Savage Guns

by William W. Johnstone

  Most horses, a jog is real comfortable, but not Critter. His jog bent my tailbones and sent aches up my back. But it was a mile-eater pace, so I just stood in the stirrups now and then and let Critter ruin his own bones instead of mine. I figure if he wanted to wreck himself, that was his business. Let him; why should I care?

  Twilight came, and then night, and the crickets started up, and the air chilled real quick. But I rode into the T-Bar just when the last light was fading. Log buildings made it solid. There was a main house, well lit with lamps, a bunkhouse, a barn, a couple of sheds, and pens. The log house had a comfortable porch stretching across it, facing the mountains, and it looked like a fine place for a man to sip a toddy and eye his empire. The place wasn’t fancy, just solid, but that was not Crayfish’s doing. That’s how he bought it from Thaddeus Throckmorton.

  It looked like I was too late to chow down. Lamps were shining from the bunkhouse, and I could see cowboys, mostly in their long underwear, playin’ cards in there. I figured it wasn’t too late to come callin’, so I wrapped Critter’s rein around the hitch rail and banged on the door. I was curious about Crayfish’s domestic arrangements, and when the man himself opened up, I wasn’t surprised. I couldn’t imagine no woman staying with Crayfish for more than an hour or two. A day would be stretching it. A day and night would be beyond imagining.

  There he was, wearing his eye patch. This time it was gold. He had a dozen of them, all sorts of colors, and I hardly ever saw him wear a black patch. This here one, gold colored, had a turquoise stone set in the middle.

  “You’re looking at the wrong eye, Sheriff,” he said.

  “Never saw that one,” I said.

  “I got more patches than women got hats. You want to come in, or are you gonna stand there all night?”

  He waved me into his lamplit parlor. He was medium short, with black hair slicked straight back. There never was a hair out of place, and the word was that he glued his hair down, using the juice of boiled-up pigs feet. His hair lay so shiny and flat you could pretty near ice skate on it.

  “You want something to wet your whistle?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “This here’s for guests,” he said, holding up a decanter. “That one’s for me.”

  He poured some red stuff into a cut-glass beaker and added a splash. When he handed it to me, I noticed he had a ring on every finger. Then he poured another from the other decanter for himself.

  “Always like to treat guests to what’s tasty,” he said.

  I sipped. That stuff, it cut a channel down my tongue and scraped the hide off the rest of my mouth. I coughed, swallered, and downed it, expecting to start quaking.

  “Mighty nice,” I said.

  He leered at me, and sipped cheerfully at his own beaker.

  “Strange hour to come calling,” he said.

  “Well, that gets me straight to it,” I said. “Say, this is mighty fine stuff, mighty fine.” I sipped again, felt savaged, and swallowed that varnish, feeling it scrape paint off my innards all the way down. “You treat company better than you treat yourself,” I added.

  “Well, when I sell this spread, I’m going into the hospitality business,” he said. “This is just a way of fattening my wallet. Give it another year, and I’ll be in some metropolis. I’m thinking Kansas City.”

  “What’ll you do there, Crayfish?”

  “Run the best whorehouse in the United States,” he said.

  “That your dream, is it?”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “Gambling parlor downstairs, fiddlers and pretty bar maids, poker tables, no one walks in except he’s all dressed up, top hat and tails, boots shined, and a fat purse on him too. And upstairs I got the prettiest girls in the world, all refined, bedsheets washed, the girls bathing at least once a week, and perfumed just fine. Ten dollars a pop, and most of it for me.”

  “That’s a dream, all right, Crayfish.”

  “Beats ranching in Wyoming,” he said. “And I get to graze wherever I want.”

  He sipped. I sipped and coughed.

  “This ain’t a social visit,” he said, not quite making a question out of it.

  I wasn’t in no hurry. I just wanted to see if he’d sweat a bit if I didn’t come direct to my business.

  “Mighty fine stuff here,” I said, swirling the glass. “Just right for company.”

  “Brought it up from Utah,” he said. “Them Saints make mighty fine Valley Tan.”

  I figured it was something like that. “I imagine you can afford any hooch from anywhere,” I said.

  “I could afford a lot more if I had more land,” he said. “These foothills, they’re not half the pasture that Admiral’s got. Now if I had his spread, I’d been sending you a barrel of whiskey once a month.”

  I listened real hard to that.

  “I guess you would, if I wanted it,” I said. “But I don’t. I’m not a drinkin’ man, and not a dry man neither. Once in a while, I take a little sauce for the kidneys. My ma, she said do whatever you want, but don’t do it often.”

  “Smart woman, I’d say.” He downed the rest of his stuff, and built hisself another, with a generous splash of springwater in it. “This a social call?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’ve got me a few questions, loose ends, things that didn’t get tidied up,” I said.

  “Well, I’ll be glad to help any way I can, Sheriff.”

  The social moment had vanished, that’s for sure. He wasn’t one to sit and yarn with a law officer if he could help it.

  “Them three got kilt, the ones working here. You know, I need to git ahold of next of kin. I never let their ma and pa and brothers and all know what happened. That’s a part of being a sheriff. A peace officer, he’s got to send along the bad news. I thought maybe you could tell me something about each of them, and I’ll send along a wire or a letter to their folks.”

  He seemed almost to deflate. For a while there he was all ballooned up, trying to look six inches taller than he was, but now the gas was leakin’ from his bag, and he just smiled some.

  “Oh, that. Well, I don’t know much. The pair of Jonas brothers never did tell me much about themselves.”

  “Where’d you meet ’em, Crayfish?”

  “Beats me. I think they were from down deep in Texas but I wouldn’t swear to it.”

  “Texas, eh? Well, you Texas fellers can spot each other easier than I can.”

  “Why do you think I’m from Texas, Sheriff?”

  I shrugged. “Just a hunch. If I got her wrong, you can put me straight.”

  “I’m from all over the place,” Crayfish said.

  “Well, these Jonas boys. Them that got kilt. The county put them in a potter’s field out of town, seeing as how you didn’t feel like buryin’ your own men. Foxy and Weasel was their handles, but I need to know what names they got christened by.”

  “Blamed if I know, Sheriff.”

  “They had a ma and pa, and probably got named something like Elmer and Harry, and got the Foxy and Weasel names later. If I’m gonna write their kinfolk, I kinda need the names.”

  “Funny, Sheriff, but I never asked. Here, it ain’t polite to ask a gent.”

  “Well, at least you know where they came from.”

  “Waco, maybe. Someone once told me Waco.”

  “They was pretty slick with six-guns.”

  “That’s what I want, Sheriff. I got crooks and rustlers and land grabbers to deal with. I need men who know cows and guns real good.”

  “You reckon if I just shot a wire off to any Jonas in Waco, it’d get to their folks?”

  The rancher shrugged, and downed his whiskey.

  “Well, tell me why you hired them. They must of got some sort of reputation, carrying names like that. Now why’d the one call himself Weasel?”

  “Weasels is mean, Sheriff. You know that. You can figure it as well as I can. Foxy, too, you get the man’s character without any more than the handle.”

  “I gue
ss I sort of do,” I said. “Now how about that other, the third that got kilt by King Bragg. What was he doin’ here?”

  “Oh, Rocco, poor devil. Just a drifter. I hired him straight off. I need all the hands I can get, and he seemed fit enough.”

  “How do I get ahold of his folks, Crayfish?”

  “Blamed if I know, Sheriff.”

  “Any reason that King Bragg would pump lead into those three?”

  “Yes. He was drunk. He and his pa don’t much care for me. And those three were all of my hands that were in the saloon when he wandered in, looking to cause trouble.” He shrugged. “I guess you know the rest.”

  I wasn’t so sure I did.

  SIX

  Crayfish Ruble stared at me from his good eye, a liquid brown one, with an eyebrow showing a few gray hairs. It was that gold eye patch with the turquoise sewed on that done me in.

  “You don’t like my eye patch,” he said. “An eye patch should be dignified.”

  “Well, it gets attention, Crayfish.”

  “Now then. You ride clear out here late in the day looking for something that could be gotten any time I’m in town. And you come out here weeks after my men got shot. That’s mighty interesting, Sheriff. I think you’d better tell me what’s going on.”

  “Oh, I was just looking at things that ain’t finished up yet, like getting word to those poor relatives.”

  Crayfish sort of grinned at me. “And maybe a little pressure on you from Admiral Bragg to see if his boy can get sprung.”

  “Well, he ain’t getting sprung unless there’s something didn’t get said in the trial.”

  “And of course you’re looking for it.”

  “Things don’t add up, is all,” I said.

  “Word I got is that you had yourself a rough morning,” Crayfish said. “How does it feel, having a noose around your scrawny neck and dropping off a wagon?”

  Word got around, all right. I shoulda knowed I couldn’t keep anything a secret for long. “Well, I didn’t much care to be hung, Crayfish.”

  “It’s hanged, Sheriff. The correct word is hanged. That’s when you’ve got a noose around you. Hung is something else. If you’re hung, you get to please the ladies.”

  I blushed clear through. My ma, she never told me the difference, and five grades of schoolin’ didn’t help me none. He was standin’ there sort of smirky, and I was thinking maybe I ought to do something else with my life. I never was any good with all them highfalutin words anyway. I got a few basic ones, and that’s all I ever needed. Here he was, maybe the richest rancher in Wyoming, making a fool of me. I am a good shot, and fast with a handgun, but there ain’t much else going for me.

  “How about a refill, Sheriff?” he asked.

  I debated it, but not for long, and pushed my tumbler his way.

  “You know of any reason King Bragg woulda shot Weasel and Foxy and Rocco?”

  “I think King Bragg would have shot his own grandmother if he felt like it,” the rancher replied.

  “I’m lookin’ for reasons,” I said. I wasn’t gonna let him give me windies instead of facts.

  “He was drunk, by just about everyone’s account. What a man does with that much booze in him is beyond knowing, Sheriff.”

  He handed me the Valley Tan, which was awful stuff that bit and snarled its way down my throat. He sure didn’t drink it himself. My ma used to tell me you could get a handle on anyone just by seein’ what he served up for company.

  “Well, you tell me what you heard again,” I said. I wasn’t gonna quit on this.

  “I don’t have the details.”

  “You’re the boss, and you don’t have the story?”

  He sighed. “By the time I got there, my men were laid flat, cold, and gray. They’d all been shot in the chest, just once. And Upward was holding a shotgun on King Bragg, who was sitting stupidly on the floor, too drunk to stand. Upward had looked at the kid’s six-gun. King Bragg fired six shots, killed three of my men.”

  “I’m still lookin’ for reasons,” I said.

  That Valley Tan was awful, but it was doin’ its work in my belly.

  Crayfish eyed me a moment, I mean with the brown eye, not with the turquoise stone on gold. “To get a look at King, just have a close look at Admiral,” he said. “King’s a good son, taking his pa’s side always. The Braggs, they ain’t glad to have Ruble around. It’s almost, but not quite, range war, with big ranchers collecting gunmen and having it out. Only it’s not. I’m too busy trying to turn this place into a bonanza and get out of here. This is the loneliest and most godforsaken land a man could get mired in. I want city lights, Sheriff. Ruble’s no enemy of the Braggs. Crayfish Ruble would like to clean up. In fact, I was hoping to sell everything I possess to the Braggs, and even do it on generous terms. But there’s a little fly-in-the-ointment, Sheriff. The Braggs don’t see me like I see me. You know? They’re not my enemy, but I seem to be their enemy. And they’ve worked themselves up about the T-Bar Ranch, my brand, and now they kilt three of my men.”

  It made sense. I got to thinking about trouble in Doubtful, and it wasn’t the T-Bar drovers that was causing trouble. They were mostly quiet fellers, downing a few ales in Upward’s watering hole. It was the Bragg men raising hell, when there was hell-raising in town. But I wasn’t feelin’ very good about all this.

  “Crayfish, how come you’re out here if this country don’t appeal to you?”

  That question caught him off guard, for sure. For a moment he just flapped his lips, trying to come up with something.

  He smiled and shrugged. “How’d you end up sheriff?” he asked.

  “It got laid on me,” I replied.

  “Well, this got laid on me, Sheriff.”

  “You coulda stayed in the city.”

  He yawned. It was clear he wasn’t eager to continue this little talk. “That’s what separates you and me from Admiral Bragg and his strange-named brood, Sheriff. Bragg likes it here. He likes cows and cowboys and land. He likes this cold weather. He likes no one being around. He likes having his own trees and grass. He likes being alone and being lord of his whole universe. Me?” He shrugged again. “Accident. I won the original T-Bar in a poker game. I bet a night with my lady friend, Maybelline, against Arnold Austria’s ranch, and a full house won. So there it was. I got turned from a gambler into a rancher. Everything in my life’s a turn of the card, Sheriff. I have no ambition. If Admiral Bragg beat me out of my place tomorrow, I’d pack up and walk away. What does it matter?”

  “You coming in to watch King Bragg hang?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it, Sheriff.”

  “Then maybe you care more than you’re saying.”

  That sure surprised him. He frowned some. “You know,” he said, “it’s the justice of it I care about. Yes, three of my men got kilt, and that’s something to care about. I’ll be in Doubtful watching real close when you spring the trap,” he said.

  Something wasn’t right with Crayfish. “You didn’t care enough to contact their next of kin,” I said.

  He stared at me. “What are you up to?”

  “I’m up to making sure justice is going to be done.”

  “You’re a card, Pickens.” He began crowding me toward the door, and then he opened it. “Long ride for nothing,” he said.

  “I got two weeks,” I said. “And I’ll use them.”

  I handed him the tumbler and stepped onto his porch. Behind me the door closed quietly.

  The bunkhouse was dark. Them cowboys sure didn’t burn any oil. But they were up before dawn, and out with the cattle while there still were stars showing. Chill air was rolling down from the mountains. It sure as hell would be a long ride back, but me and Critter, we’d manage it if I let him rest.

  I collected my nag. Critter snarled at me. He was lookin’ for some hay and a good roll after the saddle was off, but here I was getting on him and steering him away from the pens and hay ricks.

  We rode out quiet, in starlight, and I let Crit
ter pick the way. Horses can see better than people, and he had no trouble takin’ me down that road. It sure was peaceful. Night is when it’s a joy to be out in the country, with no one nowhere, just walking along and owning the whole universe.

  My stomach was tellin’ me it was owed some chow, but I had none, so there was nothing to do but ride them long miles back to Doubtful, so that’s what I set out to do. Wasn’t anyone gonna drop a rib roast and mashed potatoes and gravy into my mitts.

  I like my sleep, but this was such a fine spring night I didn’t mind. It’d be maybe one or so when I raised Doubtful, more if I let Critter graze and fart along the way. I always use a single loop rein, so I just let her ride behind the horn, and stretched my arms and cracked my fingers some.

  I was dozin’ along, letting Critter find his way back to Doubtful, when I got woke up sudden. I didn’t even know where I was. But a soft voice ripped out of the night.

  “Stop,” said this female voice. I don’t rightly know why I thought it was female.

  I woke up fast, and debated kicking Critter into a gallop, but instead I reined him in.

  “I’ve got you skylined, Sheriff. I can see you but you can’t see me. You’re where the stars are blotted out. There’s a Greener loaded with buckshot aimed at you, and if you mess with me, you’ll be hamburger. That clear?”

  “Mighty clear,” I said.

  “Then I’ll put this shotgun away. I just want to talk to you, and not get shot at by an itchy lawman.”

  “Well, you coulda chose a better way.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s dark, and I thought if I called, you’d pump a bullet at me.”

  “What do you take me for? I want to know what I’m shootin’ at, especially if it sounds like a woman.”

  “You mind if I ride with you a way, and just palaver a bit?”

  “I ain’t used to riding with strangers in the night, ma’am.”

  There was a long pause, and I wondered whether she would beat a retreat.

  “I’m Queen Bragg. Call me Queenie.”

  Well, that wasn’t no surprise. “All right, what?” I asked.

  “I’m getting my mare and we’ll ride together,” she said.