by J. T. Edson
“She’s back home in Indiana.”
“I never could stand lippy help in a bar,” Latter growled. “You want for me to talk to your boss?”
“Sure. He’s up to Newton.”
“I’m asking for the last time,” Latter snarled. “Where’s that Texan?”
“Him?” answered the bartender, knowing better than push the issue further. “He went off right after the shooting.”
“Out of town?” asked Latter, conscious that he now held the attention of every man in the room and that they hung on his words with morbid interest.
“No. With Clint Morley. Looked like he aimed to have his hoss fitted up.”
Glancing at the wall-clock, Latter estimated how much time had elapsed since the wounded Gavin Gartree arrived home in his companions’ arms.
“They do say that Morley does good work,” he said, half to himself.
“Best I’ve ever seen,” admitted the bartender, one of the blacksmith’s friends and supporters.
“Takes a longish while to do it, though.”
“He’s a craftsman,” answered the bartender, forgetting the reason behind the statement and springing to his friend’s defense. “Any time it’s not his best, he don’t do it. His sort don’t rush their work, but it stays done when they’re through.”
“Reckon I might still find the Texan there then?”
“You might—if you’re looking for him.”
“Fill her up again,” ordered Latter. “And set them up for the gents here, on Mr. Baines Gartree.”
No western saloon crowd ever refused the offer of a free drink, even if it mostly came with strings attached. Eagerly giving their orders, the crowd watched Latter and wondered what caused the killer’s sudden generosity. They found out after the bartender filled their orders and they stood holding drinks.
“You all saw that Texan jump Gavin Gartree and gun him without a chance,” Latter announced, his hands making gestures which no range-bred man could fail to understand. Accepting the low mutter as agreement, he went on, “Mr. Gartree wants the man who shot his son bringing in.”
“Nobody blames him for that,” one of the crowd declared.
“So I’m going to bring him in,” Latter continued.
“How about the marshal?” asked the crowd’s spokesman, guessing he was expected to do so.
“He’s yellow, won’t do his duty. Now I say that a man who takes your pay should earn it. If he don’t—well, you should take on somebody who will.”
Standing outside the batwing doors, Gruber listened to the conversation. He had been on the point of leaving when he learned where he might find the Texan, but stayed to see what game Latter played. From what he had seen of the killer, Gruber knew that the buying of drinks—even at Gartree’s expense—was more than a good-will gesture. Clearly the killer meant to improve his position in town and start the voters thinking of their present marshal’s failings.
Cold fury filled Gruber as he turned and walked away from the saloon. Up to that moment he had been unsure of whether he ought to take a hand in the forthcoming shooting. Now he knew he must cut in and make sure that Latter did not come through it alive. With that in mind, Gruber entered his office and gave thought to his actions. All too well he knew his limitations in the use of a revolver. He stood no chance at all against a trained gunfighting man like Latter when using a handgun. Not that he intended giving the other anything like a fair chance, but he knew a revolver did not meet his needs. On a rack built against the wall stood the ideal solution to his problem.
Taking down a shotgun from the rack, he broke it and fed in two buckshot-loaded shells. With the lawman’s most effective pacifier hung on the crook of his arm, Gruber went out of the rear of the office and, keeping to the rear of the town’s outer buildings, made his way towards the blacksmith’s forge.
In the saloon, Latter watched the crowd and reckoned that he had done a good piece of work. He finished his drink and smacked his lips appreciatively.
“That come out of the right place,” he declared. “Have you any more like it?”
“Sure, a couple of bottles,” admitted the bartender reluctantly, knowing his sole remaining stock of a popular brand stood on view behind him.
“They all you’ve got?”
“Yep.”
“Then take ’em down and put them under the counter. Mr. Gartree’ll pay for them and I’ll collect them on my way back.”
With that he turned and walked out of the room, conscious of, and a little pleased by, the hum of conversation which rumbled behind him. The bartender watched Latter leave, spat reflectively into a spittoon, replaced the bottle’s cork and drove it home with a blow from the heel of his hand. Despite Latter’s orders, the bartender made no attempt to remove the other two bottles and place them out of sight. Maybe his job hung in the balance by refusing to obey the orders of Baines Gartree’s man; for Latter would be riled if the last two bottles were sold on his return. However, the bartender figured himself free to take such a chance. He had travelled extensively in the West and could claim to be the only person in Bainesville who knew the small Texan.
Like a cougar stalking a deer herd, Latter studied his prey as he approached the blacksmith’s shop—and saw only the externals.
The Texan looked small, young, undistinguished; the kind of nobody one saw handling the menial chores on some trail drive. Having nothing but contempt for Gavin Gartree’s friends, Latter still felt a mite surprised that such a short-grown runt could have chilled their milk; but he put it down to luck. Anyway, he expected no trouble in handling the cowhand. Nor would the other’s small size and general air of inconsequence make Gruber look any better in the town’s eyes when they thought of the incident.
Of course, with Clint Morley standing by as a witness, Latter knew that he must go through the motions of giving the Texan a fair chance. If it had been any of a number of men around Bainesville standing there, Gartree’s name alone would have been enough for Latter to dispense with formalities and drop his victim in the easiest, most convenient manner. The blacksmith was different. Even during the short time Latter served Gartree, he had heard Morley’s name mentioned bitterly on more than one occasion. If there was one man in Bainesville with the brains, pull and personality to defeat Gartree in an election campaign, Clint Morley could claim to be he. So far Morley had not interested himself in local politics, but Latter knew that Gartree lived in fear that someday the smith would.
Thinking about Gartree’s fears brought up another line. The politician ought to be very grateful for the removal of a dangerous rival. Maybe it would be possible to drop Morley and lay the blame on a wild shot from the Texan’s gun. Latter doubted if any coroner’s jury would question him too deeply if he pulled it off. Not only would killing Morley earn Gartree’s financial gratitude, but also strengthen Latter’s hold on the politician. Nobody would believe that he did not act under his employer’s orders.
However, before he could reach that stage, he must force a fight with the Texan. Being a hunter, Latter studied his prey and knew the best way to goad it into a fatal charge.
“Hey, beef head!” he barked, coming to a halt some twenty-five feet from where the Texan stood. “Where’d you get that horse?”
Slowly the Texan turned, moving with almost cat-like alertness so as to be clear of the paint. He expected trouble, for nobody called a son of the Lone Star State by the disparaging name ‘beef head’ unless looking for a fight. One glance told the Texan all he needed to know about the speaker.
Not that Latter adopted any fancy, ‘menacing’ stance; with feet spread, knees slightly bent and right hand hovering with crooked fingers over the Adams’ butt. Such, like leaning on the gun butt, might be the way of an experienced youngster trying to look the part of a tough, fierce, desperate gun fighter. The skilled professional never telegraphed his intentions in such an obvious way. In fact, only a man fully conversant with the gunfighting breed would have read the menace in the way Latter
stood. The Texan read it—and prepared to meet the challenge.
“I said where’d you get that paint,” Latter repeated.
“What’s it to you?” countered the Texan.
“I’m the local law.”
“Without a badge?”
“Let’s just say that the marshal deputized me and didn’t have time to find one.”
“Let’s say I believe you,” drawled the Texan. “In which case, I broke him after he was taken wild in the Ronde River country of Texas.”
Mocking disbelief, calculated to infuriate a man likely to be conscious of his lack of heft in a land of big men, came to Latter’s face as he looked the Texan over from head to foot.
“You broke that big horse?”
“I did,” agreed the Texan, no sign of anger in his voice, but flat challenge edging his quiet tones.
“Maybe you did—and maybe you didn’t,” purred Latter. “All I know is that that horse looks mighty like one that Colonel Wilkins bought a piece back. Only I never saw you riding for him.”
“I never saw you before, either, hombre,” drawled the Texan. “But I’ve seen your kind often enough.”
“My kind?” spat Latter.
“Hired guns, hombre. Taking pay for killing and not caring how you do it, as long as you do it safe for you. Did Baines Gartree send you after me?”
Latter stiffened a shade, his anger rising at the insult. Then he realized that the Texan was doing to him what he aimed to do to the Texan.
“I came here as a deputy, looking for a horse thi—”
“Now hold that there ” Morley began, but was himself prevented from finishing his speech.
“Leave him be, Clint,” the Texan interrupted quietly. “He’s been sent after me and I’ll take him here and now rather than have him dogging my trail when I ride out. This way he’ll have to face me.”
Suddenly Morley became aware of a change in the Texan. All the levity and friendliness had gone and a grim, deadly big man replaced the easy-going cowhand. In that moment Morley knew that he did not need to intervene. Professional killer Latter might be, but he would not find the Texan easy meat.
Although Latter managed to retain some of his expression of bored competence, fury glowed in his eyes. Such an expression was one of the main weapons in the armory of a professional killer, conveying an air of certainty that he would be alive at the end of the affair no matter how it turned out for the other. Like Morley, he saw the change in the Texan and for the first time began to realize that mere inches alone did not necessarily make up the man. However, he had gone too far to change his plans for a safer method of handling the Texan.
“I still want to know about that hor—” he started.
“Don’t waste my time!” snapped the Texan. “We all know that Gartree sent you after me. Now earn your pay—or get the hell out of my sight.”
Never before had a prospective victim acted in such a manner and Gartree felt just a touch uneasy. He realized that he faced the real thing, a man fully conversant with the situation and ready to meet it. Taking the Texan might not be the sinecure Latter fondly imagined.
However, the killer knew a way by which he could gain the vital edge that spelled the difference between life and death.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, shrugging his shoulders in an innocent-appearing and disarming manner. “Could be that I’ve made a mis—”
The shrug changing into a stabbing motion of the right hand in the direction of the Adams’ waiting butt. Made with such a preface, the move never failed to give Latter the start he needed.
At Latter’s first move gunwards, the Texan’s left hand flipped across his body to the white handle of the right side Colt. Even as his lower three fingers curled around the hand-fitting curve of the butt, his thumb closed over the web of the hammer. Like Gartree during his abortive attempt to draw, the Texan began to pull back the hammer immediately—but with one very big difference. So smoothly did the Texan move—and so fast—that the Colt cleared leather before its hammer reached full cock. Nor did the Texan’s forefinger enter the trigger guard until the barrel slanted away from him. At no time during the three-quarters of a second it took the Texan to draw and fire his first shot was he in danger from a premature discharge.
Almost everything appeared to be going in Latter’s favor. His opening move gave him sufficient start to close his hand on the Adams’ butt before the Texan’s fingers reached the Colt. With a six inch barrel, the Adams had the advantage of an inch and a half less length to clear its holster and, being double-action, the gun did not require cocking with the thumb before it could fire—although this latter did not prove to be the blessing some observers might expect. Considerable pressure was required to press the Adams’ trigger so that it activated the mechanism, causing the hammer to rise to full cock and then snap back on to the waiting percussion cap; far more than required to perform the same operation on the thumb-cocked Army Colt. That factor—along with the Texan’s amazing speed—made the Colt just a shade quicker to get off the first shot:
And in such a situation tenths of a second counted.
Flame lashed from the seven and a half inch barrel of the Texan’s Army Colt even while the Adams’ hammer drew back. Struck in the chest by a conical .44 caliber bullet, Latter jerked back violently. Doing so caused him to swing his gun out of line and when the hammer fell, it sent the bullet out to miss the Texan by a couple of inches.
Although hit by the heavy bullet and staggering under the shock induced by its arrival, Latter kept his feet, retained his hold of the Adams and tried to bring it back into line. Smoothly cocking his Colt, the Texan shot again. He acted without a moment’s hesitation, following the way a trained lawman would under the circumstances. Once more lead tore its numbing, agonizing way into Latter’s body and ripped his heart apart. Uncontrolled fingers opened, the Adams slid free and Latter went down in a limp pile on the ground.
“Watch your left!” Morley bellowed.
Gruber came on the scene at the same time as Latter, but did not make his presence known. Arriving unseen in the alley between two houses some fifty yards from the blacksmith’s shop, he made a disturbing discovery. There would be no chance of his moving in any closer, no cover to keep him hidden from Latter and the Texan. Not that Gruber aimed to move in any closer when he could do his work from a safe distance—and, with the shotgun in his hands, he thought he could.
Bringing up the gun, Gruber squinted along the double tubes, aiming the tiny bead foresight on Latter. He did not press the trigger straight away, for he remembered Gartree’s orders. Not until after the Texan died at Latter’s hands must he cut in. Public sympathy would be on the side of a man who shot down a hired killer; and unlikely to censure the methods used to do so.
Even as Latter started his draw, Gruber squeezed the shotgun’s forward trigger. At which point things began to go wrong for the marshal of Bainesville.
Morley never knew just why he happened to glance away from the center of attraction at that particular moment. It may have been that some primeval instinct gave him warning of danger; or a momentary squeamishness in the face of sudden and violent death. Whatever the cause, he turned his head, saw Gruber standing in the background, read the message of the raised shotgun and yelled his warning.
Too late the marshal realized that Latter came off second best in the corpse-and-cartridge affair. Before he could correct his mistake, he heard Morley’s shout and spooked like an owl-scared rabbit. Beginning to alter his aim, he saw the Texan whirl to face him, dropping forward to the ground while turning. Then the shotgun bellowed and its burned powder smoke momentarily hid the blacksmith’s shop from Gruber’s sight.
Nine .32 caliber buckshot balls hissed through the air, spreading out in an invisible, roughly circular pattern which increased in size—and in one way grew less dangerous—with each passing yard. At close range, all nine balls would have found their mark in the Texan’s body. As the range increase
d, so the balls spread out and a lessening number reached their intended destination.
Fifty yards was no range at which to rely on a shotgun in a fight. Nor, if it came to a point, could it be termed an ideal distance to shoot a pistol over when one’s life stood as the stake.
In many ways the 1860 Army Colt could claim to be the finest percussion-fired revolver ever manufactured. Built from finest grade materials and by master craftsmen, its mechanism offered simplicity of operation, maintenance and repair. Its streamlined shape gave it smooth handling qualities and its .44 caliber packed the necessary punch to knock a man staggering with a single hit, taking much of the fight out of him. On only one major detail could it be faulted; and it must be admitted that the Army Colt had not been designed for the work its fault entailed. Lacking a top-strap over the cylinder, a formal rear sight could not be fitted and the V-shaped notch carved in the tip of the hammer lip made an indifferent substitute. Such an arrangement did not make for accurate long distance shooting.
However, long training had taught the Texan how to make the most of his gun. Dirt erupted close by where he landed, showing that at least one of the buckshot balls ended its flight harmlessly. Ignoring the sight, the Texan rested his elbows on the ground, supported his left wrist with the right hand and took fast, but careful, aim.
Through the dispersing powdersmoke, even as he drew back the second hammer on his weapon, Gruber saw flame spurt from the Texan’s Colt. Something struck under the barrels of the shotgun, jerking it up into the air with considerable force.
Skilled as he might be, the Texan had not shot deliberately to knock the gun from Gruber’s hands. At that range, with his life at stake, he could not dare try such fancy gun-work. His bullet had been aimed at Gruber’s body, which offered the largest and most easily accessible target. After flying fifty yards, the bullet might have missed completely, but luck guided it to strike the shotgun’s barrels.
Luck or not, Gruber knew just how narrow his escape had been. Somehow he did not relish a duel with a man capable of such devastating skill with a handgun. At any moment he expected the Texan to cut loose again, for he cocked his Colt on its recoil, and doubted if the other would miss a second time.
