The Big Gundown

by Bill Brooks

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Tig pulled his saddle and blanket off the horse, then walked it over to the corral and turned him out with the others, slapping the palm of his hand on the muscled flank, saying, “Git on in there.”

  Perk was smoking a cigarette and staring with those crazy eyes of his when Tig turned around. The others were watching him careful, too. Dallas especially.

  “You know nobody wants trouble round here because of that colored,” Dallas said.

  “That includes me,” Tig said, feeling once more disloyal to his dead friend. But what could he do about it. Wasn’t nothing he could do, was there? He’d done what he could by talking to the lawman. Nat couldn’t expect nothing more of him.

  They closed in on him, slowly like they might a critter they were hunting. He raised his hands, said, “Whoa up, boys. What’s going on here?”

  “I been thinking,” Dallas said.

  “About what?”

  “About that tooth of yours.”

  “I told you, the doc in town took care of it.”

  “Maybe so, but I know that dentist is the biggest damn drunk in the whole of Dakota and was I you I wouldn’t trust him. Why, I once knew a feller in New Mexico who died of a bad tooth—real bad death, too. Suffered terribly. Said it put poison in his blood and it ended up killing him. I’d sure enough hate to see such a thing happen to you, being as good a hand as you are.”

  Perk said, “Yah, we sure would hate to see something like that happen to you, kid.”

  Then someone tossed a lariat over him from behind and yanked it tight and he saw it was Taylor and when he tried to yell, Perk come up and stuffed a dirty bandanna into his mouth and said, “Shut up, goddamn you!”

  Wasn’t no way he could fight them off. He thought of Nat, how they probably had done the same thing to him, grabbed and carried down to the creek, the fear filling him up like water into a bucket.

  His eyes bugged toward the main house, hoping the boss would come out to see what the commotion was and stop things before they got too far out of hand. But the house stood silent, and as Tig’s gaze swept the house, he could see the brougham that the boss used to travel in was not parked where it usually was. Him and his wife gone, nobody to help him.

  His boots scraped along the ground as they half-dragged, half-carried him to the bunkhouse. And when they slammed the door shut behind them, its bang sounded like a gunshot and he could almost feel a bullet piercing his heart.

  “Hold him down good, boys!” Dallas said. “Perk, go get them pliers.”

  He struggled until Dallas slammed his fist into the side of his face, a blow that stunned him and caused his ears to ring.

  “There’s a little medicine to help ease the pain coming,” Dallas said.

  Tig could feel the end of his nose stinging and the warm flow of blood coming from it.

  Somebody, Taylor maybe, pulled the bandanna out of his mouth and he took a great gulp of air before a wooden spoon was inserted. He bit down, but they pried his jaws apart. Then he saw those floating unsettled eyes of Perk looking down at him, his face so close he could smell Perk’s whiskey breath warm and thick.

  “I got my plars,” Perk said and showed him the tool. “Which tooth you say it was again?”

  Tig closed his eyes, his strength all but gone out of him now. The hands that gripped him—one had put a knee into his chest with his whole weight behind it—were too strong. Tears leaked from his eyes as he felt the invasion of the pliers, the taste of that hard metal against his tongue.

  “Shit,” Dallas said, “might just as well pull two or three of them to make sure we got the right one.”

  “And I only charge a dollar a tooth,” Perk said with a snigger.

  Tig felt the pliers clamp down on his front tooth, felt the pinch of them against his gums, felt the unbelievable force applied, followed by a lightning of pain. It felt as though his head was exploding, as though he was going to bite off his own tongue as Perk levered the tooth. He screamed. A twist and a yank and the tooth tore out. Perk held it close to the lamp one of them held, its root bloody, the rest white as a piece of porcelain.

  “There’s one,” Perk said, breathing hard. “Let’s get the otherns.”

  Later Tig lay alone in the darkness, the bunkhouse empty—he’d heard them getting ready to go into town, talking about drinking and gambling and whoring. Laughing and jesting with each other, as though what they’d done to him meant nothing to them.

  His whole face throbbed, his mouth so swollen he could barely swallow.

  Dallas had stopped by the bunk on his way out and said in a low menacing voice: “I’m sure you’re gone thank me when you get around to feeling better. ’Cause what we did for you was save your life, you see. Hell, tell you what, kid, you can buy us a drink next time we’re in town together. Oh, and don’t worry about them three dollars Perk said he was going to charge you for the teeth pulling. It wouldn’t be right, him not being a real dentist. You just remember something, boy, there are some things nearly bad as dying. And if I hear anything about you running your mouth to that lawman about me and that nigger, well, you’ll end up like him.”

  Tig tried to lift himself out of bed to get a sip of water, but the pain was too great and he fell back dizzy. And in that moment he hated Nat.

  If you hadn’t gone and messed with that girl…

  He raised a hand and lightly touched his face—it felt strange and painful, even to the slightest brush of his fingertips. Felt all misshapen.

  He unknotted the bandanna from around his neck and with great effort and fighting down the bloody torment it took to do it, he tied the bandanna around his head and jaw, then sat up slowly, steadying himself to keep from falling back again. It took a long time, it seemed, but he finally got a few belongings stuffed into his saddle bags: extra shirt, pair of socks, razor, Barlow knife, the tintype of his sweetheart, Hester, back in Nacadocious, Texas. Then he went out into the steely cold night and saddled his horse, nearly feinting twice in the doing. He could see lights on in the main house now, the brougham parked where it usually was. Tig had a week’s pay coming, but he didn’t know if he had the heart or nerve to go up to the house and ask for it. He felt duly embarrassed by his condition. But without that week’s pay, he was flat broke.

  It was hard to present himself in his condition, but hell, he had no choice.

  He knocked and in a moment the door swung open and Bob Parker stood there staring at him.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  He tried to say, but only mumbled, “I…come…for…my…p…pay.”

  “What? I can’t hardly understand what you’re saying.”

  He repeated it, each word feeling as though he was taking a bullet to the face.

  Bob Parker shook his head and said, “Wait a minute,” and closed the door again. The air felt like cold iron pressed to his bare skin and caused his pain to increase. He wanted to scream, but instead stood there shaking.

  The door opened again and Bob Parker handed him a week’s pay.

  “I was probably going to have to let some of you boys go, anyway,” Bob Parker said. “I guess this works out okay. You fall off your damn horse or something?”

  Without further effort to explain anything, Tig turned and put a foot in the stirrup of his saddle and pulled himself up onto his horse, tapped his heels, and didn’t look back at the house as it receded into the night.

  The whole of the sky was shotgunned with stars and he’d never been so miserable. He didn’t know where he would go or what he’d do once he got there. He just knew that if he stayed, he’d most likely end up like Nat, murdered in a horrible way. The road north led to uncertain places. All he knew that lay north was the Canadian border, eventually. He turned the horse south. If he could make it as far as Bismarck, he could sell his horse and saddle for a ticket to get him maybe down to Texas. He’d like to see his sweetheart again. It had been almost two years since he had been with her. He recalled her last wor
ds to him there under a broiling sun.

  “Dakota?” she’d said. “Whatever is there for you in Dakota?”

  “I hear a man can easy put together a small spread, that the country is full of stray cows and wild horses. They say the grass is high as your head, so it’s a lot of free graze.”

  He remembered the soft denim blue of her eyes, the sprinkle of cinnamon freckles across her pert nose. He remembered, too, the soft warm parts of her body. Tears flowed down his face.

  Nacogdoches, he thought. If I can just make Nacogdoches.

  But he’d have to get past Sweet Sorrow and Dallas and them who were there now, drinking and laughing and whoring. He’d have to avoid letting them catch him. And yet if there was anything he needed worse than a bottle of whiskey to see him through this night, he couldn’t imagine what it was. His mouth hurt like it had been hammered and every step his horse took was like getting hammered all over again.

  He’d need something to kill the pain and whiskey was the only something he knew and Sweet Sorrow was the only place he knew to get it.

  He saw a star shoot across the heavens.

  Nat, he thought. Is that you, Nat?

  13

  DALLAS AND PERK AND THE OTHERS were drinking in the Three Aces. Customers were still talking about the shooting earlier. Even though the bartender, Handsome Harry, had mopped up the blood, the stains of the gun battle’s victims still showed dark in the flooring.

  The drinkers leaned on their elbows as they listened to Gus Boone tell how a man who had him a head in a sack came in and shot Ellis Kansas and how the marshal in turn shot the man with the head.

  Dallas said, “Real gun artist your marshal, is he?”

  Gus Boone nodded and said, “I seen ever bit of it, was standing right here, almost took a bullet myself. Marshal Horn was a real cool customer. Shot that feller like he was a rat going after the cheese.”

  The others looked to their leader, Dallas. He knew they were waiting for him to say or do something, they didn’t know what—just something.

  What he said was “Let’s get us up a poker game.”

  The smoke, the sweat of flesh, the noise, all seemed to press together in that long narrow bar. New arrivals came in, slapping their hands together and shaking a fresh-fallen snow from their hat brims.

  “Goddamn but it’s cold and getting colder,” they said, moving first to the woodstove before going to the bar.

  But the whiskey and the prospect of bedding one of the whores, who kept a steady trade headed to the back rooms, soon warmed their blood and they took up chairs of those leaving to go home to their wives, or their bunkhouses or rented rooms.

  And the story of the shooting continued to circulate, changing a bit each time, getting off center from the facts until each man who heard it had his own version to tell later on, a year from now, or maybe someday to their grandkids.

  Across town Ellis Kansas moaned from the throat-clutching pain in his neck. Clara left a book she was reading to look in on him. She could almost feel the fever coming off him, wet a cloth and put it on his forehead.

  “Shhh, Mr. Kansas,” she said softly. She held the lamp up close to the bandage around his neck. It caused her to cringe slightly when he turned his wide-eyed gaze to her, his flesh an odd dark color now, like rotted plums, as though the stanched blood was pooling in his face.

  “Mmmmph…Mmmmph…” he mumbled.

  “I can’t understand you, Mr. Kansas,” she said. “Please try not to talk. I don’t think it’s good for you.”

  His hand came up and his fingers felt of the bandage and it caused him to close his eyes. “Mmmmph…”

  “Do you want me to get the…” She had started to say “doctor.” “Do you want me to get someone to help you?”

  He wagged his head no.

  She uncorked the bottle of laudanum and put it to his mouth. Like a child, his lips nibbled at the bottle until he had gotten some down. She saw the scrunch of his features as he swallowed.

  “Try and rest, please,” she said.

  She waited until his face slackened, then went out of the room again.

  The hour late, the girls abed, she thought about Jake Horn and her desire for him. The grasslands—indeed the whole of the West—was such a lonely place for a woman. She went out onto the porch and took in a deep breath of cold air and the snow swirled around her and it felt good in a way to feel it on her face. Even though she was beginning to be sure how she felt about him, Jake had given her no reason to hope and it felt like disappointment to her. Is this what I want? she asked herself. To be in love with a man who doesn’t seem to have a future?

  The pain in Tig’s mouth was a fire. By the time he’d reached the outskirts of Sweet Sorrow, his tears had frozen in his thin moustache. The brim of his hat carried half an inch of snow and his fingers were numb. He could barely stand to breathe.

  He saw the light of the saloon. It seemed to him a beacon of salvation, even though he realized the risk he was taking—had to take—in order to find some measure of relief. Twice he’d stopped along the way and tried to eat snow. It was like eating cactus needles.

  He considered for a long painful moment skirting the town and going on, but knew that it was nearly impossible to go any farther without some sort of relief for his pain. All the relief he could hope for was in that saloon.

  He touched his heels to the belly of the horse and rode toward that single beacon of light.

  I’d as soon be dead as to go on like this, he told himself. The will and resolve he had in him until that point shattered like ice hit with a hammer and he rode toward the town no longer caring what happened to him if he could just find a little relief.

  How long Jake had been sleeping when he was awakened by a pounding on his door he couldn’t say. It seemed like he’d just closed his eyes.

  “Marshal!”

  He crawled out of bed and answered the door.

  Gus Boone stood there with the stink of liquor coming off him.

  “You better come’n, there’s ’bout to be another shooting over to the saloon.”

  “Christ…” he muttered, pulling on his trousers and boots. He tucked in his nightshirt and pulled on his coat and went down the stairs hatless, following Gus out across the street through the fresh snow.

  “What’s going on over there, Gus?”

  “Them Double Bar boys are about to get into it—one of them is, anyway.”

  Jake remembered then he’d left his gun at the office.

  “You heeled?” he said to Gus.

  “No sir, I am ashamed to admit it, but I traded my old gun for a jug some time ago and ain’t been able to afford another since.”

  Wind swirled snow in the street. The lights of the saloon peeked out from the front windows. There was no piano music. Bad sign.

  Jake stepped in through the doors, Gus right behind him.

  What was going on was going on toward the back of the place. The gathered parte a path when they saw Jake.

  The boy, Tig, stood at the end of the bar facing Dallas and the others with him who’d fanned out around a poker table. Dallas wore his revolver in a cross-draw holster and the others were similarly heeled as well.

  The tension between the two was heavy; the only thing moving was the swirl of cigar smoke in the oily light of the hanging lamps.

  “Go on, boy, go for your piece and let’s settle this,” Dallas was saying when Jake came into the fray.

  Without hesitation Jake stepped in front of Tig and said, “What the hell’s going on?”

  The boy’s face was a mess.

  Tig’s eyes flickered with pain and anger as he refused to look directly at Jake but stared beyond him toward Dallas and the others.

  Tig started to raise a hand to point at Dallas, but Jake slapped it away and jerked the revolver from the boy’s holster, then turned on Dallas and said, “You do that to him?”

  The puncher’s eyes narrowed.

  “This ain’t none of your business unless
you want it to be.”

  “See, here’s the thing,” Jake said, thumbing back the hammer of the single-action Colt. “No matter how fast you think you are”—Jake brought the pistol straight out—“you’re not going to be fast enough. I’ve already killed one man here tonight and I guess I must be getting used to it, because I’m more goddamn mad about being woken from my sleep than I am about the possibility of murder right now. So it’s your choice: You can either clear the hell out of here or show these boys what a gunfighter you are.”

  Jake understood if he showed Dallas Perk the least bit of hesitation or fear, the man would kill him.

  He could see the probabilities running through that thick head of the puncher, wondering if he could pull his gun and get off a good shot before Jake pulled the trigger on him or if he couldn’t.

  Dallas silently cursed himself for drinking too heavily and not thinking clearly and shooting that damn kid when he first came in. Thinking the kid must have been crazy to walk in like he did, knowing they’d be there. That snot nosed little son of a bitch was a mama’s boy and they should have put him under when they had the chance. Now this interfering lawman had put himself into it, had gotten the drop on him.

  “I could tell these boys of mine to shoot you out of your boots,” Dallas threatened.

  “But you won’t because you know that won’t stop this first bullet.”

  Another moment of hesitation, then: “Okay,” Dallas said. “We’ll leave. Come on boys.”

  The others didn’t move for a moment until Dallas looked at them hard and said it again.

  “Leave the guns,” Jake said. “Put them on the table.”

  “You got no right!”

  “My town, my rules. Put them on the table. You can send one of your men in tomorrow to pick them up.”

  “Fuck that!”

  “I’m not going to stand here all night. Do what I said or fight, goddamn you!”

  Jake knew he’d already cowed the man or Dallas would have pulled his gun by now. A man with bad intentions didn’t stand around talking.