Dirty Harry 01 - Duel For Cannons

by Dane Hartman

  Harry went back to the hotel in silence. Only after Harry got back to his room did he fully recall that all his own stuff was in garbage cans at the airport. He found a men’s store off the hotel lobby and bought an entirely new outfit. A tweedy brown jacket, a dull beige shirt, brown slacks, and shoes. It was his usual look.

  He went back to his room. He slipped the three auto-loaders he had left into his left jacket pocket. He strapped on his .44 Magnum. He called the airport and arranged for passage back to California. He called the Nash residence. No one answered. He checked a map. According to it, his immediate destination was a few miles down the road. He went back to the lobby and checked out.

  He went outside and ignored the taxis. He wanted his wounded leg to be limber. He needed to know just how much it would handicap him. He started walking due west. Two and a half hours later he reached his destination. It was getting near dusk. The sky was a beautiful deep blue shot through with a rainbow of sunset colors.

  And lying at the end of a grassy walk, sitting serenely amid bright spotlights, was the Alamo.

  It was closed. No one was around. The five windows in front were barred over. The doors looked locked. Harry limped slowly over to the two wooden doors. He put the flat of his right hand against the left one. He pushed. It didn’t budge. He moved his palm over to the right one. He pushed. It swung open.

  Harry ignored the handsome stonework of the façade. He ignored the intricately detailed archway and the handsome grounds. He pulled out his Magnum and went inside.

  The interior was about as impressive as the interior of the Taj Mahal. Somehow tourists always seem to think they’re going to see something spectacular inside both. Well, Harry knew that the Alamo was just one of five different missions, built by Spanish Catholics in the 1700s. It consisted of a monastary and a church. It was named for the cottonwood trees around it. In Spanish, it translated as Alamo.

  The battle of the Alamo had ended March 5, 1836, when the last of 182 men were killed by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s Mexican forces. A hundred and forty-five years later, it was just Harry Callahan and Sweetboy Williams.

  The plain stone interior was illuminated by the spots outside. It cast squares of golden light in through the barred windows. Like all ancient things it smelled musty. Harry stood in the open doorway, his gun up.

  “Come on in,” he heard Sweetboy call.

  Harry looked quickly around. He couldn’t see him. So he did as the voice instructed. He closed the door behind him and pressed himself against the entry wall.

  “How do you want to play this?” Sweetboy’s voice asked.

  “It’s your call,” Harry told him simply. He waited for what seemed like a long time. Sweetboy was taking his own sweet time deciding. He must’ve been deciding more than just how to handle the showdown. He must’ve been wondering whether he could trust Harry to go along with his wild West desires. The hitman knew Harry’s nickname. He must’ve thought about that.

  But whatever went through his mind during that time he did not share with Harry. Finally he came to a decision.

  “We’ll make it fair,” Sweetboy’s voice echoed through the dim, cavernous fort. “One auto-loader. One chance to draw, load, aim, and fire. All right?”

  It was an absurd situation. Two men who hardly knew each other. Two men who had fought side by side. Two men who wanted more than anything else, to kill each other. Two men negotiating how they’d do it. If it wasn’t so deadly, it would be laughable.

  “All right,” said Harry.

  “Get ready,” said Sweetboy. “I’m showing myself.”

  The hitman stepped out from the shadows of a tan-colored column. He was holding his Magnum the same way Harry was; barrel pointing at the ceiling, finger lightly on the trigger.

  “All right,” the hitman said, staying close to the column. “Open the cylinder.” If Harry was going to cheat, now was the time to do it. With Sweetboy’s Magnum open, he could quite possibly shoot him before the assassin could shut his chamber and fire back.

  Harry moved his thumb, clicked open the cylinder, and swung it out. Sweetboy did the same. All twelve bullets slipped out of the upraised guns and clattered to the stone floor.

  “Now,” said Sweetboy, “lower the gun by your side.” Both men brought their weapons down until they rested against their thighs.

  “What about your cane?” Sweetboy asked.

  Harry let it fall to the floor. It drifted down and clattered away.

  “On the count of three,” said Sweetboy. “Go for a speed-loader.”

  “One.”

  Harry felt sweat appear on his forehead. The San Antonio night was hot. The interior of the Alamo was hotter. His Magnum seemed to get heavier and heavier.

  “Two.”

  His leg began to throb. He suddenly couldn’t remember whether his jacket pocket had flaps or not.

  “Three!”

  Harry’s right thumb was kicking the Magnum’s cylinder open as his left arm dug into his jacket pocket. There was a flap in the way. His hand nearly ripped right through it. He felt an auto-loader in his fingers when a sudden, slashing pain lanced through his wounded leg.

  That was it. He knew he’d never get the gun loaded in time. Without looking at Sweetboy’s progress, he ran forward while pulling the speedloader out. A bullet grazed the back of his neck at the same moment he heard the hitman’s gun boom. His running had saved him from an instant death. Now he had to fight a possible one in the near future. He heard Sweetboy coming after him. He forced his bad leg to keep moving.

  He felt the shadow of a column cross his face. His leg was sending screams up to his brain. He pulled the auto-loader toward the open cylinder.

  His leg collapsed under him, the auto-loader grazing against his thigh. The force was enough to dislodge all the ammo from its plastic prison. Another six bullets scattered across the floor.

  Harry knew Sweetboy wouldn’t be merciful this time. He had had his chance and blown it. He saw Sweetboy’s shadow emerging from behind the column before the hitman himself appeared.

  The assassin walked right into Harry’s fist. Harry had pulled himself up, his arm already swinging as Sweetboy showed up. Williams stumbled back as Harry groped for the spilled bullets.

  Sweetboy’s vision cleared in time to see Harry ram a shell into his chamber. He brought his full Magnum up as Harry painfully propelled himself forward again. Sweetboy pulled the trigger as Harry hit his torso in a full body tackle.

  The assassin’s bullet went wild, and both men tumbled to the hard Alamo floor. Harry grabbed Sweetboy’s gun wrist. Sweetboy grabbed Harry’s. They rolled across the floor, teeth clenched with the effort.

  Sweetboy applied all the muscle he could muster. His gun inched toward Harry’s head. He saw Callahan’s face covered with sweat, drops coursing across his face, over his lips, and off his chin.

  Sweetboy’s gun grew even closer to Harry’s head. Through a supreme effort of will and muscle, Harry then stopped the hitman’s arm cold. Sweetboy pulled the trigger anyway.

  It was a rotten thing to do. The weapon boomed and the bullet blasted out practically in Harry’s face. Men had been known to be blinded and deafened by getting too close to a firing gun.

  Somehow, incredibly, Harry’s eyes weren’t lacerated by bullet shavings or gunpowder, and he maintained his grip on Sweetboy’s wrist.

  If anything, he bore down on the hitman’s limb harder. And he started pulling his own gun toward the assassin’s head.

  Harry pulled the trigger. His own gun boomed. Sweetboy yelled in pain, his eyes closed. The hitman pulled his trigger again. Harry closed his eyes and averted his head.

  Harry fired again. Tears were running out of Sweetboy’s eyes and a single drop of blood fell out of his left ear. Sweetboy fired again.

  Harry threw himself back from the report, found his footing, arched his back and dragged Sweetboy up with him. They stood shakily facing each other for a second, both guns pointed back at the ceiling.
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  Harry tore his wrist out of Sweetboy’s grip and tried to bring his gun down. The hitman punched Harry’s arm with a karate-like chop just as the inspector fired. The bullet singed Sweetboy’s pant leg.

  Sweetboy wrenched his own wrist from Harry’s hand. Harry responded immediately by moving forward, sticking his leg between those of the hitman, throwing his hand forward, and shoving Sweetboy as hard as he could.

  Williams tripped slightly, stumbled back, his arms flailing like windmills, and collided with another column. His eyes glazed as Harry brought up his gun again. He slid down the column just as Harry fired. The bullet smashed in the center of the column where Williams’ head had been.

  Sweetboy’s eyes cleared, and he shot Harry in the left shoulder.

  Callahan felt his feet leave the floor and a strange billowing sensation in his shoulder. He felt like he was floating upward in slow motion until his heels hit the floor and his head got too heavy. He fell all the way down to the concrete feeling absolutely nothing.

  Then the pain started. He looked at his arm. He saw his left fist clenching and unclenching. It couldn’t be too bad, he thought then. He saw his right hand cover the bloody shoulder wound. He felt the warm liquid on his palm. Then he realized he wasn’t holding his gun.

  He looked back. His Magnum lay ten feet away from him. He looked up. Sweetboy was pointing his Magnum at Harry’s head. Sweetboy pulled the trigger.

  The click reverberated through the dusty hall. Sweetboy’s sixth bullet was in Harry’s shoulder.

  Harry tried to get up. By the time he made it, Sweetboy had run over and collected Harry’s gun.

  They faced each other a last time. Harry was slightly bent, his shoulder bleeding, his leg bleeding again and his breath coming in ragged, tortured gasps. Sweetboy was panting in both effort and anticipation. He stood straight, aiming the gun at Harry’s head.

  The hitman milked the moment. Harry just stared hard. A fleeting look of doubt crossed Sweetboy’s face.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Harry. Slowly. Quietly. “You’re thinking, ‘did he load five or six bullets?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement, I kinda lost track myself.

  “But being that this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and could blow your head clean off, you have to ask yourself a question.

  “ ‘Do I feel lucky?’ ”

  Harry’s stare hardened. His gaze narrowed.

  “Well, do you?” he spat. “Punk.”

  Then he did an incredible thing. He straightened his back and crouched slightly. He positioned himself so that he was looking right down the Magnum’s barrel. Then he closed the other eye.

  Sweetboy was stunned. Harry was looking down the barrel so that if no bullet were in the chamber, he’d see it. He’d see daylight out the other end when he pulled the hammer back.

  The hitman smiled and minutely shook his head. This cop was truly incredible.

  He pulled the hammer back.

  Harry smiled.

  The smile froze Sweetboy in place. He saw, the hitman’s brain screamed, he saw! Daylight, only five bullets. The whole confrontation turned over in the hitman’s mind.

  Harry ran forward, ignoring the pain and hit Sweetboy as hard as he could, driving his right fist into Williams’ face, putting his whole torn body behind it.

  Sweetboy flew backward almost as far as Harry had after getting shot. Only the assassin was able to hold onto the weapon. Harry, in the meantime, had run back to where Sweetboy had dropped his own gun.

  The hitman awoke three seconds later to see Harry pulling his last speed-loader out of his jacket pocket. Sweetboy knew what he was planning to do. He was going to load the assassin’s gun and kill the assassin with it. Sweetboy knew he didn’t have enough time to reload Harry’s empty gun.

  In frustration, he pulled up the Magnum in his hand, pointed it in Harry’s general vicinity and pulled the trigger.

  He nearly died of shock when the revolver boomed and bucked in his hand. The bullet flew past Harry’s head—a full half-foot away from the target. Sweetboy saw Harry’s smile again and realized what had happened.

  The hitman had been bluffed. Harry hadn’t seen daylight out the other end. He had seen the blackness of death . . . the blackness of a bullet ready to blow him apart. And he had smiled at it as if it were empty.

  Harry slammed the other Magnum’s loaded cylinder shut with a savage satisfaction. He jerked his head at the useless weapon in Sweetboy’s hands.

  “Now it’s empty,” Harry informed him, then shot him in the face.

  No, they didn’t call him Dirty Harry for nothing.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DANE HARTMAN was a Warner Books imprint pseudonym used by two American novelists, Ric Meyers and Leslie Alan Horvitz. "Hartman" was credited as the author of the Dirty Harry action series based on the “Dirty” Harry Callahan character of the popular 1970’s and 1980’s films starring Clint Eastwood.

  Following the release of the third Dirty Harry movie, The Enforcer, in 1976, Clint Eastwood made it clear that he did not intend to make any more Dirty Harry movies. In 1981, Warner Books (the publishing arm of Warner Bros., which made the films) began publishing a number of men’s adventure series under its now-defunct "Men of Action" line. One such series features the further adventures of Inspector Harry Callahan. The series was brought to an end when Eastwood decided to direct, produce, and star in a fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact, which was released in December 1983.

  Table of Contents

  DIRTY HARRY #1 DUEL FOR CANNONS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR