Gunman's Song

by Ralph Cotton

  “Wait a minute,” said Sammy Boy, taking her by her wrist, stopping her. “You didn’t, you know…with Fast Larry?”

  “What?” Lizzy didn’t catch on to his question.

  “Damn it, Lizzy,” said Sammy Boy, “don’t make me come out and say it! You and Fast Larry, you didn’t do anything, did you?”

  Lizzy shrugged. “No, we just met at the bar, and then he left.” She paused for a second, then added, “His friend left too, come to think of it.”

  “Then you can’t really say he was nice or nothing else, can you?” said Sammy Boy.

  “He seemed nice though,” said Lizzy.

  “Yeah, I bet,” said Sammy Boy, letting her go back to buttoning his shirt. “Anybody can afford to be nice when they’re on top of their game.” As she finished up with his shirt, he ran his good hand along her back, up along her neck beneath her curly blond hair. “You stick with me, honey, nurse me along, help me get back to health while I find him. As soon as I kill him, we’ll both be living it up somewhere, having food and drinks brought to our private railcar.”

  “Do gunmen live that well?” Lizzy asked, seeming to give the matter some close consideration. “The ones I’ve known haven’t had private railcars, that I ever knew about.”

  “Why would they tell you what they had or didn’t have, Lizzy?” said Sammy Boy, not liking the way she questioned his knowledge of gunmen. “All they ever wanted from you was one thing. They weren’t about to tell you they had their own private railcar. Gunmen don’t like telling too much about themselves.”

  Lizzy didn’t seem to hear him. Instead she seemed to be concentrating on something else. “Sammy, how do gunmen make that kind of money?”

  “By shooting people, how do you think?” Sammy said, sounding a bit put out by her question. “By hiring their gun to the highest bidders. To railroads, detective agencies, wealthy businessmen needing their services. If somebody squats on your land and refuses to leave, you hire a gunman. Somebody deals you dirt, takes a herd of cattle or a shipment of goods and doesn’t pay you for them when the time comes, you hire a gunman. Hell, a gunman gets paid for all kinds of gun work. Sometimes they make money just in wagering themselves against some other gunman, the way me and Elton was doing. Hell, there’s all sorts of ways a gunman makes money! Some that I don’t even know about yet!”

  “I don’t think people who do that kind of work make much money, Sammy,” Lizzy said. “The ones I’ve known are always living hand to mouth, sleeping wherever they can, eating whenever they get a chance to.” She shook her head. “I think somebody has misinformed you about gunmen.”

  “There’s some who make big money,” said Sammy Boy, undaunted. “And that’s the way it’s going to be for me. I’ll have folks bowing and scraping when I walk into a room. They’ll be doing the same for you if they know you’re with me. Stick with me Lizzy; you’ll see. We’ll both be living a whole new life before long. You can count on it.”

  “I’ll stick with you, Sammy,” said Lizzy, “even though Suzette says I’m making a big mistake…. I’ll stick with you as long as you’re honest with me and don’t mistreat me.”

  “That’s my girl,” said Sammy Boy. He pointed at his gun belt hanging from a chair back, the butt of a new Colt sticking up from the holster. “Hand me that shooting rig. We best get on our way.”

  As Sammy Boy stood up on weak legs and Lizzy helped him strap his gun belt around his waist, Sheriff Neff stepped into the open doorway. Seeing Sammy buckle his belt and lift the Colt to check it, Neff said, “I see you’ve managed to get your hands on another gun before your wound barely dried over.” He stepped into the room, shaking his head in wonder. “I reckon I shouldn’t be surprised you’re going after Shaw. You never struck me as a man with much sense.”

  Sammy Boy gave him a hard stare. “Sheriff, if you think I lived through that shoot-out in the street just to hear your law-dog mouth, you’re badly mistaken.” He spun the cylinder of the new Colt, then twirled the gun on his finger, getting a feel for the balance of it. Then he slid it expertly into his holster. “From now on I’ll expect you to treat me the same as you treat Fast Larry Shaw. I might not have won that fight, but I damn sure stepped up and faced the man…that’s something nobody else in this horse’sass town would ever have the guts to do.”

  “I didn’t treat Fast Larry Shaw any different than I treat any other man,” said Sheriff Neff. “For your information I ran him out of Eagle Pass while you was still coughing up chunks of your dirty shirt.”

  “Yeah,” said Sammy Boy knowingly, “I heard about how hard you ran him out of town. And I heard about how easy he gave in. You and Shaw ain’t fooling me with a little stage show like that.”

  “I told him to leave and he left,” said the sheriff, leveling his shoulders, but looking a bit rumpled by Sammy Boy’s implication. “That’s the way I’ve done it with his kind for years.”

  “Bull!” said Sammy Boy, also leveling his shoulders, feeling the pain and stiffness across his back and chest. “Everybody goes out of their way to treat Fast Larry Shaw like he’s something special. From now on anybody don’t treat me the same way, I’ll put a hole in them. I’ve proved myself. By God, I want some respect!”

  “Respect?” said Neff. “Sammy Boy, you might have got pumped up on yourself enough to face Shaw, but except for a new hole in your chest, you’re the same ragged-assed saddle bum you was the day you came to town. Don’t look for any more respect than you’ve got coming. You’re lucky Shaw didn’t finish you off…and he might have if I hadn’t been there. You might want to give some thought to thanking me for saving your worthless life.”

  Sammy Boy’s new Colt streaked from his holster too fast for the old sheriff to respond. By the time Neff’s hand wrapped around his pistol butt to draw it, Sammy’s Colt was cocked and pointed squarely at his forehead.

  “I don’t pretend to know what makes you gunslingers tick,” said Sheriff Neff, not backing down an inch, “but I do know that you ain’t going to kill me, not here, not like this, because there ain’t no gain in it for you. You need to show people how fast you are, not how stupid. Pull that trigger and I can promise you that whatever future you might have had shooting men down in the street is going to stop with one hard jerk on a hangman’s rope.”

  Sammy Boy White calmed himself down and managed a thin smile, uncocking the pistol and twirling it into his holster. “Lucky for you I’m in a hurry today, old man,” he said, “else I’d kill you just to prove you wrong.”

  “Sammy, I’m telling you the same thing I told Shaw. I want you to get yourself out of my town, and stay out,” said Neff, carefully keeping his gun hand away from his pistol butt.

  Sammy’s smile widened but became no friendlier. “Since I was just getting ready to leave anyway, the same as Fast Larry Shaw was when you ran him out, all I can say is ‘yes, sir, Sheriff! I’m on my way!’ ” He chuckled, looking at Lizzy, saying to her, “You run on over to the livery stable and bring us horses. I’ll be waiting when you get back.”

  “All right, Sammy,” said Lizzy, avoiding Sheriff Neff’s eyes as she slipped past them and out through the open door.

  “For God’s sake, Sammy Boy,” said Neff in disgust once Lizzy was out of hearing range, “it’s bad enough you’re in such a hurry to get yourself killed…why on earth are you dragging that poor soul along with you? Lizzy’s dumber than a stump. She’ll never make it out there in the kind of life you’re dragging her into!”

  “Don’t worry about Lizzy, Sheriff,” said Sammy. “She’ll be all right, long as she does as she’s told. I’ll take care of her, Sheriff.”

  “I hope you do,” said the sheriff.

  “Oh, I will.” Sammy grinned. “I’ve always thought it might be nice having a partner who’ll snuggle up to me at night. See? If hadn’t been for Shaw shooting me and me needing taking care of, I never would have hooked up with Lizzy. She was just looking for a man with promise, and all I need is some nursing along.”

>   “You ought to be ashamed of yourself if you mistreat her,” said the sheriff. “Any fool can see the poor girl has had a bad enough life already. Why in the world would you want to make it worse for her by putting yourself in her life?”

  “You just can’t stand the thought of me getting what she’s got for free when everybody else in this town has had to pay for it,” said Sammy Boy. “If you cared so much for this poor girl, why was she having to be a whore to every cowhand and tramp passing through this town?”

  “Get on out of here, Sammy Boy,” said Neff, losing his patience. Stepping aside and gesturing the young gunman toward the door, he added, “The less I see of trash like you, the better I like it.”

  “I’m gone, Sheriff,” Sammy replied. “If you see the doctor, tell him I’ll take care of the bill with him real soon.” He started to turn away, but then stopped and said as if in afterthought, “And by the way, if our paths cross again and you ever make the mistake of calling me a name like that in public, you’ve got my word I’ll kill you quicker than a cat can scratch its ass.” He smiled, picked up his hat from a chair, and examined it before putting it atop his head. “Lizzy did a good job brushing my Stet. See, she’s already worth her weight in beans and salt pork.”

  Sheriff Neff stood watching with a scowl on his face as Sammy Boy White left the room, Sammy making sure he walked straight and tall in spite of the pain in his chest and back. “Trash is one of the best names I could have called you,” the sheriff whispered to himself.

  On the street out front of the doctor’s office, Sammy Boy met Lizzy as she came from the livery stable leading two horses by their reins. Sammy chuckled to himself, seeing her struggle with the big animals and at the same time try to keep her hemline hiked up off the dirt street. “Why didn’t you ride one and lead the other, Lizzy?” he asked, taking the reins to the better-looking horse from her.

  “I will next time,” Lizzy replied sincerely, shoving a loose strand of hair back from her face.

  Raising his foot to the stirrup, Sammy Boy stopped at the sound of Fat Man Hughes calling out, “Not so fast, Sammy Boy!”

  Judging the tone of Hughes’s voice, Sammy lowered his foot from the stirrup and turned to Lizzy, saying quietly, “Take the horses back a few feet.”

  “What?” Lizzy asked, unsuspecting. “Why?”

  “Damn it, just do it,” Sammy Boy hissed.

  Lizzy took the reins from him and pulled the two horses to the side, but not as far away as Sammy would have liked.

  Sammy turned and faced Fat Man Hughes and two of his bet collectors, C. W. Oates and Calvin Meadows, the three of them stopping in the street fifteen feet away. Oates and Meadows wore flat, nasty grins on their faces, but Fat Man Hughes was solemn, strictly business.

  “What can I do for you, Fat Man?” Sammy asked, already seeing that this was a standoff of some sort.

  Hughes laughed under his breath, saying to his two gunmen, “Hear that? Asks me what he do for me? That’s damned considerate of you, Sammy.” C. W. Oates and Meadows also laughed slightly, both keeping their eyes on Sammy Boy, their thumbs hooked in their gun belts.

  “That’s me, all right, always aiming to please,” said Sammy. Then his mood seemed to change instantly, along with the expression on his face. “Now what the hell do you want?”

  “Money,” Hughes roared, rubbing his thumb and finger together in the universal sign for greed. “Part of that cash your weasel friends Elton and Willie the Devil took off with was mine! I want it back!”

  “Then you best tell them when you see them,” said Sammy. “I’m sure they’ll work something out with you.”

  Fat Man Hughes pointed a stubby finger at Sammy Boy. “Huh-uh…you’re going to pay it to me, and right now!”

  “Believe me, Fat Man,” said Sammy with mock sincerity, “if I had any money at all, there’s nothing I’d like better than to hand it over to a fat, greedy bastard like you. But the truth is, I’m broke to my boot heels. Ain’t that right, little darling?” he said, hoping to direct some of the attention to Lizzy long enough to get an edge on the draw. With the pain in his chest and the stiffness in his shoulder, he knew he’d better take any advantage he could find.

  “I’ve got a couple of dollars, if it will help,” Lizzy said, not seeming to understand what was going on.

  “Forget it, Lizzy,” said Sammy. “This ain’t about money. This fat turd has wanted to take me down a notch since the day I got here. Right, Fat Man?”

  Hughes only smiled flatly and knowingly.

  “The problem is,” Sammy continued, as if explaining it all to Lizzy, “all he could come up with is C. W. and Calvin here.” He looked the two gunmen up and down, then went on, saying, “And they both know that they can’t either one cut it against me man-to-man…so they have to double up, the way a coward will do.”

  The two gunmen bristled; their thumbs came out of their belts and their hands were poised near their gun butts. “I’d face you any damned day, Sammy Boy,” said Oates. “This just happens to be the way the boss wants it done.”

  “Yeah?” said Sammy. “And what about you, Calvin? Would you face me alone, if you had the opportunity, that is?”

  “I was never afraid of you, Sammy Boy,” said Meadows, jutting his chin. “It’s like C. W. says. Hughes is the boss…we do it the way he says do it.”

  “Then let’s do it,” said Sammy. “We don’t want to keep your boss man waiting, do we?”

  “Everybody hold it!” shouted Sheriff Neff, stepping onto the street from the doctor’s office. “There ain’t going to be no more gunfighting here in my town! Sammy Boy, if you reach for that Colt, win or lose, you’re going to jail!”

  Without taking his eyes from the two gunmen, Sammy said, “To hell with you, Sheriff; if I lose, going to jail ain’t in the cards. If they reach for their guns I’m killing them both. Hear that, C. W.? Hear that, Calvin? Just me, all by myself…that’s the way I play my hand. Don’t you both wish you had that kind of guts?”

  “You son of a bitch!” Calvin Meadows shouted, losing his temper and making the first move.

  “No!” shouted the sheriff, seeing Meadows’s hand snatch the Colt from its holster, seeing Oates make the same move a split second behind him.

  Lizzy looked away, throwing her free hand over her eyes as the sound of gunfire roared back and forth along the empty street. The two gunmen had made the first move, but effortlessly, in spite of the wound in his chest, Sammy Boy White brought the new Colt up and fired first. Then Lizzy watched both men fall to the dirt as their bullets screamed past him.

  “There, Sheriff,” said Sammy, smoke curling up from his pistol, “was that clear enough for you to see? Did I give them all the advantage in the world? Did they make the first move?”

  “Look out, Sammy!” Lizzy screamed. She didn’t have to tell him why.

  Turning on his heel, Sammy Boy saw Fat Man Hughes raise a Colt Thunderer from inside the lapel of his loose-fitting black linen coat. Before he got the gun leveled toward Sammy Boy, the young gunman deliberately fanned his new Colt carelessly. “So long, Fat Man!” he yelled as the bullets nailed Hughes in the chest one after the other, each shot slamming him a step backward.

  “Lord God!” said Sheriff Neff, seeing the way Sammy Boy handled himself. “Shaw’s bullet made a gunman out of you, that’s for sure!”

  Sammy White twirled the new Colt as if assessing it. “Yeah, boy! Think what I could have done with my old Colt.” He turned the gun toward the sheriff. “Any problems on how this happened, Neff? If so, get it said.”

  “No, Sammy,” said the old sheriff, “I have to admit, those two called the play; so did Hughes. You did it in self-defense.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” said Sammy, stepping over to Hughes’s body, bending down, reaching inside his coat, and jerking out a thick roll of money. He stood up holding the money in his hand for the sheriff and the gathering townsfolk to see. “Hughes has no family here, nobody to leave this to. I’m ta
king it.” He turned to the sheriff, the smoking pistol still in his hand, and said, “That is, unless the sheriff here has any complaints about it.”

  Sheriff Neff saw the wild look in Sammy’s eyes, saw the way his thumb slid expertly over the Colt’s hammer, cocking it. “Take it and go, Sammy. Don’t push this thing too far.”

  “Too far?” Sammy laughed. “How far is too far?” He turned, giving the town a good look at him as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Look at this, folks. Three men dead in the street! All three of them against one of me! Everybody see this? And look!” he said, spreading his shirt open, showing the bloodstained bandage on his chest, “me with a bullet wound still healing!” He turned back and forth slowly. “Any question who the real gunman is?”

  “No, Sammy,” said the sheriff, seeing how Sammy Boy White’s eyes had glazed in his excitement, “you was faster than anything I’ve seen in a while; that’s a fact.”

  “Damn right it’s a fact!” Stuffing the money inside his shirt, Sammy shouted along the street, “Here’s something you can all tell your grandchildren about! You’re all looking at the man who’s going to outshoot Fast Larry Shaw!”

  Mounting his horse, Sammy rode away quickly, Lizzy right behind him, waving back as if telling the whole town good-bye. No sooner than the two were out of town a townsman came forward and, looking at the bodies on the ground, said, “Lord have mercy! There will be hell to pay when that boy catches up to Shaw!”

  Still staring in the direction of the rising dust, Sheriff Neff replied, “Aww, that boy ain’t going to catch up with Fast Larry…. Hell, didn’t you notice? He ain’t even headed in the right direction. I expect he’ll run that little whore ragged going from town to town, telling his gunfight story, showing that wound off till he gets another one or runs out of steam.”

  “I don’t know, Sheriff….” The townsman rubbed his chin, still looking at the bodies in the dirt. “He is a terror with a gun.”