Hot Springs (Earl Swagger)

by Stephen Hunter

  In the end, all the efforts turned up nothing. No sign of the cowboy could be unearthed. Owney was troubled.

  He sat late at night on his terrace, above the flow of the traffic and the crowds sixteen stories below on Central Avenue, in the soft Arkansas night. He had a martini and a cigarette in its holder in an ashtray on the glass table before him. Beyond the terrace, he could see the tall bank of lighted windows that signified the Arlington Hotel was full of suckers with bulging pockets waiting to make their contributions to Owney’s fortune; to the right of that rose Hot Springs Mountain with its twenty-seven spigots of steamy water for soothing souls and curing the clap.

  He held a pigeon in his hands—a smooth, loving bird, its purple irises alive with life, its warmth radiating through to his own heart, its breast a source of cooing and purring. The bird was a soft delight.

  He tried to sort out his problems and none of them seemed particularly difficult in the isolate, but together, simultaneously, they felt like a sudden strange pressure. He had been hunted by Mad Dog Coll, he had shot it out with Hudson Dusters, he had felt the squeeze of Tom Dewey, he had done time in New York’s toughest slammers, so none of this should have really mattered.

  But it did. Maybe he was growing old.

  Owney petted his bird’s sleek head and made an interesting discovery. He had crushed the life out of it when he was considering what afflicted him. It was silently dead.

  He threw it in a wastebasket, gulped the martini and headed inside.

  PART TWO

  DAY HEAT

  August 1946

  9

  On the first morning, Earl took the group of young policemen out to the calisthenics field in the center of a city of deserted barracks miles inside the wire fence of the Red River Army Depot. The Texas sun beat down mercilessly. They were all in shorts and gym shoes. He ran them. And ran them. And ran them. Nobody dropped out. But nobody could keep up with him either. He sang them Marine cadences to keep them in step.

  I DON’T KNOW BUT I BEEN TOLD

  ESKIMO PUSSY IS MIGHTY COLD

  SOUND OFF

  ONE-TWO

  SOUND OFF

  THREE-FOUR

  There were twelve of them, young men of good repute and skills. In his long travels in the gardens of the law, D.A. had made the acquaintanceship of many a police chief. He had, upon getting this commission, called a batch of them, asked for outstanding young policemen who looked forward to great careers and might want to volunteer for temporary duty in a unit that would specialize in the most scientifically up-to-date raiding skills as led by an old FBI legend. The state of Arkansas would pay; the departments would simply hold jobs open until the volunteers returned from their duties with a snootful of new experience, which they could in turn teach their colleagues, thus enriching everybody. D.A.’s reputation guaranteed the turnout.

  The boys varied in age from twenty to twenty-six, unformed youths with blank faces and hair that tumbled into their eyes. Several looked a lot like that Mickey Rooney fellow Earl had seen in Hot Springs but they lacked Mickey’s worldliness. They were earnest kids, like so many young Marines he’d seen live and die.

  After six miles, he let them cool in the field, wiping the sweat from their brows, wringing out their shirts, breathing heavily to overcome their oxygen deficit. He himself was barely breathing hard.

  “You boys done all right,” he said, and paused, “for civilians.”

  They groaned.

  But then came the next ploy. He knew he had to take their fears, their doubts, their sense of individuality away from them and make them some kind of a team fast. It had taken twelve hard weeks at Parris Island in 1930, though during the war they reduced it to six. But there was a trick he’d picked up, and damn near every platoon he’d served in or led had the same thing running, so he thought it would work here.

  He named them.

  “You,” he said, “which one is you?”

  He had the gift of looming. His eyes looked hard into you and he seemed to expand, somehow, until he filled the horizon. This young man shrank from him, from his intensity, his masculinity, his sergeantness.

  “Ah, Short, sir. Walter F.,” said the boy, dark-haired and intense, but otherwise unmarked by the world at twenty.

  “Short, I’ll bet you one thing. I bet you been called ‘Shorty’ your whole life. Ain’t that the truth?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And I bet you hated it.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Hmmmm.” Earl made a show of scrunching up his eyes as if he were thinking of something.

  “You been to France, Short?”

  “No sir.”

  “Well, from now on and just because I say so, your name is ‘Frenchy.’ Frenchy Short. How’s that suit you?”

  “Uh, well—”

  “Good. Glad you like it. All right, ever damn body, y’all say ‘HI FRENCHY’ real loud.”

  “HI FRENCHY” came the roar.

  “You’re now a Frenchy, Short. Got that?”

  “I—”

  And he moved to the next one, a tall, gangly kid with a towhead and freckles, whose body looked a little long for him.

  “You?”

  “Henderson, sir. C. D. Henderson, Tulsa, Oklahoma.”

  “See, you’re already a problem, Henderson. Our boss, his name is D.A. So we can’t have too many initials or we’ll get ’em all tangled up. What’s the C stand for?”

  “Carl.”

  “Carl? Don’t like that a bit.”

  “Don’t much like it myself, sir.”

  “Hmmm. Tell you what. Let’s tag an O on the end of it. But not an S. That would make you a Carlo. Not a Carlos, but a Carlo. Carlo Henderson. Do you like it?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Boys, say Hello to Carlo.”

  “HELLO CARLO!”

  In that way, he named them all, and acquired a Slim who was chunky, a Stretch who was short, a Nick who cut himself shaving, a Terry who read Terry and the Pirates, a smallish Bear, a largish Peanut, a phlegmatic Sparky. Running short on inspiration, he concluded the ceremony with a Jimmy to be called James and a Billy Bob to be called Bob Billy and finally a Jefferson to be called not Jeff but Eff.

  “So everything you was, it don’t exist no more. What exists is who you are now and what you have to do and how Mr. D. A. Parker himself, the heroic federal agent who shot it out with Baby Face Nelson and put the Barker Gang in the ground, will train you. You are very lucky to learn from a great man. There ain’t many legends around no more and he is the authentic thing. You meet him tomorrow and you will grow from his wisdom. Any questions?”

  There were probably lots of questions, but nobody had the guts to ask them.

  • • •

  For a legend, D.A. cut a strange figure when at last he revealed himself to the men, this time at one of the old post’s far-flung shooting ranges. If they expected someone as taut and tough as jut-jawed, bull-necked, rumble-voiced Earl, what they got was a largish old man in a lumpy suit, beaten-to-hell boots and a fedora that looked as if it had been pulled by a tractor through the fields of Oklahoma, who seemed to do a lot of spitting.

  It was after the morning run and the boys had changed back into the outfits they’d wear on the street—that is, into suits and ties, and damn the heat.

  The old man didn’t give any orders at all and didn’t mean to command by force but by wisdom. His first move was to invite the boys to sit. Then he noted that it was hot, and since it was hot he suggested they take their coats off. When the coats came off, he walked among them, and looked at their sidearms, mainly modern Smith or Colt revolvers in .38 Special, worn in shoulder holsters, as befits a plainclothesman. One of them even had an old Bisley in .44-40.

  “That’s a powerful piece of work, young man.”

  “Yes sir. My grandfather wore it when he was sheriff of Chickasaw County before the Great War.”

  “I see. Well, it loads a mite slow for our purposes. Don’t get me wr
ong. A Colt single-action’s a fine gun. So’s a Smith double. But this here’s 1946 and it’s modern times. So we’re going to learn how to get ready for modern times.”

  “Yes sir,” said the boy. “That is why I came here.”

  “Good boy. Now, I suppose y’all are good shots. Why, I’d bet all of you shot expert on qualification. Let’s see how many did. Hands up.”

  Twelve hands came up, unwavering with the confidence of the young and sure.

  “All of them. See that, Earl? They’re all experts.”

  Earl, standing to one side with his arms folded and his face glowering in the best sergeant’s stare, nodded.

  “Yes sir. Been known to use a Smith myself,” D.A. said. He threw back his coat and revealed what it had not hidden that effectively: his own Smith .38/44 Heavy Duty, with white stag grips, worn on an elaborately carved Mexican holster off a second belt beneath his trousers belt.

  “Yes sir, a fine gun. Now tell me, who can do this?”

  He reached in his pocket, pulled out a silver dollar. He turned and lofted the coin into the air. It rose, seemed to pause, then fell. His hand a blur, the old man drew and fired in a motion so swift and sudden it seemed to have no place in time. The ping from the coin, and the speed with which it jerked out of its fall and sailed thirty feet farther out signified a hit.

  “You,” he pointed to the youngest of the boys. “Can you go get that for the old man?”

  “Yes sir,” said the boy, the one Earl had nicknamed Frenchy yesterday.

  Short retrieved the piece.

  “Hold her up,” said D.A.

  The young officer held up the coin, which was distended ever so slightly by the power of the .38 slug punching through its center. The Texas sunlight showed through it.

  The boys murmured in appreciation.

  “See,” said D.A., “y’all think that was pretty neat, huh? Truth is, it’s a miss. Because I hit dead center. Usually when I do that trick for the kids, I like to hit closer to the edge, so when they wear it on a thong around the neck, it’ll hang straighter. How many of you could do such a thing?”

  No hands came up.

  “Mr. Earl, you think you could?” asked the old man.

  Earl was a very good shot, but he knew that was beyond his skills.

  “No sir,” he said.

  “In fact,” said D.A., “there ain’t but four or five men in the world who could do that regularly. A Texas Ranger or two. An old buddy of mine named Ed McGivern, a trick shooter. Maybe a pistolero in Idaho named Elmer Keith. See, what I got, what them boys I named got, you don’t got. That is, a special gift. A trick of the brain, that lets me solve deflection problems and coordinate the answer between my hand and eye in a split second. That’s all. It’s just a gift.”

  He turned to them.

  “I show it to you because I want you to see it, and forget about it. I’m a lucky man. I’m a very lucky man. You ain’t. You’re ordinary. You can’t do that. Nobody in the FBI could do that. So what I mean to teach you is how an ordinary man can survive a gunfight, not how a man like me can. You’ve seen fast and fancy shooting; now forget it. Fast and fancy don’t get it done: sure and right gets it done. And take them revolvers back to your lockers and lock them up. You won’t be using them no more and you won’t be shooting with one hand and you won’t be trusting your reflexes. This here is the tool of our trade.”

  He took off his coat, and showed the .45 auto he had hanging under his left armpit in its elaborate leather harness.

  “We use the .45 auto. We carry it cocked and locked. We draw with one hand, clasp the other hand to the gun and grip hard, we concentrate on the sights, we lock our elbows until we’re nothing but triangles. We got a triangle of arms between ourself and the gun and a triangle of legs between ourself and the ground. The triangle is nature’s only stable form. We’re crouching a little because that’s what our body wants to do when we get scared. We aren’t relying on the ability of our mind to do fancy calculations under extreme pressure and we ain’t counting on our fingers to do fancy maneuvers when all’s they want to do is clutch up. Every goddamn thing we do is sure and simple and plain. Our motions are simple and pure. Most of all: front sight, front sight, front sight. That’s the drill. If you see the front sight you’ll win and survive, if you don’t, you’ll die.

  “Did I hear a laugh? Do I hear snickers? Sure I do. A man shoots with one hand, you’re telling me. All the bull’s-eye and police shooting games are set up for one hand. Them old cowboys used one hand and in the movies the stars all use one hand. You don’t want to use two hands, ’cause that’s how a girl shoots. You’re a big strong he-man. You don’t need two hands.

  “Well, that there’s the kind of thinking that gets you killed.”

  He withdrew another silver dollar from his pocket, turned and lofted it high. The automatic was a blur as it locked into a triangle at the end of both his arms and from the blur there sprang the flash-bang of report; the coin was hit and blasted three times as far back as the previous dollar. Again, Short retrieved it. He held it up. It was no souvenir. It was mangled beyond recognition.

  “You see, boys. You can do it just as fast two-handed as one.”

  • • •

  They worked with standard Army .45s without ammunition for the first day. Draw—from a Lawrence steer hide fast-draw holster on the belt right at the point of the hip—aim, dry-fire. Then cock, relock and reholster. That was D.A.’s system, the .45 carried cocked and locked, so that when you drew it, your thumb flew to the safety as the gun came up on target, and smushed it down even as the other hand locked around the grip and you bent to it, lowering your head and raising the gun until you saw the tiny nub of front sight and the blur of the black silhouette before you.

  Snap!

  “You gotta do it right slow before you can do it right fast,” he would say. “Ready now, again, ready, DRAW … AIM … FIRE.”

  A dozen clicks rose against the North Texas wind.

  “Now, again,” said the old man. “And think about that trigger pull. Control. Straight back. That trigger stroke has got to be smooth, regular and perfect.”

  On and on it went, until fingers began to get bloody. Even Earl pulled his share of draws and snaps, aware that he among them all could not complain, could not stop. But there were so many troubling things about it.

  Finally a hand went up.

  “Sir, are you sure about this? I could draw and shoot much faster with my Official Police. I don’t like losing my Official Police.”

  “Any other questions?”

  There was silence, but then one hand came up. Then another. And a third.

  “The sights are so much tinier than my Smith. I can’t pick them up.”

  “I heard automatics jammed much more than wheelies. It makes me nervous.”

  “I think I’d feel better carrying at the half-cock, and thumb-cocking as I drew, like I did with my old single-action.”

  Mumbles came and went.

  And even Earl had his doubts. He didn’t like walking about with a pistol on safe. To shoot he had to hit that little bitty safety, and under pressure, that might be tough. He didn’t like the idea of pointing a gun at somebody set on killing him and getting nothing out of the effort.

  “Earl, how ’bout you?”

  “Mr. D.A., you’re the boss.”

  “See, men, that’s Earl. That’s a good Marine to the last, supporting his old man no matter how crazy. But Earl, if I wasn’t the boss, what would you say? Come on, now, Earl, tell these boys the truth.”

  “Well, sir,” said Earl, “under those circumstances I’d say I’se a bit worried about carrying that automatic with the safety on. You got to hit that safety to shoot fast and I know in the islands, we many times had to shoot fast or die. No guns in battle are carried with the safeties on. There may not be time to get them off.”

  “A very good point, Earl. They’re all very good points. Which is why today we make the change. You have to underst
and what don’t work as compared to what do work. Let’s head back to the indoors.”

  The unit trooped back to the explosives disassembly building, which had been appropriated as a classroom. There, against one wall, was a shipping box of cardboard, maybe two feet by two feet, swaddled in tape and labels. Earl looked at the label and saw that it was from something called Griffin & Howe, in New York, and searched his memory for some familiarity with the place, but came up with no answer, though the words had a tone he knew from somewhere.

  “Coupla you boys, load this up to the table,” commanded D.A. and two of the officers did so, by their effort proving that the box contained a considerable amount of steel.

  “Earl, would you please open the box for me.”

  Earl took out his Case pocketknife and sawed his way through the cardboard and staples and tape. When he got it open, he saw that it contained a nest of smaller boxes from Colt’s, of Hartford, Connecticut, each about eight inches by six inches, and beside the Colt’s logo, it said National Match Government Model.

  “Now, I worked for Colt’s for a number of years, so I got a deal on these guns. Then I had ’em shipped to Griffin & Howe, a custom gunsmithy in New York. Earl, take one out, please, and show it around.”

  Earl pulled one box out, pried the lid off it. Inside, a Colt government model gleamed blackly at him, but he saw immediately that the cardboard of the box was slightly mutilated in one spot, where it meant to hold the pistol snugly, as if something larger than spec had been pushing at the box. He pulled the pistol out.