by Gary D. Svee
“You’re a hell of a preacher, Pete.”
“Well, I told him, too, that if he didn’t stop coming in here every night, I’d have him blackballed. No booze, no cards—”
“And no job,” the sheriff said.
“Yeah, no job.”
“What’d he say?”
“Nothing. He looked like I’d hit him with a stick. His dad was quite a rounder, you know, ’til he stepped in front of that train. That straightened him out.”
“Jimmy straightened out?”
Pfeister shrugged. “Have to ask him.”
“Well, if it worked, you did a fine night’s work.”
“I’ve got enough drunks. Don’t need another one. See Tippins back there?”
“No.”
“He had a few drinks and started muttering about that damn watch, so I gave him a bottle and sent him to the back room. Probably passed out by now.”
Tippins was sprawled over a table across the room from the poker table. Dressed in a conservative dark blue suit and vest, he seemed like nothing so much as a broken manikin in the back room of a men’s clothing store. His shoes, while not new, shone as though they were polished each day and left on the shelf for the old man’s one night out on the town.
“Tippins? Tippins. Tippins!”
The old man lay without stirring. Drinkwalter draped him over his shoulder and stepped toward the door with tiny hurried steps.
“Check back in about an hour or so?” he called over his shoulder.
“Ah, it’s a slow night. You might as well get some sleep.”
The sheriff nodded and carried Tippins into the dark of an Eagles Nest night.
3
Tippins sat in the chair beside Sheriff Frank Drinkwalter’s desk. The old man’s suit was wrinkled, his hair awry and skin pasty white. His dishevelment belied a cultivation acquired during fifty years of service in Northern Pacific Railroad’s finest dining cars.
“Why didn’t you take me home?”
“Cold last night. I was afraid you might wander off.”
Tippins nodded. “I suppose I should go home now.”
“I suppose.”
The old man stood, bracing himself, hands on knees. He took a deep breath, straightening his back and tucking his shirt into his pants. Everything in place, Tippins stepped toward the door, touching the wall to steady himself. At the door he turned and looked at the sheriff.
“Thank you.”
“No thanks needed. I am pleased to be of service.”
As the old man left, Mac McPherson poked into the doorway, his thin body an exclamation mark.
“Sheriff?”
Drinkwalter smiled. “You’re early.”
Mac’s face fell. “Sorry.”
The boy turned to leave.
“Now, wait a minute, Mac. I don’t want you to leave.”
When Mac turned, his face was set. He had learned to hide his disappointment behind anger. The transition came easily to him. His voice was gruff, challenging.
“That’s what it sounds like to me.”
The sheriff leaned back in his chair, tipping it up on its hind legs. “Mac, I’ve got no call to say this, but if we’re going to be working together, we should get one thing straight. Everybody’s got a little feisty in him. You and me have got more than our share, so maybe we could try to rein it in a little.”
Mac glared at the sheriff and then sighed. “Sorry.”
“Good. Let’s get this show on the road.”
The sheriff stepped to a steel gun case bolted to the jail’s wall. An assortment of rifles and shotguns waited there, chained together and locked with a padlock far too big for the job. The sheriff opened the padlock and threaded the chain through the trigger guard of each weapon, careful not to scratch the finish.
He pulled a lever-action rifle from the cabinet, opened the action, and peered into the chamber. Then, to make sure that his eyes had not deceived him, he pushed his little finger into the action, making sure that the chamber was empty.
“Always do this, Mac. Sometimes your eyes will lie to you, but your fingers can generally be trusted.”
Mac’s forehead knotted again. “I know enough to make sure—”
“Mac.” The sheriff’s voice stepped up almost indiscernibly in volume, but it had a rumble to it that jerked the boy up short. When Drinkwalter spoke again, his voice was softer than usual.
“Mac, this rifle is made to kill. If you hunt with me, I want to be sure that you know how to use it. That’s the rule. You understand?”
Mac stared at Drinkwalter for a full minute before he spoke again. “I didn’t mean anything. It’s just that…”
Drinkwalter nodded and handed the rifle to Mac, action open, muzzle pointed to the ceiling. Mac took it as though he had been given a treasure. The rifle must be new. The barrel gleamed, a light coat of oil over bluing that had never known a scratch. The stock and forearm were walnut, carved and polished to perfection.
Mac checked the chamber as the sheriff had, first with his eye and then with his finger. He yanked his hand back as though he had touched something very hot. His eyes jerked to the sheriff. “It’s loaded. It’s got a shell in the chamber.”
Drinkwalter smiled, his face softening. “Good, Mac. You did it just right. Don’t ever assume that a rifle is empty just because somebody says it is. Always check it for yourself.”
“You could have killed one of us. What if I hadn’t checked? What if I had just pulled the trigger?”
The sheriff took the rifle back and pried the cartridge loose from the chamber. He held it up for Mac to see.
“It’s been fired.”
Drinkwalter grinned again. “Not everybody is as smart as you, Mac. So when I play that trick, I don’t do it with a live round.”
Mac grinned, and the sheriff handed him the rifle.
“This was Deak’s. It’s one of Winchester’s new calibers, a .25-35. Doesn’t put out much of a slug, but she is one sweet shooting piece of work.”
“That’s what you’ll be using. I’ll take ol’ blue.” The sheriff pulled a Sharps from the cabinet and leaned it carefully into a corner. He talked as he threaded the chain through the trigger guards of the weapons remaining in the cabinet. “The Sharps is old fashioned—still shoots black powder same as that pistol of mine. But that’s what I learned to shoot, and I don’t see much reason to change.”
The sheriff picked up his rifle and took two boxes of cartridges from a shelf by the cabinet. “Mac, we’re armed and dangerous. Let’s go get those horses.”
“Horses?”
“Mac, if a couple of desperadoes like us were to walk through town armed to the teeth, someone would likely call the sheriff. What a fix we would be in then.”
A smile winked on Mac’s face, breaking through the serious set of his expression as the sun had broken through the clouds outside.
The day was magic, as only spring days in Montana can be. The sun leaned down to gently kiss the Earth as though they were lovers too long apart. Meadowlarks sang, and the air carried the tune as gently as a mother carries her baby.
Sheriff Drinkwalter had hobbled the two horses, leaving them downstream to graze on the soft spring grasses, to glory in the spring sun. He and Mac were following the twists and turns of Keyser Creek north. Gray clay walls loomed over both sides of the creek, cutting off the view upstream and down. The creek defined the world into bends and whorls, opening new vistas and closing off others. At each turn the sheriff paused, measuring distance, light, and shadow between where he stood and the next clay bank. The two walked until the rifle felt more like a digging bar than a weapon to Mac. His arm was beginning to ache with the unaccustomed weight when the sheriff stopped.
“This is good enough.”
“What makes this any better than every other loop we’ve passed?” Mac asked, exasperation creeping into his voice.
Drinkwalter turned to stare at the boy, cocking his head. But he didn’t answer the question.
Mac’s eyes squinted almost shut, and the muscles in his jaw tightened into little knots.
“I’ve never shot a rifle, but there’s no way I would ever miss that clay bank. If you think I’ll miss that clay bank, how in the … world do you ever think I’ll take an antelope?”
“Mac, a bullet can hit a rock and ricochet and only God knows where it’s going to wind up. It’s always best to be sure, just like checking the chamber with your finger. So climb up that bank just so we know there are no cattle up there.”
Mac started to speak, but he clamped his jaws shut and walked up the creek, looking for a place where the water ran deep and narrow or a log hung over the edge so he might jump to the safety of the grassy bank on the other side. Not enough water in the creek to worry about, but he could sink knee-deep in that gumbo mud. Might as well be caught in a trap as that.
The creek narrowed, and he jumped, balancing one-legged for a moment while his body decided whether his momentum would carry him on or he would fall backward into the cold water.
Momentum won, and he walked along the gray wall lining the creek until he came to a cut leading to the top. The years had gentled the cut, easing the slope. Grass had taken root there, and prickly pear. Here and there silver sage graced that emerald setting. Over the years the cut had become a path down from the prairie above. The soft soil of the creek was marked with the tracks of deer and the clawed prints of a coyote. Most likely the coyote was mousing in the deep grasses along the creek, en route to the ground squirrel towns that dotted the region.
Mac topped out, stepping into the full face of the sun and the glory of the day. A meadowlark called, and Mac answered, the three descending notes followed by an arpeggio that reached back to the beginning. The meadowlark’s song must be learned, one male passing it along to the younger of the species. Mac tried again, and the meadowlark gently corrected him.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be corrected only by song, Mac thought, but he shook the whimsy from his mind, pulling his attention back to the task at hand. To the west lay sandstone-topped hills blanketed with ponderosa pine, and to the south the Beartooth Mountains stood clothed in a blue so deep it could only have been rubbed from a Montana sky.
The valley was free of cattle to the west. Mac’s job was done, but he was pulled deeper into the meadow by the sun and the scent of fresh grass.
The lilies caught his eye and stole his breath. He dropped to his knees beside one, bending his head in the reverence that beauty always summons. The flowers’ waxy white petals blushed purple at the base. A gold star burst from the purple as a scepter from a throne. Stigma, he remembered from his biology class—the golden stars were stigma—but no one could attach so sullied a word to anything so glorious. He tried to put words to the feelings the flowers invoked, but the effort fell flat. Beauty cannot be defined, only appreciated.
Mac stood, breathing deeply of air scoured clean by spring winds and the sun. He might have stayed there an hour, but the sheriff was waiting beside the creek. The thought chafed at him for a moment. Montanans shouldn’t be called out of the spring sun.
Mac turned away from the flowers, stopping a few moments later to look back. Someday he would paint this picture with oils or words, sharing the lilies, the soft green of spring and the white-capped Beartooths with those not fortunate enough to know Montana. Someday he would do that.
The boy turned back toward the creek, his eyes searching the grass for the color of spring. As he stepped down the cut, he heard the thump of the sheriff pounding stakes into the creek bottom’s soft earth. The sheriff bent over his work, affixing a piece of stiff white paper to the stake. Mac joined him a moment later and the two walked toward the shooting place where they had left their rifles.
“What did you see?” Drinkwalter asked.
“No cattle.”
“What did you see?”
For a moment Mac considered telling the sheriff about the lilies, about the Beartooths rising to the south, and the magic of a spring sun. But he couldn’t. To do that was to open his soul to someone little more than a stranger. To do that was to risk being impaled on a sneer.
“Nothing.”
“You must have seen something.”
“Didn’t see any cattle.”
“Lot of country up there. You must have seen something.”
Mac hesitated. “Saw some flowers.”
“You saw the lilies? I thought they would be out now.”
Mac glanced at the sheriff. “Yeah.”
“They’re sego lilies, Mac. Some places near the desert, they grow flame red. They must be beautiful.”
Mac stiffened. “White is pretty enough.”
The sheriff’s smile brought a scowl to Mac’s face.
“No, I’m pleased, Mac. Pleased that you really saw the lilies. Did you pick any?”
“No, how could anyone …?”
Drinkwalter smiled. “You’ll do, Mac. You’ll do.” The two were silent then as they walked back to the shooting place.
Sheriff Drinkwalter drew a V in the soft, silty soil lining the creek. “Lot of different ways to do this, Mac. Some people center the front sight in the V, and then line up the top of the front sight with the top of the rear sight. Then they set the top of the sight on whatever they want to shoot.”
“That’s got some advantages. You can see a little better in low light, but it’s always seemed to me that you’re juggling too many things to count on getting a shot off before a deer or antelope dies of old age. So I center the top of the front sight fine as I can in the bottom of the V. Then I set the front sight on the target.”
“The rear sight will seem fuzzy when you’re looking down the barrel, but you’ll see it clearly enough. Understand what I’m saying?”
Mac nodded.
“A lot of people think that shooting is in the eye, but it’s really in the mind. You have to focus on what you’re doing. When everything lines up, you squeeze the trigger, slow and easy. If you’re doing it right, you won’t even know when the rifle is going to go off. You’ll be as surprised as whatever you’re shooting at.”
“Sometimes it seems that the front sight is jumping around like a kid walking barefoot across a bunch of sharp rocks. But you just keep squeezing the trigger and keep the sight as close as you can. It will all come to you.”
Mac cocked his head and stared at the sheriff. “Are you going to talk all day or are we going to shoot?”
Drinkwalter grimaced. “Just one more thing. Some people slip a round into the chamber and put their rifles on safety so they’ll be quicker to shoot. I would rather not shoot something I wanted to than shoot something I didn’t want to. Understand?”
Mac nodded.
Drinkwalter handed the boy two wads of cotton. “Stuff these in your ears.”
“So you can go on talking, and I don’t have to listen?”
Drinkwalter cocked his head. “When I shoot off at the mouth, I always hit my target. Let’s see what you can do. First, we’ll do some dry firing just get you familiar with the rifle.”
“Dry firing?”
“No ammunition. Okay?”
Mac nodded.
“Good. See that white spot on the clay bank across there?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s your target. Lie down on your belly. Hold the rifle tight to your shoulder, but not too tight. Keep your elbows solid with the ground, two legs of a tripod, elbows and shoulder, to hold the rifle steady.”
“Now just pull back the hammer, line up your sights, and squeeze the trigger, just like you would if there were a bullet in the chamber. Just relax and squeeze the trigger.”
“Crack!”
Mac jerked back as the rifle banged into his shoulder. The weapon skittered away from him on the grass as he jumped to his feet.
The boy’s face was taut and white. “You loaded it. You se
nt me up on that hill so you could load that rifle.” Mac’s head shook with his fury. “Sheriff, you are one gold-plated son of a bitch! You can keep your damn rifle and your deer and your antelope. I’m going home!”
Drinkwalter reached out to take Mac by the shoulder. Mac shrugged off the sheriff’s hand and stomped down the creek.
“Funny,” Drinkwalter called after him. “I didn’t figure you for a quitter.”
Mac turned, his eyes glaring at the sheriff.
“Two things, Mac. Didn’t I tell you to always check to make sure that a weapon isn’t loaded before you pick it up?”
Mac glowered at the sheriff.
“Mac, didn’t you say that you would do that?”
Mac’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, I said I would do that.”
“Do you suppose you will ever pick up a rifle again without checking the chamber?”
“No, I don’t suppose I will.” Mac sighed. “What’s the second thing?”
“You know that white spot you were shooting at on the clay bank?”
Mac’s eyes jerked to the bank. “It’s not there.”
“Helluva a shot, Mac. That bank must be 150 yards away. You aced it, Mac. You’re a natural.”
The corners of Mac’s mouth twitched. “I must have jumped a mile and a half.”
“Son, if the moon had been out, you’d have gone clear over it.”
Their laughter roared into the creek bottom then, chasing the last reverberations of the shot clear of Keyser Creek.
“Nice shooting, Mac. You really are a natural.”
“How would you know?”
The sheriff cocked his head, the question plain on his face, and Mac replied, “That cannon you shoot. Every time you shot, that whole clay bank shuddered and sloughed off into the creek. No way to know where you were hitting.”
A rumble crept into the sheriff’s voice. “You casting disparaging remarks about old blue?”
Mac shook his head. “No. It’s a helluva rifle if you want to knock down a clay bank. It just lacks a little finesse.”
