by Ralph Cotton
Blue Snake bristled but held his temper, knowing better than to get sharp with a big gunman like Kregger. “I like a little flare of color,” said Blue Snake, getting a glimpse of Denver Jack Fish, seeing the grin on his face caused by Bo Kregger’s words. “I learned it from a Frenchwoman back in Waco…she had lots of style.” He jutted his chin. “It looked damn good on her.”
“Maybe on her it did, but damn, son!” said Bo Kregger, chuckling under his breath.
“What are you trying to say, Bo?” Blue Snake asked, his jaw tightening. Big gunman or no, there was only so much he could take.
“I ain’t trying to say it,” said Bo Kregger. “I am saying it. Your thumbs look plumb whorehouse sissy to me. I’m wondering if you ever find yourself feeling all giddy and out of control.”
Blue Snake snarled, “There ain’t a damn thing giddy about me—”
“Hold it, what this?” said Barton Talbert, cutting him off. From the far end of town two horses came walking in slowly from the sand flats. Across their back lay two bodies, their arms hanging stiffly down the horses’ sides.
“I’ll be damned,” Blue Snake whispered in awe, already getting the message.
“That’s Stanley’s and Curley’s horses,” said Barton Talbert.
“Then I’d say it’s a good possibility that’s Stanley and Curley across their backs,” Bo Kregger offered with a slight smile. “Looks like Fast Larry Shaw is letting us know he’s here.” Kregger stepped forward with his shoulders leveled, as if facing Shaw in the middle of the dirt street. “I’m here, Shaw,” he called out loudly along the street, his voice resounding out toward the sand flats. “You hear me, Shaw? I’ll be right here waiting. Anytime you’re ready!”
The street fell silent. From the edge of an alley, Denver Jack Fish ventured forward and looked out in the direction the two horses had come from. Along the boardwalk people appeared one and two at a time, looking at the two horses and their gruesome cargo. Meeting the horses, Blue Snake and Barton Talbert stopped them and pulled them out of the middle of the street. Blue Snake reached out, took a handful of Stanley Little’s hair in his gloved hand, and tried to lift his head for a look at his face.
“Stanley’s stiff as a board,” said Blue Snake. Catching a glimpse of Bo Kregger watching him with a smug grin, he jerked harder on the dead man. But instead of Stanley’s head rising, the whole body slipped upward, then toppled off onto the street. The horse neighed and jumped aside.
“What sort of message is this?” asked Talbert, looking down at Stanley’s body. Rigor mortis had set in and Stanley’s body lay on its back in the same shape it had lain in across the saddle. His arms lay flat, extended above his head. Lying jackknifed at the waist, Stanley stared up blindly from between his boots, a bullet hole showing raw and red between his wide eyes.
“If it was Stanley’s message”—Bo Kregger chuckled—“I’d think he was telling the whole world to kiss his ass.” He looked all around the sand flats just beyond the town limits. “But this is Fast Larry Shaw just wanting to rattle somebody. He’s telling your men this is what they’ve all got coming. He figures if you tell some men they’re trapped in a place, they’ll try to run, sure as hell.”
“It makes sense to me, Bo,” said Talbert. “You sure seem to have Fast Larry figured out.”
“It ain’t hard for one gunslinger to figure another one out,” said Bo Kregger with a thin smile of satisfaction. “Staying one step ahead of the competition is what’s kept me alive…Fast Larry too.”
“Nobody here is going to run from anybody,” said Blue Snake with determination in his voice.
“Now that’s the spirit,” Kregger said with veiled sarcasm. Taking a step forward toward the far end of town, he shouted, “Shaw! Your game ain’t working! You hear me? I just been told nobody here is going to turn tail just because you shot a couple of saddle tramps! You’ve got to face me to get to Barton Talbert!”
“Saddle tramps?” said Denver Jack Fish, turning to Jesse Turnbaugh, who had walked along the boardwalk with his pistol out, scanning the sand flats. “Hell, Stanley and Curley was no saddle tramps! They were damn good men. Good thieves, good rustlers! What does he mean, saddle tramps?”
“Hell, I don’t know.” Jesse Turnbaugh shoved his pistol down into his holster and replied quietly, “I reckon to Bo Kregger we’re all nothing but saddle tramps.”
“I reckon so,” said Denver Jack, also holstering his pistol, having kept it in his hand since shooting Harper Furlin in the foot. “Then just between you and me, I ain’t going to be real eager to back him up if it comes down to it.”
“Bo Kregger ain’t interested in you and me backing him up,” said Jesse. “Can’t you see by his attitude? He ain’t concerned about handling Fast Larry Shaw. He ain’t concerned about nothing, far as I can tell.”
“Then maybe he won’t mind if I just saddle up and skin out of here,” said Denver Jack Fish. “Looks like I’ve already got the Furlin boys madder than two red-assed apes.”
“Bo Kregger might not mind,” said Jesse Turnbaugh, “but I bet Talbert and Blue Snake wouldn’t be too happy about it.”
“Well, the fact is,” said Denver Jack, “I’m getting to where I don’t much give a damn what they think either. This whole thing with Fast Larry Shaw never should have happened, and we both know it.”
“I have to admit,” said Jesse, “it was the worst thing I ever took part in. I don’t know what the hell came over all of us. Seemed like once it all started there was nothing could stop it.”
Denver Jack Fish looked him up and down. “How do you feel about sticking here and maybe having to fight Fast Larry Shaw?”
“If that’s what it comes to I reckon I can give him a showing,” said Jesse. “I can’t say I like my odds at beating him if it came down to a straight-up shootout, just him and me. But I don’t look for that to happen.”
“Neither do I,” said Denver Jack, “but how do we know?”
“Bo Kregger is awfully fast,” said Jesse Turnbaugh.
“But so is Fast Larry Shaw,” said Denver Jack. He looked out on the street to where Blue Snake, Barton Talbert, and Bo Kregger stood looking out past the south end of town. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “I saw Fast Larry Shaw kill Orville Dupre in Brownsville.”
“But that was over four years ago, wasn’t it?” said Jesse. “A man ages in four years in the gunslinging profession.”
“Yeah, Shaw might have aged, but Orville Dupre didn’t, not after that. He’s as dead now as when Fast Larry left him facedown in the Texas dirt.” Eyeing Jesse closely, he added, “As dead as we’ll both be if we end up facing the man. I ain’t no coward, but damn, there’s such a thing as good sense.”
Jesse Turnbaugh stood in silence for a moment, looking at the two bodies, one in the dirt, the other across a saddle. Finally he said to Denver Jack, “You’ve got a point there. I ain’t no coward either…. When are you thinking about leaving?”
“I’m long past thinking about it,” said Denver Jack. “Shooting Harper just has cinched it for me. I’m gone just as soon I can saddle up and slip away.” He grinned shyly. “If you look for me an hour from now, you best look ten miles north of where I’m now standing.”
“I hear you,” said Jesse. “And I’ll be right beside you, laying down hoofprints and kicking up sand.”
“Hey, over there, you two,” Barton Talbert called out.
“Uh-oh!” whispered Denver Jack. “Think he heard us?”
“I don’t see how he could,” said Jesse.
“Both of you come help us get these men off the street,” said Talbert. “Stanley and Curley deserve better than this. Go get some shovels, dig a hole, and drop them in it.”
“As hot as it is out here?” Denver Jack whispered to Jesse Turnbaugh. “He’s out of his mind!” But then to Barton Talbert he called out, “Sure thing, boss; we’re on our way.”
“This could be a good thing for us,” said Jesse under his breath as the two started toward t
he middle of the street. “It’ll give us a reason to be gone for a couple of hours. You can’t believe how far gone I can get in that amount of time.”
“Oh, yes, I can,” said Denver Jack Fish.
Five hundred yards out on the sand flats, Cray Dawson had swung around town and headed north to where Lawrence Shaw and Jedson Caldwell were waiting. When he slowed his horse and cut around and down into a natural land fault he found Shaw and Caldwell sitting atop their horses in the shade of a rocky ledge. “I sent them in at a walk,” said Dawson. “Bo Kregger was shouting out at you all the while I was riding wide of town.”
“Good,” said Shaw. He lifted his canteen strap from around his saddle horn and pitched it to Dawson. “Looks like you could stand watering. Help yourself.”
Unscrewing the cap, Dawson gave a thin smile, saying, “I don’t need to sniff this first, do I? Make sure it’s what it should be?”
“It’s water, Dawson,” Shaw said flatly. “Although right about now I could do with a stiff shot of rye.” Seeing Caldwell give him a look, Shaw added, “Oh, not to settle my nerves, Undertaker. Just to cut a couple of pounds of this Texas landscape from my throat. I’m off the whiskey.” He thought about it for a moment. “For the time being, anyhow.”
“What makes you so sure some of the Talbert gang will try to slip out of town and make a run for it?” Jedson Caldwell asked.
“Somebody always does,” said Shaw.
“But what if this time they don’t?” asked Caldwell. As he spoke he lifted the big Colt from his holster and began twirling it on his finger, still awkward but getting better at it, having been practicing anytime he could when Shaw and Dawson weren’t watching.
When he heard no answer but rather felt the silence from Shaw, Caldwell looked up and saw Shaw’s cold green eyes staring at him. “Sorry,” he said, immediately stopping the Colt and slipping it back into his holster.
Now Shaw answered him, saying, “If nobody tries to make a run for it I haven’t lost a thing, Undertaker. I’ve still got them surrounded.” He offered a thin smile. “I can go in anytime I feel like it. But the less of them I have to face in the confines of a town, the better I like it. Everyone who leaves betters my odds that much more.”
“Betters our odds,” Cray Dawson put in.
“That’s right,” said Shaw, “betters our odds.” Taking the canteen back from Dawson, he said as he capped it and looped it on his saddle horn, “You’ll have to excuse me, Cray Dawson; you can see I’m used to working alone.”
“I understand,” said Dawson. He turned his horse in beside Lawrence Shaw, and the three of them sat quietly for the next fifteen minutes, hearing nothing but the low whir of hot wind across the sand flats.
Finally Shaw said, “Here comes somebody already.” He tuned his hearing toward the trail coming north out of Brakett Flats. “Sounds like two riders, moving fast.”
“How could you possibly tell that?” said Caldwell, greatly impressed. “I can’t hear a thing!”
“Spend a few years knowing there’s somebody coming any minute to try to kill you, Undertaker,” said Shaw. “After a while you get to where you can almost hear their shadows.” He nudged his big buckskin forward to the edge of the rock shade and looked back toward Brakett Flats at the highspiraling rises of dust. “Let’s get into position, pards. They’re going to shoot through here like a train on fire.”
“Mr. Shaw, do you suppose…?” Jedson Caldwell started to ask Shaw something, but then he stopped in reluctance.
Turning in his saddle, Shaw said, “Do I suppose what, Undertaker? Come on, spit it out; we’ve got company coming.”
Caldwell let it drop, saying, “Nothing, never mind.”
As if reading Caldwell’s mind, Shaw said, “I gave you that gun to use. When you see fit to use it, you don’t need my permission.” He started to turn and nudge his stallion forward, but on second thought, he added, “Just don’t shoot me with it again. I couldn’t overlook it a second time.”
“I won’t, Mr. Shaw,” said Caldwell, “and thanks.”
A thousand yards north of Brakett Flats, Jesse Turnbaugh and Denver Jack Fish slowed their horses to a trot and looked back over their shoulders through their wake of dust. “Yeehiii!” shouted Denver Jack, yanking his hat from his head and waving it in a high circle. “Adios! And good riddance, you stupid bunch of peckerwoods! So long, Harper, you bloody-foot idiot, you! So long, Bobby Fitt and that seven dollars I owe you!”
“Yeah!” shouted Jesse Turnbaugh, looking back also, extending a long, exaggerated salute toward the distant outline of Brakett Flats. “Adios, Bo Kregger! Adios, Barton Talbert and Blue Snake, you paintedthumb son of a bitch! Adios, Fast Larry Shaw, fastest gun alive! You played hell getting us!”
They laughed as they turned back in their saddles to attend to the trail lying before them. To their surprise, ahead of them fifty yards, in the middle of the beaten trail, sat a single rider atop a big buckskin. “Uh-oh!” said Denver Jack Fish, placing his crumpled hat back down on his head. “Was we being too loud?” They drew their horses to an abrupt halt.
“I believe that’s Fast Larry Shaw!” said Jesse Turnbaugh. As they looked, to their right they saw another rider closing in slowly, to their left another. All three had Colts in their hands.
“Damn!” said Denver Jack Fish. “Fast Larry has put us both in his Denver jackpot, bigger than hell. He was expecting us to come running this way!”
“What are we going to do?” asked Jesse Turnbaugh, getting a little shaky about being surrounded.
“I don’t know,” said Denver Jack. “I ran out of any good ideas once we got out of Brakett Flats.”
“I ain’t going down easy,” said Jesse. His hand crept toward his pistol butt as the three riders closed in around them.
“Get your hand away from your gun, mister,” said Jedson Caldwell, to both Shaw and Dawson’s surprise.
Seeing the outlaw raise his hand quickly away from his gun gave Caldwell a strange feeling, knowing that it was his command that had initiated such obedience. He continued, saying, “Both of you raise your hands and keep them raised.” Then he stared, almost bemused by the fact that both of these hardened gunmen actually did as he told them to do. “Now both of you—”
“All right, Undertaker,” said Shaw, “don’t get carried away with yourself.”
The two men looked back and forth among Shaw, Dawson, and Caldwell, their hands held chest-high. “You must be Fast Larry Shaw,” said Denver Jack Fish, looking Shaw in the eyes as Shaw rode up to within ten feet and stopped.
“That’s right, I’m Fast Larry,” said Shaw. “What’s your names?”
“I’m Denver Jack Fish…hell, you must’ve heard of me, as much as I’ve done over the years?”
“Can’t say that I have,” said Lawrence Shaw, the Colt lying poised comfortably in his hand.
“We know this is all about the woman, Shaw,” said Jesse Turnbaugh. “But if you kill me you’re killing an innocent man.”
“Me too, damn it!” said Denver Jack Fish, giving Turnbaugh a harsh stare. “What about me?”
“Well, him too,” said Turnbaugh. “That’s why we headed out when we heard you was coming. Talbert, Blue Snake, and the others have to answer for this, not us!”
Shaw looked at Dawson. Looking them up and down closely, Dawson gave Shaw a nod, telling him he recognized these two men.
“What’s going on back in Brakett Flats?” Shaw asked them both.
“How do you mean?” asked Denver Jack Fish.
“I mean, what’s going on? Is Bo Kregger anxious to get this thing over with? Are the rest of the men ready? Tell me what it’s like in town about now.”
Jesse and Denver Jack looked at each other; then Denver Jack said, “Well, Bo Kregger is cool as can be. I don’t think he’s human. Last I saw he had Blue Snake riled, shaming him over his thumbnails being painted. I just had shot one of the Furlin brothers in his foot. I heard Bo and Blue Snake arguing about his painted nails
…then those two horses came in carrying Stanley and Curley.” He shook his head. “Whew! What made you send them in like that, bullet holes in their foreheads? Did you execute them? Them on their knees pleading for their lives?”
“What do you think?” said Shaw coldly.
“I never heard of you being that kind of man,” said Turnbaugh. “But then I reckon somebody kills your wife…it’s understandable.”
“What about the painted thumbnails?” Shaw asked, dismissing the matter of whether or not he had executed Stanley Little and Curley Tomes.
“Aw, that’s just how Blue Snake is,” said Denver Jack. “He’s what you might call flamboyant. Ain’t nothing wrong with him, though. We all got used to it. Bo Kregger seemed to be looking for something to ride Blue Snake about.”
“Blue Snake don’t take well to anybody questioning his manliness,” said Jesse Turnbaugh, “not that they should.”
“He likes colorful thumbnails, what the hell?” said Denver Jack Fish with a tight shrug.
“How’s the town laid out?” Shaw asked.
“You mean for street fighting?” asked Denver Jack.
“Yeah, for street fighting,” said Shaw.
“About like every other town,” Denver Jack said, “a big ol’ street running north and south through its belly, a saloon on the west side, a vacant sheriff’s office…. There is one thing different, though—a big gallows out front of the sheriff’s office.”
“It used to be a county seat,” said Cray Dawson. “Judge Roscoe Perls had a gallows built there.”
“What’s along the east side of the street, opposite the saloon?” Shaw asked.
“Let’s see,” said Denver Jack, “there’s a barbershop, a vacant apothecary shop, a woman’s hat shop. That’s as much as I remember.”
“That’s enough,” said Shaw.
“What about us, Fast Larry?” Jesse Turnbaugh asked, looking hopeful. “Are you going to kill us?”
“How many men are there in town with Talbert and Blue Snake now?” asked Shaw, his expression revealing nothing.
