The Gunhawks (Cutler Western #2)

by John Benteen

  Apparently the town hall served also as a church; there were pew benches instead of seats, and in its front there was a lectern with a Bible on it. The Calhoons filed in behind Cutler and the lawmen, taking what seats their womenfolk had left vacant; their clan alone almost filled the building.

  Behind the lectern stood a short man in a frock coat; in five chairs on his left sat townsmen, and in five others on his right sat Iris Shannon, lovely in a dress of sea-green silk, Fred, her bartender, the two checker players, and a man Cutler recognized as the town barber, who was also the undertaker. The place was silent as Debnam herded Cutler down the aisle, then motioned him to a seat on the front bench and ranged himself and his deputies around him. On the other bench, across the aisle, old Carson Calhoon sat hunched and swathed in blankets. As Cutler took his seat, he turned his head and stared at him with pale blue eyes filled with hatred. Beside him, the young, conchoed, two-gunned dandy, very handsome, very dangerous-looking, fingered the butts of his Colts and shot a glance of equal hatred at Cutler. Then the man behind the lectern rapped on it with a hammer.

  “All right,” he said. “Everybody hush up now. Under the authority vested in me as coroner of Washakie County, Wyoming, I hereby declare this here inquest in session to inquire into the manner in which the deceased Cassius Calhoon met his death in a barroom fight. First witness, Simon Baker.”

  The barber arose, came to the lectern. “Put your hand on this Bible,” the coroner said. “Swear to tell the truth . . .”

  When the barber had been sworn in, the coroner questioned him. “You examined the body of the late Cassius Calhoon after the aforesaid deceased met his death? In what manner did he die?”

  “He was shot twice, once through the shoulder, next time through the heart.”

  “Bullets went in front or back?”

  “In the front, no backshootin’ involved,”

  “Sit down,” the coroner said. “That’s all. Miss Iris Shannon.”

  She came forward, was sworn.

  “The killin’ occurred in your place of business, the Elkhorn Bar. Did you witness it, and if so, tell the jury what happened.”

  “I witnessed it,” Iris Shannon said. “This man, Cutler, had entered the bar and was having a drink at a table. I went over and sat down with him. Then Cass Calhoon came in. He tried to force his attentions on me and make Cutler leave. When I resisted, Cass slapped me. Then he tried to draw on Cutler. Cutler grabbed his wrist, hit him before he could; after that Cass challenged Cutler to fight with fists. Cutler took him up on it. They disarmed themselves. They fought; Cutler took a whipping at first, but finally he was beating Cass. Cass got scared, grabbed his gun off the bar, tried to shoot Cutler . . ;”

  “Who was then unarmed?” asked the coroner.

  “Yes, sir. I was holding his gun. Cass shot, but Cutler dodged and then I threw his gun to him. Cutler caught it and shot Cass in the shoulder. Cass tried to shoot him again and Cutler shot Cass in the heart. The Marshal came and Cutler gave himself up promptly, turned over his gun to Debnam. That was the end of it.” Her voice rose. “Cutler hit Cass to protect me; he killed Cass in self-defense. If he hadn’t, Cass would have shot him like a dog.”

  Suddenly the young two-gun man was on his feet. “That’s a damned lie!” he snapped. “Her whole story’s bound to be a lie! Ain’t no Calhoon ever had the dead drop on a man and then let himself be killed!” He took a step forward, boyish face red. “You ain’t going to listen to a lot of hogwash from a woman of low repute like this, are you?”

  Iris Shannon went pale. “You’re Billy Calhoon, aren’t you?” she asked thinly.

  “That’s right!” he snapped. “Cass was my nephew!”

  The coroner’s brows went up. “Your nephew, young man.”

  Billy Calhoon stood there spraddle-legged, thumbs hooked in gun belts. “I’m Carson Calhoon’s youngest son. Cass was my oldest brother’s boy. And Cass was hell with a gun! No man ever took him from the front when he was armed! Ain’t no way this could have happened but Cass was shot in cold blood and the gun planted on him later! And if this whore-woman here says different, she’s lying!”

  Suddenly the room was full of commotion. In that instant, John Cutler was on his feet. His voice lanced through the babble like a knife blade. “Calhoon!” he roared, full of rage.

  Instantly Debnam stepped in front of him, shotgun up. “Down, Cutler,” the Marshal rasped, and he turned to Calhoon. “Young man, you’d better start doing some apologizing. Miss Shannon’s a respected member of this community. Any more of that talk, you’ll have me and a lot of others callin’ you out!”

  Billy Calhoon stood there, face red, hands wide and clenching and unclenching near his guns. “I stand . . .” he began, but before he could finish another voice cut across his. It was a strange voice, dry, rasping, shaky; yet, there was still an underlying strength to it. “Billy, that’ll be enough. Set.”

  The boy froze.

  “I said, set!” There was immense authority in old Carson Calhoon’s tone.

  The boy let out a long, shuddering breath. Then he muttered, “Yes, Daddy,” and slowly he turned and dropped to the bench beside his ancient father. The old Calhoon looked at Cutler and then at the woman and then at the coroner.

  “I will apologize on my son’s behalf,” he said in that high, shaking voice. “His words were ill-advised. You see, he has never been in a gunfight himself and he doesn’t know what can happen in one. So he was talkin’ out of turn. Only, that don’t make no real difference, you know. Because my grandson is dead and this man killed him, however he did it. That’s what he’s got to pay for .” He broke off, breathily, as if so much speech had exhausted him. “Go on with this mess,” he ended and sank back in his blankets.

  The coroner turned to Iris. “Apology accepted?”

  She bit her lip. “I suppose so.” Then she turned away, sat down.

  “We’ll hear the other testimony,” the coroner said, and he called Fred, the bartender; then the two checker-players. Their stories backed up hers. When the second checker-player had sat down, the coroner said, “That leaves only the accused. Cutler, you want to speak for yourself?”

  Before Cutler could answer, Carson Calhoon said, “Swear him in. I want to ask him questions. I want to know who this man is that killed my grandson.”

  Cutler stood up slowly. “I’ll testify,” he said, and he came, with Debnam following, shotgun ready, to the lectern, put his hand on the Bible, and was sworn in.

  “Your name?” the coroner asked.

  “John Cutler.”

  “I’ll ask the questions!” Carson Calhoon cut in. “Where you from, Cutler?”

  Cutler turned to face him. “The Indian Territories originally. Then from Arizona and ... a lot of other places. I get around.”

  “What are you, a gunfighter?”

  “No,” Cutler said. “I’m a hunter, a trapper, a wolfer ...”

  The old man leaned forward, raking Cutler with his eyes. “You don’t look like a man makes his livin’ skinnin’ lousy coyotes and lobos.”

  Cutler’s mouth twisted. “I don’t skin lousy coyotes and lobos except when I catch ‘em accidentally. I go after the rogue animals, the killers. Maybe you’ve heard of the Big Bend Panther that nearly wiped out the stockmen down there, or the Victorio Wolf that played hell in the Davis Mountains down in Texas. I took those two. If there’s a reward on a critter’s head, I go after it. But it’s got to be a big reward, enough to make it worth the trouble.”

  “Then what you doin’ in the Big Horn country? We got no big-bounty stock killer around here.”

  Cutler hesitated. Then he said, “Personal business.”

  “I want to know,” the old man insisted. “For all I know, you may be lyin’, a gunfighter sent in to kill Calhoons. We got lots of enemies.”

  “Maybe you better answer the question,” the coroner said.

  Again Cutler hesitated. Then he nodded. “All right,” he said. “I was tracking a gri
zzly up in the Big Horns. One I followed all the way from Colorado.”

  “A grizzly?”

  “That’s right. A big, snake-headed silvertip, his left hind foot gnawed off to a stump, a white blaze on his shoulder where a bullet took him.”

  “Who paid you to go after him?” Calhoon croaked. “Nobody around here . . .”

  “No,” Cutler said. “I want him for myself.”

  The old man shook his head. “I don’t believe that. You own no land here, no stock. Why should you care about a bear up in the Big Horns?” He raised a shaky, clawed hand and pointed it at Cutler. “I’ll tell you what I think you are. I think you’re a gunfighter brought in by some of the maverickers still got a grudge against us after the Johnson County War. There’s plenty of folks want to see the Calhoons wiped out. Now, man, you tell the truth—who hired you to start killin’ us off? And don’t hand us no more guff about a grizzly!”

  John Cutler looked at the Calhoon patriarch for a long minute, and under the gaze of his gunmetal eyes, Carson Calhoon seemed to shrivel, but in a voice that rang like a hammer on steel, “What I told you is no guff. I want that bear because he killed my wife.”

  He sucked in a long breath and now his eyes swept the room. “He may kill somebody else before he’s through, because he’s rogue all the way through. So maybe, since he’s on your range, you’re entitled to know about him.” He was not seeing the people in the room, now; his mind was full of dreadful pictures that took every ounce of will to blank out. “After I quit being a lawman in the Nations,” he went on tonelessly, “I got married, settled down on a ranch in Arizona. The grizzly showed up, started killin’ stock—not to eat, but because he liked to kill. He had an old bullet wound, I guess, that still hurt so it drove him mad. Anyhow, I put out traps for him, and finally I caught him. Only . . .” He hesitated. “Only, I waited too long to check my trap line. Time I got there, he’d gnawed off his foot and got loose. I took off after him, huntin’ him through the hills. What I didn’t count on was him doublin’ back. I missed him, and when I got back to the ranch . . .”

  Now his voice trembled slightly. “My wife. He had come right into the ranch yard after her, while she was hanging out clothes. What he did to her . . . When I found her, she was still alive, but just barely; she died in my arms. The child she was carrying inside her died with her.”

  He regained control. “I went after him, and I’ve been on his trail ever since. Most silvertips, they take a territory and stick to it; not this one. He’s always on the move, always traveling, except when he dens for winter in high country where the snow’s deep enough to keep him safe. For two years, now, he’s stayed one jump ahead of me, but sooner or later . . . Anyhow, he’s gone to ground up in the Big Horns now, and I can’t get to him until spring. But I’ll be back for him then.”

  He stopped; and the hush in the room was total.

  “Meantime,” Cutler said, “if you spot him, shoot him on sight. He’s got no fear of man, none at all. He’ll come right into a yard, right into a house, if he takes a notion. He’s crazy, really insane, a lunatic of a bear. He’s killed more than once, and he’ll kill again if he gets a chance.” He broke off. “That’s why I’m here, after him; he’s what I want and I don’t give a damn about Calhoons. Unless they get in my way when I come back to take him.” He looked at the old man. “Satisfied?”

  Carson Calhoon did not answer. But the boy beside him, the one with two guns, stood up. “No,” he said. “A Calhoon’s dead. Bear or no bear, that’s all that counts.”

  The coroner stepped forward and his voice was harsh. “Sit down, Billy. What happens next is up to the jury, not to the Calhoons. You understand?”

  Billy Calhoon glared at him. Then his father muttered something and the boy dropped back to the bench.

  The coroner turned to face the jury. “Gentlemen, you’ve heard the evidence. You want to render a verdict now?”

  The five men looked at one another. Then they shoved their chairs around, formed a little group, whispered among themselves. They could not have conferred over a minute before they turned back to face the coroner. One of them stood up.

  “We got a verdict,” he said. “We, the coroner’s jury, find that Cass Calhoon came to his death through buttin’ in where he wasn’t wanted and bracin’ the wrong man. He brought it on himself. The verdict is justifiable homicide and self-defense. Far as we’re concerned, John Cutler goes free.”

  There was a stillness in the room. Then Carson Calhoon drew himself up; for a moment it seemed that he would actually rise on his crippled, withered legs. His eyes raked over Cutler and they were like glowing coals in his hawk like face.

  “That’s your verdict,” he rasped. “Mine’s different. This man’s killed a Calhoon and the sentence has been passed on him. In due time, it’ll be carried out. Billy, help me back into that wheelchair. It’s time for us to head for Johnson County.”

  And nobody else moved as the two-gunned boy lifted the old man into the chair and the rest of the Calhoons stood up with faces hard as stone, waited until Billy had wheeled his father up the aisle and out the door, and then strode out.

  Chapter Three

  It was good to be back in the desert again. Cutler checked the two black mules that drew the wagon, and the bay saddle horse obediently stopped, as did the Airedale which had been trotting along behind. Beyond a series of jumbled mesas and wind-eroded buttes, the Arizona sunset was an explosion of orange and red; and the wind that blew from the south was hot and dry. Saguaros and pitahayas made weird silhouettes against the sky, spiked arms upstretched as if in prayer. The tiny trickle of water that fell from the rock in the foot of the draw lined with scrubby willows made a whispering sound. Cutler watered the team and the bay in the little pool below the spring, then turned the animals loose to graze on whatever fodder they could find. That would not be much on this dusty track between Tucson and Sonoita, but they’d had grain in Tucson and would make out. The dog got the carcass of a jackrabbit Cutler had knocked over at long range with the Krag rifle he kept clamped behind the wagon seat, and Cutler built himself a small and nearly smokeless fire in the draw and cooked bacon and beans. By then it was nearly dark. When he had eaten, he spread his blankets and placed the saddle for a pillow. Then he took from the wagon a quart of good whiskey, yanked the cork with his teeth, and sat cross-legged on the bedroll and drank long and deeply. He never touched whiskey when he was working, but he was not working yet, nor would he be until he was deep in Mexico.

  He drank again and, sitting there, thought of Wyoming, of Tensleep and of Iris Shannon. As the whiskey bit into his blood, he remembered her as he had last seen her, naked in the hotel room which smelled of her perfume, her body ivory white, her breasts like rich, ripe fruit, her legs long and slender columns. “John,” she had whispered, “don’t go.”

  He had just made love to her and he was about to again. Holding her in the crook of a big arm, his lean, tanned, scarred torso close to hers, he shook his head. “I have to. Anyhow, a few days ago, you were begging me to leave.”

  “That was before the inquest. Things are different now.”

  “Not much.” Cutler had grinned. “Didn’t you see that old man and that kid with the double gun belts? They want my scalp. That coroner’s jury’s verdict didn’t mean a thing to them.”

  “But you’re safe here in Tensleep. They won’t try for you here. Especially not with Debnam on the lookout.” Her lips grazed his face, her tongue touched his mouth lightly, and her body pushed itself closer to his. “You could stay. You don’t have to go to Mexico.”

  “I do,” Cutler had answered. “You saw the letter.”

  “The letter,” she said bitterly. “From some ignorant old Mexican. John, please. I have all these saloons ... I need help in running them. We—you and I could make a good team and we could get rich.”

  “No. I like my booze. Maybe I like it too much. But in between, I’ve got to be out, moving. I couldn’t stay penned up, I’m not
that kind of man. Besides, that ignorant old Mexican you talk about . . . Once, down in Sonora, a horse fell with me. Saddle horn punched my gut, tore me up bad inside. There was a big question whether or not I’d live. That ignorant old Mexican took me into his house and healed me. He happens to be a brujo. In Spanish, that means witch, but it can also be a doctor or a medicine man. I still don’t know what he used, what those herbs were or how he punched and prodded me, what that meant. What I do know is that when Hernando Fernandez got through with me, I was well. Completely well. Now, he’s in trouble; and I’ve got to go to him.”

  “And leave me . . .”

  “The bear is still up there in the Big Horns. “I’ll be back in the spring when he comes out of winter den.”

  “For him,” she said. “Not for me.”

  “Why not both of you?” Cutler had murmured. Then he had said, “You’ve talked enough.” He put his mouth down on hers. Her body tensed beneath his, and that was the end of her protestations.

  Now, after the second long drink from the bottle, Cutler reached in his shirt pocket and took out the letter once again. Big Red, the Airedale, came over and lay beside him, head on Cutler’s knee, as he opened it. There was just enough light left to read the Spanish, which Cutler translated into English automatically, knowing the language well.

  “Honored Friend John,

  For too many years now we have not seen one another, but perhaps you remember me and the service I once did for you. Now, I must ask for your help in return. All I can tell you now is that my life is in danger, and only you can save me. You must come quickly.

  Always your friend, Hernando Fernandez.”

  It had followed him around the West for six weeks. Now Cutler, folding it, thrusting it back into his pocket, drank again, feeling a sense of urgency, remembering the tiny village in the jungle near the Gulf of California, the withered old magician-doctor who had so patiently nursed him back to health. Since the bear had killed his wife, Cutler placed no value on his own life. All he had left to live for now was revenge against the grizzly. But that was enough to make him want to keep on living until at last he had brought the great silvertip down. His gratitude toward Hernando was for keeping him alive to continue in his efforts. For if he had died, the bear would have won.