could say any more on the matter a young cowboy burst in through the front door and cried aloud, “Boy! Fast Larry Shaw just rode in! He’s over at the doctor’s right now!”
“Holy Moses!” said Vincent. He stared at Parker Phelps, his eyes wide, his face ashen. “This thing is really going to happen!”
“Damn right,” said Phelps, “it looks like it is, sure enough!” Drinkers turned away from the bar with their shot glasses and beer mugs in hand and crowded the open doorway, some spilling out onto the street for a better look.
“Until this very second,” said Vincent, “I reckon I didn’t completely believe it! But hot damn!” He turned to Buddy Edwards in his excitement and pulled his hat down on his forehead. What do you think, Buddy? Is this the huckleberrys or what?”
Buddy quickly righted his hat brim and said, “I’ll say it is! Look at my hands, Vincent…they’re shaking so, I can barely control them.”
“Let’s get out there where we can see,” said Vincent.
But Parker Phelps cautioned him with a hand on his forearm. “Careful, now, Vincent,” he said. “This is the time a man like you, wearing a Colt, ought to walk slow and watch where his boots lead him.”
Vincent just stared at him for a moment, then said in a serious tone, “Much obliged, Parker…you bet I will.”
Chapter 14
In a long tent hostel filled with row upon row of cots and blanket pallets, Mace Renfield thanked the whiskey-sodden mule skinner who had staggered in and told him that Lawrence Shaw was in town. Renfield flipped the man a coin, then said gruffly, “Now get on out of here; the air ain’t supporting you worth a damn.”
As the mule skinner snatched the coin in his palm and staggered out of the tent, Renfield turned to the two men standing beside him and said as he straightened his wide-brimmed hat on his head, “Well, gentlemen, let’s let the games begin.”
The two men fell in behind him and followed him as he left the tent and walked toward the crowd of drinkers gathered out front of the Buck Horn Saloon. One of the men said, “Mace, want me and Harvey here to set something up, make sure Shaw don’t walk away from this alive no matter how the chips fall?”
Mace Renfield stopped dead still and turned to face the man. “Let me tell you something, Red…you too, Harvey.” He pointed his gloved finger for emphasis. “There’d better not be any interference in this thing in any way!”
“Take it easy, Mace!” said Red Logan, noticing how eyes were turning toward them all along the busy dirt street. “I just figured it would be like other times! You know, me and Harvey on hand to tip the odds if they need tipping?”
“I understand,” said Renfield, calming down, smoothing the front of his black brocade vest, “but this isn’t going to be like the times before. This is a straight-up man-to-man gunfight…winner takes all.”
Red and Harvey gave each other a look. “Whatever you say, Mace,” said Harvey Tuell.
Mace stared at them. “I know what you’re both thinking…I know Shaw is supposed to be the fastest gun alive. But I’ve got him cold! I can feel it in my bones!” He made a fist as he continued. “This is my time! I want nothing to tarnish how I bring this big gunman down. I know we’ve had to cut a few corners to get here…you boys have done your share of tipping the odds for me, and I’m obliged. But this is the big one…and I’m ready for it. Just watch me take him.” He turned and started walking again. Red and Harvey shrugged and followed.
Some of the onlookers out front of the Buck Horn Saloon hurried back inside when they saw Mace Renfield coming their way. Inside, they quickly crowded themselves along the bar, leaving a three-foot space in the center for Mace and his two followers.
Across the makeshift bar top from that open space stood a bartender with his sleeves rolled up and a short black cigar stub sticking out of his teeth. He set up a newly opened bottle of rye whiskey and stood three shot glasses in a line. Then he nervously tweaked his handlebar mustache and said to Mace Renfield when he walked through the front door, “Welcome, Mace! It is always a pleasure having you join us here at the Buck Horn—”
“Stick your thumb in it, Winston,” Mace said to the bartender, cutting his words short. “I’ve been here every damn day for the past three weeks. Don’t start acting like I just now arrived.”
“Certainly, Mace,” said Winston, the bartender, already lifting the bottle for Mace to see. “And will the three of you be having a drink…on the house, of course?”
Mace Renfield looked back and forth along the crowded bar and smiled proudly, saying for all three of them, “Well, we don’t mind if we do.” His eyes found Vincent Mills and Buddy Edwards standing away from the bar over against a wall. “Vincent, will you join me in a drink?”
Vincent Mills’s mouth almost dropped open when he heard Mace call out his name. For a moment he stood, stunned.
“Go on, Vincent,” Buddy Edwards whispered, coaxing him forward.
“Well, uh, yes…I don’t mind if I do,” said Vincent, feeling a headiness engulf him. All faces had turned to him, all eyes looked upon him with envy, he thought as he walked over to the bar, seeing men scoot sidelong, making room for him. Buddy followed only inches behind.
Mace held out a shot glass of rye to Vincent. “Here you are, mi amigo; drink and enjoy.” He smiled. Seeing Buddy, Mace said over his shoulder to the waiting bartender, “Winston, pour one for Vincent’s friend as well.”
Mi amigo! Vincent repeated to himself, hardly believing his ears. He had no idea that Mace Renfield even knew his name. Now the man was calling him his friend! This was too good to be true. Vincent needed the drink Mace had just placed in his hand, just to keep himself steady.
“Much obliged, Mr. Renfield,” Vincent managed to say.
“No, no,” said Renfield, wagging a finger, “not Mr. Renfield…not to you, not today anyway. Just call me Mace, Vincent. Now drink up!” He raised his shot glass in a high toast to everyone along the bar. Then he set down the empty glass and pushed it away. “That will be enough for me today. As all of you know, I’ve got business to attend to.”
A murmur arose along the drinkers. But in a moment they turned to one another in quiet conversation, as if to give Mace Renfield and Vincent Mills some privacy. “You know, Vincent, I’ve heard a lot about you since I got to the Turkey Wells station. You work for McNalty’s Rafter spread, you mind your own business, and you’re good with a gun.” His gaze turned flat and cool. “Does tha
t about size you up, boy?”
Vincent didn’t know quite how to take this slight shift of attitude. “Well, yes. I’m just a cowhand, like all the others out there on the—”
“That’s good to hear,” said Renfield, interrupting him. “Just a cowhand…I like that. Because once I hear a man is real handy with a gun, the first thing I wonder is whether or not he might be overly ambitious…you know, wanting to make a name for himself. Get himself some quick fame by facing me off in a street somewhere.” His flat stare narrowed even farther. “But your being just a cowhand, I reckon I have no reason to consider that you might be that way, do I?”
Vincent Mills had listened and began weighing Renfield’s words. Now he wasn’t too stunned or impressed to speak up. “You’re asking if I’m going to want to take you on after your showdown with Fast Larry Shaw, ain’t you?”
Renfield said with a smug grin and a trace of sarcasm, “Say, you catch on pretty quick, don’t you?” He leaned back against the makeshift bar, laying his arms along the edge. “Yes, that’s what I’m asking…are you going to be looking for me tomorrow, after this gunfight today?”
Vincent Mills considered his answer for a moment, then said, “With all respect, Mr. Renfield…let’s wait and see if you’re still around tomorrow, after this gunfight today.”
Mace Renfield stared at him blankly for a moment, a strange look on his face. Vincent wondered if he should have handled it differently. But it was too late to change it now. He returned Renfield’s stare until at length the seasoned gunfighter chuckled under his breath. “Have another drink, Vincent. We’ll let tomorrow take care of itself.
Before Vincent could respond, a man hurried through the front door and said in a breathless tone of voice, “Fast Larry’s coming out! He’s on the street!” Drinks spilled; glasses and bottles fell to the floor. The makeshift bar top trembled with the vibration of heavy boots scuffling and pounding across the plank floor.
