by Ralph Cotton
“Madeline?” Peru said quietly, awaiting her in the open door.
“Yes, of course,” she said, appearing to have snapped out of a deep thought. She helped Peru through the door and closed it behind them, her eyes making one more quick searching glance at Shaw’s thin bearded face.
“She’ll be wondering about that for a long time to come,” Shaw said in almost a whisper when the door closed behind the two.
“The poor woman,” said Dawson. He lifted his Colt and checked it. “She deserves better than either one of us.”
From the edge of town Landry called out again, “Sheriff! The man you’re protecting shot the leader of our town and burned down my mercantile store. You and I are on the same side of the law here. Hand him over. He’s a criminal, far as Black’s Cut is concerned.”
Caldwell stood against the wall beside the open front window and called out, “That may be. But the town you just shot up is my jurisdiction. The man you just shot down is a legally sworn town deputy. Now, what does that make you and your men, as far as Crabtown is concerned?”
“We’re real sorry,” said Landry. “That was a mistake on our part, Sheriff. I know which man shot him. I’m going to turn that man over to you. But you’ve got to give me the mad gunman. Deal?”
Spread out around the town perimeter, the men looked at one another. “What the hell’d he mean by that?” Fogle asked Tommy Corbin, the two of them having fired more shots than the others.
“Beats the hell out of me,” said Corbin, whose shot had been the one to hit Peru. “Sounds like he’s about to trade me over for the mad gunman!”
“No deal,” said Caldwell. “The only deal you’ll get here is to come forward, surrender your guns, and file into my cells. I’ll see to it you get a fair trial next time the territorial judge rides through.”
“This hardheaded sonsabitch,” Landry said to Ritchie and Junior. He glared at Junior. “Why did you start shooting to begin with? Nobody told you to!”
“Because I saw the bastard who shot my pa sitting there eating candy, that’s why!” Junior said, incensed by such a question.
“This is going to get real ugly, real quick,” Landry growled under his breath, looking back toward the open window of the sheriff’s office. “I heard what happened to Sheriff Foley,” he called out. “It was a damned shame. But if he was here, he would see my side and hand the mad gunman over.”
“Surrender your guns and turn yourselves in,” said Caldwell. “If you don’t I’ll be coming to Black’s Cut to drag you back here, faceup or facedown. I don’t care which.”
Landry gritted his teeth. “Damn it,” he growled.
“Rider coming,” said Ritchie, drawing attention back along the trail they’d ridden in on, dust still settling slowly on the still morning air.
“Hell, it’s Philbert!” Ritchie said in surprise.
“Don’t shoot!” the rider called out, raising his hands as he saw all the exposed weaponry glinting in the sunlight.
No sooner had he brought his horse to a halt than Junior grabbed the horse’s bridle and shook it, saying to the rider, “You were supposed to stay in Black’s Cut, keep an eye on my pa!”
“I did, Junior!” said Philbert Karnes. “That’s why I’m here.” He gave Landry a nervous look before saying to Junior, “Your pa is dead!”
Junior’s face turned white hot with rage. Spittle flew from his lips as he turned in his saddle and screamed in rage toward the sheriff’s office, “I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!”
“No, Junior,” Philbert shouted. “It wasn’t the mad gunman that killed your pa! That boar grizzly came back, ripped down the door, and carried him away!”
“The bear . . . ?” Junior stared wide-eyed, stunned. “You mean he ate my pa?” His hand closed tightly around his gun butt. “You let that brute kill my pa?”
“Check yourself down, Junior,” Landry warned in an even tone, stepping his horse between the two.
“Mr. Landry,” said Philbert, “we did all we could.
We hunted all night, following the bear’s trail. It was awful. We found pieces of poor Giddis slung everywhere. I hate thinking about it.”
“Jesus!” said Junior, tears of grief and rage in his eyes. “The mad gunman turned that bear loose.”
Philbert continued, “We heard Giddis scream and squall for nearly an hour while we tried to catch up to the bear. In the end we scraped together some toes and a couple of your pa’s ribs . . . for a funeral.”
“Yiiiii!” Junior screamed, unable to control himself any longer. He jerked his horse around and started to put the spurs to it, but Clifford Ritchie made a hard swipe with his pistol barrel and sent Junior to the dirt, knocked cold.
Landry called out to the sheriff’s office, “To hell with the law! We’ll burn this town to ashes if you don’t give him to me.”
Caldwell started to answer defiantly, but seeing Shaw shake his head, he stopped and said, “I mean what I said. He broke the law here. I’ll take him down for it.”
“I understand,” said Shaw, a stick of candy in the side of his mouth. “You can do that afterward, if he’s still standing. He raised his Colt an inch in his holster, dropped it loosely, and walked to the front door.
“Whoa, what’s this?” Landry asked no one in particular, as Shaw stepped down off the boardwalk and started walking straight and steadily toward him. “Looks like the sheriff knew I wasn’t bluffing. He’s sent the mad gunman right out to me.”
“He’s wearing a gun,” Ritchie remarked, taking the reins to Landry’s horse. He held them as Landry stepped down from his saddle and pulled his long coat back behind his holster.
“That was a wise decision on your part, Sheriff,” Landry called out.
“That wasn’t my decision, Landry. It was his,” Caldwell replied.
Landry’s confident smile faded a little as Caldwell’s words sank in. “See why we all say he’s mad?” he said with a laugh. But even his own men took on a more serious and attentive look as Shaw walked closer. “All right, Sheriff, we’re square now,” Landry said. “You can relax now and go on about your business.”
“I’m keeping it fair,” Caldwell said as he and Dawson stepped out of the office and down into the street. He walked forward, and stopped a few feet back and out to the side of Shaw. He carried a rifle in one hand, a shotgun in the other. When he reached his chosen position in the street, within shotgun range, he dropped the rifle at his feet and cocked both hammers on the shotgun.
“Wave the men in around us, Clifford,” Landry whispered, seeing Dawson had walked a wide circle and now stood flanking him from thirty feet away.
“There’s the dirty jake who busted my nose!” said DeLaurie, his voice still a nasal twang. He stepped down from his saddle and shoved his horse away. “I want you, mister!” he said, staring hard at Dawson.
Dawson only nodded his acknowledgment.
“Me too,” said Newhouse, down from his horse and tapping the side of his head where Dawson had cracked him with his pistol barrel. On the ground, Junior raised himself up on all fours, his head throbbing. But seeing Dawson, he growled like an angry dog and forced himself onto his feet, facing Dawson first, then turning to Shaw.
“Before I kill you, Mad Gunman,” said Landry, taking off his tight black leather riding gloves and sticking them down into his belt, “tell all of us who you are.”
Dawson stood in silence, watching Shaw, who said in a quiet tone, “I’m the man who killed you, Landry. That’s all you need to know.”
Landry’s expression turned to stone. “Good enough for me, but there’s some here who’ve heard you claim to be Fast Larry Shaw.”
“I made that claim,” said Shaw. “But everybody knows Fast Larry is dead.”
“I see,” said Landry, watching his eyes, looking for just the right second to make his play. “So, who are you, just some fast gun who never quite made it? Was never quite good enough? Somebody fast, but never quite fast enough?” Before he finishe
d his words, his hand went for his gun, knowing that his questions had caught the mad gunman off guard. Hadn’t they . . . ?
Before the tip of his barrel had cleared his holster, Shaw’s shot nailed him. He tumbled backward with pieces of his bloody heart splattering all over Ritchie and Giddis Junior. The two stood staring in frozen disbelief, having not even seen Shaw’s gun come up from the holster before Landry went flying backward, dead.
Then Ritchie snapped out of it and shouted, as he drew his gun, “Kill them!”
Caldwell, seeing Newhouse and DeLaurie faced off toward Dawson, sent the first blast of buckshot at Newhouse at the same time as Dawson’s Colt came up and sent a bullet through DeLaurie’s chest. The two hit the ground at the same time. Shaw’s next shot spun Ritchie in a hard circle, and then the second blast from Caldwell’s shotgun hit him so hard he flipped backward out of his right boot and landed facedown in the dirt. His gun sailed from his hand, hit the ground, and fired.
Nearby, Fogle folded at the waist when the stray bullet hit him. He went down on buckled knees, and looked all around wide-eyed and bewildered, his gun still in his hand, unfired.
In the midst of the blazing gun battle, Junior fired wildly, shot after shot, hitting nothing. Screaming and cursing in his anger, he ran toward Shaw with his pistol out at arm’s length. “I’ve got you, Mad Gunman. You son of a bit—”
Shaw’s shot silenced him and sent him rolling in the dirt. He stopped rolling and lay dead at the feet of Madden Peru, who had seen Caldwell step out of the office with shotgun and rifle and come running. A loose unfinished bandage dangled from Peru’s shoulder. “I—I missed it?” he said.
In the midst of the melee, Tommy Corbin had slipped away, grabbed his horse, and shot out along the trail like a dart. Seeing the rider growing smaller, Dawson said to Peru, “Shoot him, if you need to shoot somebody.”
Peru drew his pistol quickly and instinctively. But as he raised it to take close aim out over his cocked forearm, he shook his head, lowered the gun, and said, “I can’t do it. I won’t back-shoot a man without an awfully strong reason.” He looked at Caldwell and said, “Sorry,” as Corbin vanished into the rising dust behind him.
Caldwell, Dawson, and Shaw all three looked at one another, glad to see Peru’s response. “No apologies needed, Deputy,” said Caldwell.
But Peru, seeing a slight smile on Dawson’s face and misreading it, said, “I would have been here sooner if I could have. I’m not afraid. I can handle myself.”
“We know that, Deputy,” said Caldwell, opening the shotgun and letting the empty smoking shells fall to the dirt.
Shaw looked down and began reloading his Colt. Dawson opened the chamber on his Colt, punched out the empties, and did the same, looking at Peru as he did so.
Shaw stepped over, stooped down beside Landry, and slipped the Colt from his holster. “This was my Colt,” he said, “the one they took from me in Black’s Cut.” He examined the Colt as he said, “He would have killed me with my own gun.”
“Yes,” Dawson said to Shaw, still looking at Peru, “but instead, you killed him with his own gun, the one you took from his store.”
Shaw chuckled, “Yeah, come to think of it.” He stood up with his old familiar Colt twirling back and forth slickly on his finger, dipping into his holster, then springing back into his hand. “Welcome home,” he said to the gun flashing in his hand.
My God! Peru stood staring, speechless, impressed by the quickness, realizing that on his best day, as fast as he was with a gun, he was no match for something like this. It didn’t even look real, he thought, seeing a blur of iron flash in and out of this man’s hand.
Seeing the look on Peru’s face, Caldwell grinned, unable to resist saying to the mad gunman, “In case you haven’t heard, Peru here is the man who killed Fast Larry Shaw, straight up, one on one.”
The Colt stopped cold in Shaw’s hand and seemed to jump down into his holster like some slick, shiny, well-trained animal. “Oh, you did,” he said flatly, staring at Peru with an unreadable expression. “Tell me, was he as fast as everybody said?”
Peru looked from face to face, knowing that something important hung on his answer; yet he had no idea what it was. Finally he nodded and said sincerely, “If it’s all the same, I’d just as soon not talk about killing a man. I’ve learned that it’s not something a man ought to go around talking about.”
The three stared at him as the townsmen ventured forward from hiding. Finally, Shaw said in the same flat, expressionless voice, “That’s probably a good idea, Deputy.” His eyes moved across Dawson and Caldwell; a trace of a smile moved across his face. “You never know who might be listening.”
Dawson, Caldwell, and Shaw all laughed. At first it caught Peru by surprise; but then he realized they weren’t laughing at him, but rather finding in common some dark ironic joke that men like these three shared. Something part of their world, something to do with the right and wrong of things, and the way these kinds of men handled it. He wasn’t sure what it was, yet he understood it, he thought. He understood it because he was one of them. Yes, that was it. He was one of them.
He nodded and laughed along with them, watching Shaw and Dawson turn and walk to where their horses had joined one another and stood awaiting them. He watched them step into their saddles, tip their hats, and ride away.
“Theirs is not the laughter of fools,” Caldwell said, quoting some obscure text, “but the laughter of bold men who allow no wrongs to go unattended.” He turned with a sigh and carried his rifle and shotgun back toward his office.
Peru stood watching as the two rode away, south-westerly. As they grew smaller on the horizon, he felt Madeline Mercer’s arm slip into his. “Who is that sinister-looking man with the beard?” she asked.
“The mad gunman,” he said. “Or at least that’s what Caldwell and Dawson called him.”
“There’s something familiar about him . . .” she said, letting her words trail into contemplation. She thought about it as she watched the two ride out of sight. “Oh well, I suppose I’ll never know.” They turned arm in arm and walked away toward the doctor’s office.
