The Gunhawks (Cutler Western #2)
Page 13
Calhoon said, “I’ve had my chance. I had it against those men at the mine and in that fight today, and ... I didn’t come after you because of Cass, Cutler. Cass was a sonofabitch, and the world is better off without him. I didn’t even come after you because of the promise I made my Daddy. I came because I wanted to prove something to myself. Prove that I was a man, as big a man as Jeff or Hosea or any other Calhoon.”
Cutler just stood there with his gun in his hand.
“I heard them brag about it,” Calhoon said. “All the fighting and the killing. Well, I’ve had the fighting and the killing, now. I’ve had all of it I ever want. The hell with Jess and Hosea and their brags. The hell with Daddy, too, a bitter old man hatin’ the whole world because he’s about to die and scared of it. I’m takin’ something back to Wyoming a lot more important to me than your ears.”
Cutler looked at him a moment longer. “You mean that?”
“1 mean it,” Calhoon said.
Cutler holstered the gun in a blinding motion. “You could have taken me, maybe, you know.”
Calhoon came toward him, hands still up. “It ain’t that important to me, now.” He halted in front of Cutler. Then slowly he lowered his right hand and thrust it out.
After a second, Cutler took it.
Billy Calhoon said, “When you get ready to come for the bear, don’t worry about the Calhoons. I’ll see they don’t git in your way.”
Suddenly Cutler was no longer tired. “I appreciate that. I’ll hold you to it. I aim to winter in Villa Hermosa, but in the spring, I’ll be in Johnson County.”
“The latch string will be out,” Calhoon said. “By then, Sharon and I will be married. Hell, if the first kid’s a boy, we’ll name it John Hernando Calhoon.”
Slowly, Cutler grinned. “Well, now, is that a fact,” he said. “In that case, I got a wedding present for you.”
“Yeah?” Calhoon’s eyes widened.
“Yeah,” said Cutler. “Come with me.” He turned, shoved through the noisy crowd toward the plaza. Calhoon followed.
Cutler pushed all the way to the well. The jaguar hung there, head down, massive, already beginning to bloat in the heat. The crowd, seeing Cutler, made room, staring, and its uproar died as he suddenly drew his knife.
Then it broke into a cheer as, with two quick strokes, he cut off the jaguar’s ears and turned and handed them to Billy Calhoon.
“You promised your old man to bring back a killer’s ears from Mexico. I’d hate to make you out a liar.”
Calhoon looked down at them, covering the palm of his hand. “By God,” he said, “they’ll have to satisfy him.” And he laughed. “John, let’s go have a drink.”
“Hell,” Cutler said. He looked at a slim, coppery girl standing near him, eyes fixed in rapt admiration on his face. Slowly she winked one eye. Cutler reached out, as she shyly covered her features with her rebozo, and put his arm around her waist, and drew her to him; she came willingly and the crowd laughed and cheered. “Hell,” Cutler said again. “I aim to have another whole bottle. Come on, Billy.” And, holding the girl tightly, he walked with Calhoon down the street toward the cantina.
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About the Author
Ben Haas aka John Benteen was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1926. His imagination was inspired by the stories of the Civil War and Reconstruction as told by his Grandmother, who had lived through both. Ben’s father was also a pioneer operator of motion picture theatres, “…so I had free access to every theatre in Charlotte and saw countless films growing up, hooked on the lore of our own South and the Old West.”
Largely self-educated (he had to drop out of college in order to support his family), Ben wrote his first story, a pulp short for a western magazine, when he was just eighteen. But when he was drafted into the Army, his dreams of becoming a writer were put on hold. He served as a Sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1946, and saw action in the Philippines.
Returning home to Charlotte (and later Sumter, in South Carolina) in 1946, Ben married Douglas Thornton Taylor from Raleigh four years later. The father of three sons (Joel, Michael and John), Ben was working for a steel company when he sold his first novel in 1961. The acceptance coincided with being laid off, and thereafter he wrote full time.
A prolific writer who would eventually pen some 130 books under his own and a variety of pen-names, Ben wrote almost twenty-four hours a day. “I tried to write 5000 words or more every day, scrupulous in maintaining authenticity,” he later said.
Ben wanted to be a mainstream writer, but needed a way to finance himself between serious books, and so he became a paperback writer. Ben’s early pen names include Ben Elliott (his grandmother’s maiden name), who wrote Westerns for Ace; and Sam Webster, who wrote five books for Monarch. As Ken Barry he turned out racy paperback originals for Beacon with titles such as The Love Itch and Executive Boudoir. But his agent was not happy about his decision to enter the western market, and suggested he represent himself on those sales. Ben had sent a trial novel to Harry Shorten of Tower Books. Ben’s family remembers it being A Hell of A Way to Die, written for Tower’s new Lassiter series. It was published in 1969, and editor Shorten told his new author to create a western series of his own. The result was Fargo.
The success of Fargo led to the Sundance series. Jim Sundance is a half-Cheyenne gunslinger who takes on the toughest jobs in order to raise funds to fight the corrupt Indian Ring back in Washington.
The short-lived John Cutler series followed, and then perhaps Ben’s crowning achievement, the Rancho Bravo novels, published under the name Thorne Douglas.
Ben Haas died from a heart attack in New York City after attending a Literary Guild dinner in 1977. He was just fifty-one.