by Jack Martin
The Home of Great Western Fiction!
Official records show that some 80,000 Welshmen made their home in the place now known as the Wild West, though the true figure is likely to have been much higher. This is the story of one of those men.
William Williams, otherwise known as Wild Bill Williams, was no stranger to trouble. It seemed to follow him like a shadow. But even as a survivor of the Little Big Horn, as he claimed, he’d never before had to face the kind of trouble he found in the town of Stanton. When the bullets start to fly and the blood begins to run, Wild Bill is never far behind ...
WILD BILL WILLIAMS
By Jack Martin
A Piccadilly Publishing Western No 10
First Published by Robert Hale Ltd in 2014
Copyright © 2014, 2016 by Jack Martin
First Smashwords Edition: November 2016
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
Our cover features The Trail Cutters, painted by Don Stivers.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
This one is for my mother – who taught me to read in the first place.
Author’s Note
Records show that between 1850 and 1920 some 80,000 Welshmen left their native lands for America. The true figure would be much higher as Welsh people were often recorded as being English, which for some reason, did not happen with the Scots and Irish.
Whatever the true figure, the fact is that there were a great many Welshmen in America during the period we now think of as the Wild West. The Welsh made their own unique contribution to the mixing pot that was late nineteenth century America.
This is the story of one of those Welshmen.
Chapter One
There was nary a frown when Wild Bill Williams was in town. He had a way about his manner that enabled most folks to forget all their troubles and become positively festive. It was said that Bill could start off a dance at a funeral and carve a grin out of the most granite of faces.
He had been born a Welshman; in a village called Gilfach Goch, a name that was unpronounceable to all but himself. But as a young man of fifteen summers, with no compulsion to go and work in the coalmines, those same mines that had aged his father beyond his years, he had had set out in search of adventure and found himself stowed away on a ship making the Atlantic crossing to the United States. He’d landed in New York and after a few aimless years had started out West in search of the future he had in mind for himself.
“Go West, Young Man, and grow up with the country”, The New York Tribune had advised in striking headlines that had filled men such as Bill Williams with optimism for a future on the rugged frontier. It had seemed Bill’s destiny to follow the westward trail. What that destiny was no one, Bill included, knew.
Indeed if Bill had ever known what he had intended to do with his life then he’d long forgotten. And these days he just walked through life happy-go-lucky and faced whatever fate threw at him.
Fate sure did like to interfere with Wild Bill Williams.
Take today for instance; one moment Bill was enjoying a poker game after drifting into the town of Stanton, and the next he was in the jailhouse nursing a split head.
It had happened thus:
Bill, face totally expressionless, peered over his cards at the men seated around the table. He was holding, “Aces Up”, a strong enough hand but he would have preferred better. There were three men, four counting himself, at the game and Bill looked at each of them in turn. Dutch Carter had a sweat on, Sam Jessup looked to be almost asleep and Cleveland Ohio, lovely name that, sat trying to suck life into a massive cigar.
‘You know,’ Bill said, about to make his move when the batwings suddenly swung open and a young man of maybe seventeen summers stood in the doorway, his face furious, his hands hanging, gunfighter style, at his side. Whatever Bill had intended to say then was lost, even to himself as the actions of the armed man had stolen Bill’s train of thought.
‘Caleb Stanton,’ the young man said. ‘I’ve come to kill you.’
The saloon fell silent and at the far end of the counter, a big man of about thirty, Caleb Stanton, Bill guessed, stepped forward. The big man was dressed completely in black - black pants, black shirt, black boots, with a black Stetson sat upon his head. He even wore a matching gun-belt and save for the glow of the Schofield pistol, the only color about the man was his thick red hair, which was a trait of the Stanton clan.
‘Come back when you grow up,’ the man spoke directly to the kid. He seemed completely at ease but Bill noticed the way the man held his body, coiled, ready to act at any moment.
‘I’m plenty growed up,’ the young man said and pulled a Colt. He pointed it directly at the man named Stanton. ‘Make a fight then,’ he prompted.
‘I’m not going to draw on you,’ Stanton said, calmly.
‘Then I’ll shoot you down like the dog you are,’ the young man snarled. ‘Now defend yourself.’
‘In front of all these people, I don’t think so,’ Stanton said and Bill had to admire his coolness. ‘For the last time, boy. I’m not going to fight you.’
‘You’ve got no guts less it’s for disrespecting women?’ the young man sneered.
That seemed to hit Stanton and did provoke a flash of anger in his eyes, but it was momentary, and immediately replaced by a smile.
‘Someone been telling tales?’ Stanton said.
‘Fight you coward,’ the young man insisted and fired his gun, sending a bullet into the floor. ‘The next one gets you.’
Suddenly the kid was pushed forward as another man came through the batwings. The newcomer, a short squat man immediately charged the young man, bringing an elbow into the small of the kid’s back and sending him sprawling. The kid lost his grip on the Colt and it clattered to the floor. Stanton immediately came across and kicked the gun away from its owner.
‘Get up,’ Stanton said.
Winded, the kid was unable to oblige, but it was no matter because the squat newcomer lifted him to his feet and Stanton drove a punishing fist into the kid’s stomach. The kid’s legs buckled and if the man hadn’t been supporting him he would have fallen back to the floor. Stanton immediately followed up with a left hook to the kid’s face, smashing his lip and sending a spray of blood onto the saloon counter. The kid’s eyes rolled back in his head as unconsciousness overtook him.
‘Ain’t finished with you yet,’ Stanton said and slapped the kid open handed across the cheek, reviving him.
The squat man, holding the kid, laughed.
Stanton hit the kid again and again.
Bill looked around him and frowned. The saloon was filled with folk, but no one stepped forward to help the young man, they all just stood there silently watching the kid take a beating. The kid may have started the fight but this was brutal.
‘You gentleman will have to excuse me,’ Bill said as the man called Stanton delivered another brutal punch to the young man’s face, which was beginning to resemble raw meat. The Welshman stood up and sent his chair flying backwards, whilst immediately turning on his feet and pulling his own Colt. He sto
od there; legs bent at the knees, hand held rock steady with the gun pointing at the man called Stanton.
‘Sit down, stranger,’ Stanton warned.
‘I don’t think I will,’ Bill said. ‘And if you strike that kid once more I’ll bloody well shoot you.’
Everyone in the saloon seemed to take a sudden breath.
‘You new in town?’ Stanton asked.
‘I am indeed,’ Bill answered, smiling jovially. If not for the gun in his hand he could have been greeting the other man at a social function.
‘That figures,’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning you don’t know how much trouble you’ve brought on yourself.’
‘That’s always the way with me,’ Bill said. ‘My tad was the same and no doubt his before him, trafferth wherever we go. If there’s one thing a Williams seems to court, trafferth is it.’
There were several muffled laughs around the room, not to mention the odd sigh of astonishment but Stanton stood still, regarding the Welshman in stunned silence.
‘Do you want to die?’ Stanton asked, presently.
‘Die, me?’ for a moment Bill seemed to be considering the question but then he smiled. ‘I don’t think I’m quite ready to die yet. There’s still so many drinks I have not drunk and pleasant thoughts I have not thunk. The world is a wondrous place, full of possibilities so no, I do not wish to die.’
‘You’re loco, mister,’ Stanton sneered.
‘That’s as maybe,’ Bill said and then his voice took on a harder edge. ‘Now let the kid go. Lower him down gently. I’m sure you gentlemen don’t want to hurt him.’
Stanton nodded to the squat man and he gently lowered the kid down to the floor.
‘Good boys, you are,’ Bill said. ‘Now step back from him. Go on, a bit further.’
Bill moved cautiously forward putting himself between the two men and the kid.
‘Now toss your guns over, very slowly,’ he ordered. ‘I’m likely to get jittery and blast one of you.’
‘Mister you really do not want to be doing this,’ Stanton said.
‘Now there you go again,’ Bill said, aware of the young man holding onto one of his legs and trying to use it to pull himself to his feet. ‘Guns. I shall not ask again.’
Stanton lifted his Schofield by thumb and index finger and tossed it towards Bill.
‘Now you, Shorty,’ Bill said and grinned at the squat man.
The squat man shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t carry a gun and had never needed any weapons other than his fists. He lifted his shirt to show he was unharmed.
‘You don’t carry a gun?’ Bill asked, knowing such a thing was a rarity this far west.
‘These are the only weapons I need,’ the squat man held up his hands and made two powerful looking fists.
‘Okey-dokey,’ Bill said and without taking his gun off the two men he bent and picked up Stanton’s gun. He slid it into his own waistband and then helped the stunned young man to his feet.
‘What’s your name?’ Bill asked and allowed the young man to lean against him in order to stay upright.’
‘Henry,’ the young man managed, speaking through blood soaked and swollen lips. ‘I’m Henry.’
‘Well Henry,’ Bill said. ‘Do you think you can back out of here with me?’
‘It’s a whole heap of trouble coming your way,’ Stanton said but the Welshman ignored him.
‘Yeah,’ the kid said and regarded Bill through the tiny slits in the middle of his bruised eyelids.
‘Then come on, boyo,’ Bill said and, keeping the gun trained on both men, he backed away, moving for the batwings.
Bill would have reached them too, had fate not decreed otherwise. But at the very last moment, Sheriff Tray Clemens came through the batwings, and in one fluid and well-practiced movement, brought the hard butt of a Peacemaker down on the Welshman’s skull. And for a moment Bill Williams had been back home in Wales, sitting upon a hilltop, his beloved Blodwen within his arms, but then there was just nothingness.
Chapter Two
‘How old are you?’ Bill asked, rubbing the goose egg on the back of his head. He had a splitting headache, and would not have been at all surprised if the blow to the head had left lasting damage.
‘I’m sixteen,’ Henry said, himself speaking through swollen and stinging lips.
‘Sixteen,’ Bill clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and then wished he hadn’t when the sound reverberated around his skull like gunfire. ‘And whatever possessed yourself this afternoon?’
The kid stared at Bill, incomprehension in his battered eyes.
‘What made you do it?’ Bill asked, translating into the idiot.
‘I wanted to kill Caleb Stanton,’
‘I gathered that much. Why though is the question?’
‘He disrespected my ma,’ was all the kid would say on the matter.
‘You two pipe down in there,’ came the sheriff’s harsh voice from the front of the building.’ The jailhouse doubled up as the sheriff’s office with the cells at the rear of the building and the office and living quarters out front.
‘Sheriff,’ Bill shouted and immediately had to grip his head against the pain the utterance caused. He made a mental note not to shout again for some considerable time.
Clumsily, his protruding gut colliding with several items of furniture, the sheriff came through from the front of the building and stood looking in through the cell doors.
‘You two ain’t a nice sight,’ the lawman said, spat tobacco juice onto the floor wiped the remaining spittle from his mouth with the back of a hand, and grinned.
‘I’d like some coffee, please,’ Bill said. ‘Strong, black and a cool compress for my head. The head you so kindly bashed in.’
‘Mister, you do talk gibberish,’ the sheriff said. He was a big man, both in height and girth, and aged somewhere around the mid Fifties. His head was perfectly bald and his protruding ears, made him look slightly ridiculous. He had small piggy brown eyes, and a bulbous nose. Beneath that nose he wore a fine looking, slate grey moustache. ‘You want coffee. I’ll get you coffee.’
‘Ddiolch ch’,’ Bill said and closed his eyes against the glaring daylight that came through the cell windows with all the subtlety of an old maid late for church on a Sunday morning.
‘I want to thank you,’ Henry said.
Bill turned his head and looked at the kid, the severity of his beating shocked Bill all over again. His young face looked as if a mule had kicked him.
‘Think nothing of it, boyo,’ Bill said and moaned when a fresh pain of pain rebounded within his head.
‘Are you a gunfighter,’ the kid asked, presently.
‘No,’ Bill groaned some more. ‘I’m a gambler.’
‘You handle your guns pretty good.’
‘I handle my cards better,’ Bill said. ‘The only bullets I’m interested in is a pair of Aces in the hole.’
The sheriff returned with the coffee, filled two tin mugs and slid them beneath the cell bars.
‘Drink up, boys,’ he said.
Bill crawled over to the coffee and drunk the mug in one go. He slid the mug back under the bars for a refill, and when the sheriff obliged he sipped the second mug.
He immediately felt a little better.
‘Smoke?’ he asked.
The sheriff frowned and went back through to the front and then a moment later returned with the makings. He slid them under the cell doors.
‘You sure are a lot of trouble,’ the lawman said.
‘I don’t mean to be,’ Bill replied and quickly put together a quirly. He looked around for a match, saw none and then looked again at the sheriff. And once more the lawman vanished and then reappeared with a match, which he again slid beneath the cell door.
‘Ddiolch ch,’ Bill said and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. He coughed violently and then when his head cleared, the world seemed a much more stable place. The ground had stopped spinning in any cas
e.
‘What gibberish is that?’ the sheriff asked.
‘It means, obliged,’ Bill said.
‘Well can’t you just say what you mean?’
‘I thought I had.’
‘Sheriff, can I have one of those,’ the kid had drained his coffee and pointed to the sheriff’s makings that were on the floor by Bill’s feet.
‘You old enough to smoke, boy?’
‘Sure am,’ Henry said, indignantly.
‘Then go ahead,’ the sheriff said. ‘If it means you two will give me some peace.’
‘What happens to us now?’ Bill asked.
‘You stand trial,’ the sheriff said.
‘For what?’
The sheriff looked at the Welshman for a moment before answering. He certainly was the oddest man he had ever come across.
‘Disturbing the peace, ‘ the sheriff said. ‘Threatening behavior, attempted murder.’
‘Attempted murder?’ Bill coughed and it hurt to do so. ‘I didn’t attempt to murder anyone.’
‘Not you, him,’ the sheriff pointed to the kid. ‘ Over a dozen people heard him say he was going to kill Mr. Stanton.’
‘And I’d still kill him given the chance,’ the kid said, which on reflection may not have been the wisest thing to say.
‘I’ll make a note of that,’ the sheriff said. ‘Keep it for the trial.’
‘Don’t matter, no how,’ the kid spat. ‘We’d never get a fair trial in Stanton.’
‘Would we not?’ Bill asked and surreptitiously slid the sheriff’s makings under his leg.
‘We went up against the Stantons,’ the kid said. ‘In a town named Stanton, what do you think?’
Until now, Bill hadn’t considered that. He’d barely taken notice of the town’s name as he’d ridden past the town marker. And back in the saloon, when the kid had challenged that man, calling him Stanton, the Welshman had made no connection. His chief concern had been that his poker game had been interrupted.
‘Duw, duw,’ he said and the kid had a pretty good idea what he meant by it.
