Will Tanner

by William W. Johnstone

  “You’re not getting away from here without giving me a hug, Will Tanner,” she declared. He grinned and accommodated her. “Thank you for taking such good care of me,” she said. “Take care of yourself just as well, you hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I will,” he said, and stepped up into the saddle. Touching his forefinger to the brim of his hat, he bid a final farewell to a woman who had been such a big part of his life. Then he turned the buckskin toward the road that led back to Fort Smith.

  CHAPTER 2

  Approaching Fort Smith, Will decided that he had earned a drink of whiskey and maybe a good supper, but first he needed to take care of his horses. So when he came to a stable on the east side of town, he pulled up and dismounted. “How do,” the owner greeted him when he led his horses toward the corral.

  “Howdy,” Will returned. “I’m needin’ to put my horses up for the night. Whaddaya charge?”

  The man looked at the two horses, then took another look at Will. “Tell you what I’ll do. I charge fifteen dollars a month to stable a horse, but since you’re just wantin’ to stay one night, I’ll let you have the monthly rate. That’d be fifty cents for the night.” He paused to check Will’s reaction. When Will didn’t protest, he said, “Course, that’s for each horse. Since you’ve got two, that’d make it a dollar.”

  “How ’bout with a portion of oats?” Will asked.

  “Dollar and a half.”

  “How much if I sleep in your hay barn?” Will asked.

  “Two dollars and a quarter.”

  “Hell,” Will said. “How come you charge me more ’n you charge my horse? I ain’t gonna eat any hay—I’m just gonna sleep on it.”

  “Two dollars even,” he said, and waited for Will’s response.

  “All right,” Will said, reaching into his pocket. It seemed a little steep to him, but he thought maybe prices for everything in Fort Smith might be high. He counted out two dollars and handed them to the owner.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” he said when he had money in hand. “My name’s Vern Tuttle. This here’s my livery stable. You in town for the Fourth celebration?”

  “Nope,” Will said. “I’m just passin’ through, I reckon. Thought I’d stay over and get me a good meal and maybe a drink of whiskey. You got any recommendations for either one?”

  “Sure do,” Vern replied. “Mornin’ Glory Saloon for both of ’em. You can’t go wrong there. They got a cook there that’s every bit as good as any of them in the hotel dinin’ rooms, and it’s in easy walkin’ distance from here.”

  “That sounds like what I’m lookin’ for,” Will declared. “Think I’ll give it a try as soon as I put my horses away.”

  Vern pointed up the street. “The Mornin’ Glory’s right up there. You’ll see the sign. Come on, and I’ll help you settle your horses and show you where you can put your saddle and stuff.” He turned to lead him into the stable. “What’s your name, young feller?”

  “Will Tanner,” he answered.

  “Glad to know you, Will. If you ain’t ever been in Fort Smith before, I’ll just give you a little advice. This is a bad town to raise hell in.” He paused. “Not sayin’ you look the type, but just thought you’d like to know. We got more law in this town than we know what to do with. We got a sheriff and deputies, but Fort Smith is the headquarters for the Western District of Arkansas U.S. Marshals Service, too. So there might be a dozen deputy marshals in town at any one time.”

  “Thanks for the information,” Will said, “but I just want a drink and a meal.”

  “Just sayin’, that’s all. No offense.”

  “None taken,” Will said.

  * * *

  The Morning Glory Saloon was a little longer stretch of the legs than Vern had said, but Will didn’t mind. It was good to work his legs a little after so many days in the saddle. The saloon’s sign was not as obvious as Vern had promised, either, but that may have been because of the fact that the nails had evidently backed out of one end of it, causing the sign to hang vertically. Judging by the weathered boards on the facade of the building, Will figured it must have been one of the oldest drinking establishments in town. That notion was further strengthened by the obvious fact that most of the newer buildings seemed to be centered more to the north of town. But there are a few horses tied at the hitching rail out front, so somebody must think it’s as good as Vern says, he thought.

  “Howdy, stranger,” bartender Gus Johnson greeted him cheerfully when he walked up to the bar. “What’ll you have?”

  “Howdy,” Will returned. “How ’bout a shot of whiskey to settle the dust?” While Gus reached for a bottle to pour his drink, Will took a moment to look the room over. The large barroom was about half-full. There were a couple of customers at the end of the bar, but most of the crowd were seated at the tables arranged around three sides of the room. As Will casually scanned the tables, he took note that only a few of the patrons were eating supper. That could be good or bad news, but better than no one eating, he decided. His gaze skipped quickly over a table in the back corner of the room, then was drawn back for a second look. One man sitting at the table had his back to the wall. He was one of the diners. A large man, judging by the width of his shoulders, he hovered over his plate of food, which seemed to have captured his full attention. He was drinking coffee, but there was a bottle of whiskey on the table as well. The sound of a shot glass on the bar brought Will’s attention back to his drink of whiskey.

  “Here you go, young feller,” Gus said as he poured. “I ain’t ever seen you in here before.”

  “Reckon not,” Will said. “I’m just passin’ through.”

  “On your way to where?” Gus asked.

  Will hesitated before answering. When he did, he almost surprised himself. “Damned if I know.”

  Thinking that Will might have found him too nosy, Gus quickly explained, “It ain’t none of my business. I was just makin’ conversation. I figured maybe you were in town to watch the hangin’ tomorrow.”

  “No problem atall,” Will quickly assured him. He chuckled then and confessed that he really wasn’t sure where he was going. He tossed his drink back and waited a few moments to get over the burn before continuing. “I didn’t know there was a hangin’.”

  “Yep,” Gus said. “Judge Parker sentenced a young boy named Troy Gamble to hang for shootin’ a feller over in the Nations.”

  “Is that a fact?” Will responded, not really interested. “Vern, over at the livery stable, told me I could get a decent supper here. Is there any truth in that?”

  Gus laughed. “You bet there is. We got us a dandy cook, and she’s cooked up one of her specialties tonight, cowboy stew.”

  “Well, I reckon I’m lucky I came in on a night she cooked her specialty,” Will said.

  “Yes, sir,” Gus went on. “What makes Mammy’s cowboy stew so good is because she makes hers with real cowboys instead of beef.” He laughed harder than Will, obviously enjoying a joke that he had told countless times before.

  “Well, I don’t reckon I can pass that up,” Will said.

  “You won’t be sorry,” Gus assured him.

  Will heard a soft voice behind him, and turned to meet a solemn-looking woman, almost as tall as he was. “Evenin’, cowboy. You lookin’ for some company?”

  “No, ma’am,” Will said. “Thank you just the same, though.”

  She immediately turned away. “That’s Lucy Tyler,” Gus said. “She’s one of our regulars.”

  “I’ll have one more shot of that whiskey,” Will decided. “That last one didn’t quite cook my whole throat.” He watched Gus pour his drink. “Who’s the big feller sittin’ at the back corner table? I noticed a couple of your other customers speakin’ to him when they walked by.”

  “Him?” Gus replied. “I expect about everybody in town knows him. That’s U.S. Deputy Marshal Fletcher Pride. He always takes supper here when he’s in town.” When Will didn’t appear to recognize the name, Gus continued. “
Pride’s the oldest and best-known deputy marshal in the territory. Matter of fact, he’s the one brought Troy Gamble in to be tried by Judge Parker. You ain’t never heard of Fletcher Pride?”

  “Nope, I can’t say as I have.”

  “Where are you from?” Gus asked, incredulously.

  “Texas,” Will said.

  “Well, I’m surprised you ain’t heard of him down there ’cause I’m sure he slips over into Texas from time to time.”

  “Reckon I just ain’t been breakin’ the law,” Will said.

  “Reckon not,” Gus agreed. “Set yourself down at a table and I’ll tell Mammy to bring you a plate. You want coffee with it?” Will nodded.

  Picturing Mammy as a rather large woman, Will was surprised when a small, fragile-looking woman with stringy gray hair brought him a plate heaped high with stew. Two thick slices of bread rested on top. Reckon she doesn’t eat her own cooking, he thought. “Was you the one wantin’ to eat?” she asked before setting the plate on the table.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

  “I’ll bring you some coffee,” she said. “You want some sugar with it?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said.

  She returned shortly with a large cup of coffee. She set it down on the table, nodded toward his plate, and asked, “Is it good?”

  She seemed genuinely interested in his opinion of her stew, so he said, “Yes, ma’am, it surely is.” This was in spite of the fact that he thought it a little too greasy. But it sure beat what he would have cooked for himself had he decided to camp by the river instead of sleeping in the hay barn. She gave him an approving nod and returned to the kitchen. Will resumed his assault on the cowboy stew, with no notion that his peaceful supper was about to be interrupted.

  * * *

  Three riders pulled up to the hitching rail of the Morning Glory, dismounted, and looped their reins over the rail loosely, in the event they might find it necessary to make a hasty departure. “How we gonna do this, Pa?” Orville Gamble asked. “Are we just gonna walk in and kill him?”

  “No, dammit,” his father said. “I want him to know why we killed him, and who it was that done it. So don’t neither one of you pull a trigger till I start the shootin’.” Luther Gamble was an angry man. He and his three sons had always operated outside the law in their home state of Kansas. After a bank holdup in Wichita, during which a teller was shot, he and his boys slipped over to Oklahoma Indian Territory to lie low for a while. It was purely bad luck that his youngest, Troy, got into a little scrape with a Cherokee policeman and had to shoot the son of a bitch. Maybe Troy was a little hotheaded, but he didn’t deserve to be hanged for killing an Indian.

  Luther was determined to kill the man who tracked Troy down and brought him to the gallows. He knew he had no chance of saving his son, because of the army of lawmen that guarded every hanging in Fort Smith. But he could put a bullet in Fletcher Pride’s head to even the score. He looked at his two surviving sons, Orville and Simon, and felt a sense of satisfaction in knowing they were as mean as their old man. “Let’s go have a visit with Deputy Fletcher Pride, boys,” he said, and stepped up on the narrow porch.

  Busy working on his supper, Will paid little attention to the three men who walked in the door of the saloon. He continued to ignore them until they walked past his table, moving toward the back of the room, and he took a good look at them. He decided then that they had to be a father and his two sons, for there was a definite resemblance—all three appeared to have the same mean streak showing. Spread out, and walking in a single line, they advanced slowly on the big deputy marshal at the corner table. All three were resting their hands on the handles of their pistols. Will suddenly realized the scene that was about to unfold, as did most of the other customers in the saloon. There followed an exodus of most of the men seated at the tables, anxious to avoid being caught in a hail of gunfire.

  Pride glanced up from his plate when he realized the three men, with pistols now drawn, were advancing toward him with the clear intention of doing him harm. He made no sudden moves, but studied the three as they silently came to a stop some five paces from his table. He slowly put his knife and fork down beside his plate and dropped his hands in his lap. His heavy, gray eyebrows arched slightly as his gaze went from one man to another, settling on the older man who bristled with anger. “You’d be Luther Gamble, I reckon,” Pride said. “I never had the pleasure. I heard you’ve been pretty busy up in Kansas, though.”

  “Never mind who I am, you son of a bitch,” Luther spat back. “I know who you are, and that’s a piece of bad luck for you.”

  “And these must be your other two sons,” Pride went on. “Fine-lookin’ young men. I bet you’re proud of ’em. Too bad about Troy, though. I reckon that’s why you’re in town, to see Troy hang, so these other two sons will see that crime don’t pay.”

  “What are we waitin’ for, Pa?” one of the boys blurted anxiously. “He’s talkin’ crazy.”

  “Shut up, Simon,” Luther growled. “He’s tryin’ to talk his way outta the grave. But that ain’t gonna work, lawman,” he shouted at Pride. “It’s eye for eye. You mighta brought my boy in to hang, but by God, you’re gonna go with him.”

  “That don’t make a lotta sense,” Pride said, still calm, “when you’ve got all these guns aimin’ right at you and your boys.”

  “What?” Luther started, looking right and left, seeing no one. “What guns?” He feared for a moment that he might have walked into a trap. “There ain’t nobody but you, and I’m tired of hearin’ you talk.”

  “Maybe you better listen to what he’s tellin’ you,” a voice behind him said.

  Startled, Orville reacted immediately, spun around, and fired at Will, his bullet tearing a chunk out of the table Will had taken cover behind. Before he had time for a second shot, a bullet from Will’s .44 smashed into his chest, driving him several steps backward to collapse on his back. Before Luther could react, a bullet from the .44 in Pride’s lap cut him down. Caught in the confusion that had suddenly exploded, Simon Gamble couldn’t decide which gun was the most critical. He turned to shoot at Will, only to be cut down by a second bullet from Pride. After the explosion of gunfire, the room was suddenly silent until Pride called out, “You all right, partner? You didn’t get hit, didja?”

  “No,” Will answered, “but I lost half of my supper when I turned the table over.”

  Pride chuckled as he got up from his chair. “We’d better check these fellers, make sure there ain’t no more bite in ’em.” It took only a minute to determine there was no longer any threat from Gamble and his sons. Simon was dead, as a result of Pride’s bullet to the head. The other two were still alive, but sinking fast. “Best just let ’em lay,” Pride said as he kicked their weapons out of their reach. Then he looked toward Gus, who had just surfaced from behind the bar. “Gus, send somebody over to get Doc Peters.” Bringing his attention back to Will again, he extended his hand. “Partner, I’m sure glad you joined the party. I was in a tight spot there, and I doubt I coulda got out of it without at least one of ’em puttin’ a bullet in me. Are you one of the deputies from up Kansas way? I heard a couple of you fellers might be here for the hangin’.”

  “No,” Will said. “I ain’t no deputy. I just came in to get a drink and some supper.”

  “Well, I’ll be . . .” Pride started. “You ain’t a lawman?” Will shook his head. “If that don’t beat all,” Pride exclaimed. “Then I reckon I really owe you my thanks. Hell, everybody else ran out the door.”

  Will shrugged modestly. “It just didn’t seem like a fair fight, and you bein’ a lawman and all.” He paused to look at the three men on the floor. “What would you have done if I hadn’t been here?”

  “Died, I reckon,” Pride said with a laugh, then on a more serious note, he confessed that he wasn’t sure what he would have done. “I knew for sure that I was gonna get the old man, and maybe one of the boys.”

  “I reckon it’s a good thing th
ey didn’t just come in blazin’ away before you had a chance to do anything,” Will said.

  “As soon as I looked up and saw who it was, I figured I had a chance,” Pride said. “I knew the old man would wanna see me sweat a little and make sure I knew why he was killin’ me. So I tried to talk him up as long as I could to keep him from pullin’ the trigger—thought maybe he wouldn’t notice I was cockin’ my pistol.”

  “You always eat with your pistol in your lap?” Will asked.

  “Not always, but I thought it might be a good idea today, with the hangin’ goin’ on tomorrow. Trouble is, I got into Mammy’s stew too deep to see what was goin’ on. If I’d seen those three when they walked in the door, I’da had my piece out and cocked before they got this close.”

  With the shooting over, the frightened patrons crowded back inside to view the bodies and talk about what a close call they had just had. Gus was happy to give them his accounting of the gunfight as first one and then another leaned close over the victims to get a better look. Pride snorted, amused. “It was kinda hard to see hunkered down behind the bar, I expect. Wasn’t it, Gus?”

  Having hidden in the pantry as soon as she heard the shots, Mammy came out then to clean up the mess Will had made when he turned the table over. “I’m right sorry, ma’am,” Will said as he tried to pick up the coffee cup and plate. “It was real good. I’m sorry I didn’t get to finish it.”