“Watch where the hell you’re goin’, mister.”
The harsh, angry voice sounded in Seymour’s ear about half a second after a hard collision against his shoulder jolted him and nearly made him drop his carpetbag. He looked around and saw a man in a big black hat glaring at him. The man wore a black vest over a red shirt, and around his waist was buckled a black gunbelt with the ivory-handled butt of a revolver sticking up from the attached holster. Seymour’s heart began to pound harder as he realized that he was looking at that most dangerous of frontier species, the gunfighter.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said. Then some demon prompted him to add, “But I believe that you ran into me.”
The man’s glare turned into a dark frown of disbelief. “I what?” he demanded.
Seymour swallowed and took a step backward. “Perhaps I was mistaken. I’m sure my own carelessness was to blame—”
“Damn right it was. Now get the hell out of my way.”
“But . . . I’m not in your way.” Seymour groaned inwardly. What was prompting him toward this foolish behavior? He went on. “I was just going down to the baggage car to retrieve my sample case.”
The angry Texan squinted at him. “Salesman, eh? I might’a knowed you was one o’ them drummers. Bunch o’ pansy-faced dudes. Why in blazes don’t y’all go back where you come from and leave folks alone?”
“I don’t want to bother anyone—” Seymour began.
“Well, you’re botherin’ me just by bein’ here! Get back on that damned train!”
The man leveled an arm at the car from which Seymour had just disembarked.
“But . . . but I can’t do that,” Seymour tried to explain. “My uncle sent me here—”
“Oh, so you’re just a flunky, is that it? I should’a knowed by lookin’ at you that you couldn’t never do nothin’ except follow somebody else’s orders. You ain’t got one damn bit of backbone!”
Seymour’s irritation warred with his nervousness. He said, “I assure you, sir, I’m just as much a vertebrate as you are.”
That was a mistake. The Texan’s eyes widened with rage. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about,” he bellowed, “but it sure sounded like you just called me a liar!”
From his limited reading of dime novels, Seymour recalled that Westerners hated being called a liar more than almost anything. He set his carpetbag down at his feet and held up both hands, palms out, in what he hoped was a peaceful gesture. “I assure you, sir, I meant no such—”
“Take a swing at me, will you!”
The world seemed to explode in Seymour’s face. He felt himself going backward, and it felt to him as if he were traveling faster than the train had ever managed at its top speed.
Then he crashed down onto his back, landing on the station platform. The impact knocked the breath out of him, so that all he could do for a long moment was to lie there and gasp for air, unmoving.
His stunned brain became aware that people were stepping around and over him, as if they saw him but at the same time didn’t see him. They didn’t care that he had just been knocked down by a madman.
That was what had happened, Seymour realized. The gunfighter in the black hat had struck him in the face. Now the man loomed over him, fists still clenched threateningly, and said, “You want some more, you little son of a bitch? Get up, damn you!” He kicked Seymour’s foot. “Or maybe you’d rather go get a gun and settle this like men!”
The last thing Seymour wanted to do was to tell this lunatic that he already had a gun. The revolver that had been given to him by Rebecca Jimmerson during that strange, last-minute visit to his rooming house was packed away securely in his carpetbag. Taking it out would require only a few moments. But that would be the worst thing Seymour could do, and he knew it. This man wanted to kill him.
He pushed himself onto an elbow and gasped, “Please, sir . . . no more. I . . . I apologize for offending you. It was . . . entirely my fault.”
The gunfighter’s mouth twisted in a grimace of distaste as he looked down at Seymour. “You’re so scared you’re about to piss your pants, ain’t you, boy?” Seymour didn’t deny the accusation, although he never would have phrased it in such a crude manner.
“What’s your name?”
“S-Seymour. Seymour Standish.”
“Seymour?” The gunfighter threw back his head and laughed. “Seymour. I reckon it suits you. I never seen a more cowardly little worm than you are. Seymour the Lily-Livered. That’s what I’m gonna call you from now on.” The man reached down and grabbed the front of Seymour’s coat. He hauled the young Easterner to his feet and then gave him a shove toward the train. “Get your damn sample case and get out o’ my sight, Seymour the Lily-Livered. You make me so sick I think I’m gonna puke.”
Trembling violently, Seymour looked around for his hat, which had come off when the gunfighter knocked him down. He spotted it lying nearby on the platform and reached for it.
At that moment, the gunfighter drew his weapon with what seemed like blinding speed to Seymour. The revolver roared. The sound was so loud it was like twin fists punching Seymour’s ears. He let out a little shriek of terror as the man’s shot struck his hat and knocked it farther along the platform. The gunfighter laughed again. “What’s the matter, Seymour? Can’t even pick up your hat?”
Seymour looked around wildly. The man had just fired a gun. Wasn’t somebody going to do something? Shouldn’t someone summon the authorities?
But the people on the platform just ignored the whole thing, as if there were nothing unusual about someone discharging a firearm in a public place.
“Get your hat,” the gunfighter ordered in a low, dangerous tone, forcing the words between clenched teeth. “Go on, Seymour. Pick it up.”
Seymour swallowed and reached for his hat again. The gun roared for a second time, and again the hat went spinning away as a bullet tore through it. Seymour lunged after it. Maybe if he could get the hat, the man would stop tormenting him. Instead, more shots blasted and Seymour had to stop in his tracks, screaming as he clapped his hands over his ears. In front of his horrified eyes, the hat leaped with every shot. It was ruined now, full of holes from the bullets. As the gun fell silent, Seymour swung around and discovered that the weapon was aimed right at him. The opening at the end of the barrel seemed as big around as the bore of a cannon as he stared into it. The gunfighter grinned over the sights at him and pulled back the hammer for another shot.
“All it’d take is one bullet,” the man said. “Just one and you’d be out o’ your misery, Seymour. And I wouldn’t have to look at that scared face o’ yours no more neither.” He laughed and lowered the hammer, then tilted up the gun barrel. “But you ain’t worth it. I’ve already wasted enough bullets on you. I ain’t a-gonna waste even one more.” He laughed again and holstered the weapon.
Seymour was so paralyzed by fear that all he could do was stand there and wait for death to claim him. It took a moment for the realization to sink in that the man wasn’t going to kill him. In fact, the man appeared to be leaving. He strode past Seymour, deliberately ramming him again with a shoulder as he went by. Seymour staggered, but stayed on his feet. The gunman stalked away without looking back. Seymour’s pulse pounded like a trip-hammer in his head. He couldn’t seem to get enough air in his lungs. He felt sick to his stomach.
“Here’s yo’ sample case, mister.”
Seymour jumped and let out a terrified yelp as the voice spoke behind him. His head jerked around as he searched for some new threat. All he saw was a middle-aged black man in the uniform of a railroad porter. The man held Seymour’s sample case.
“I . . . I . . .” Seymour couldn’t force any more words out.
“I seen that little run-in you had with that fella,” the porter went on. “You lucky he didn’t kill you, ’stead o’ just shootin’ up yo’ hat. He been known to shoot fellas before just ’cause he felt like it.”
“Wh-who . . .”
“H
e calls hisself Cole Halliday. Don’t know if that his real name or not. Prob’ly ain’t. He’s a bad man, though, ain’t no doubt about that.” The porter shook his head. “Thing is, he ain’t even the worst man in these parts. Not by a long shot.”
“Th-the sheriff . . .”
“Sheriff’s in the county seat, forty miles from here. And he can’t get no deputy to stay down here.”
Seymour ran his fingers through his hair. He was calming down some now, but he was still trembling a little. “What about the local constable, or a marshal . . . ?”
“Ain’t none. Ain’t nobody in these parts damn fool enough to take the job.” The porter set Seymour’s sample case on the platform and pushed it toward him with a foot as the train’s whistle blew. “Here you go. That the only bag you got ’cept’n that carpetbag, ain’t it?”
Seymour managed to nod.
The porter said, “You take care now, hear?” and turned toward the train.
“Seymour the Lily-Livered! Seymour the Lily-Livered!”
The jeering taunts came from behind Seymour. He twisted around and saw several children standing there, grinning and pointing at him. Obviously they had heard what Cole Halliday called him, and now they were taking cruel pleasure in repeating it.
“Stop it,” he told them, but they ignored him and continued their chanting. Seymour clapped his hands over his ears again, as he had when Halliday was shooting, and cried, “What sort of town is this I’ve come to?”
The porter paused at the steps leading up to one of the passenger cars and shook his head. With a sad smile, he said, “It’s Sweet Apple, mister. Better get used to it.”
Chapter 13
A few minutes later, Seymour found himself stumbling down the boardwalk along one side of Sweet Apple’s main street. He had his carpetbag in one hand, his sample case in the other. His ruined hat now resided at the bottom of a trash barrel he’d found in the railroad station as he made his way through the lobby. He supposed he would have to buy another hat. He had a little cash with him to take care of incidental expenses.
Like replacing a hat that had been shot to pieces by a gun-toting lunatic.
A couple of the little boys who had taunted him in the depot still trailed behind him, saying in singsong voices, “Seymour the Lily-Livered, Seymour the Lily-livered.” The other children had grown bored with that brutal sport and gone on to something else, but these two were being stubborn about it. They ignored the discouraging looks that Seymour sent back over his shoulder at them, until finally he couldn’t stand their gibes anymore.
He turned sharply and glared at them. “Stop that!” he commanded. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you to respect your elders? Stop that right now, or I’ll . . . I’ll . .
.” He couldn’t think of a suitable threat, not being accustomed to threatening anyone about anything.
“You’ll what, Seymour?” one of the boys asked with a maddening smirk.
“We ain’t afraid of you,” the other boy said. “You’re too lily-livered to do anything about it. Seymour the Lily-Livered!”
The first one joined in. “Seymour the Lily-Livered!”
Several people on the street looked at the youths, but no one offered to step in and put a stop to their taunting. A couple of men shook their heads and rolled their eyes, but Seymour wasn’t sure if their disdain was directed at the boys—or at him.
He thought he had a pretty good idea, though.
“If you don’t stop, I’ll tell your fathers!” That would shut them up, he told himself.
He saw right away how wrong he was. The feeble threat just provoked them to gales of laughter. “You just try it, mister,” one of the boys said as he wiped away tears of hilarity. “My pa’s down at the Black Bull boozin’ it up. He’ll whip your scrawny ass up one side o’ the street and down t’other if you interrupt his drinkin’.” Seymour fumed helplessly as the youngsters continued to laugh. Finally, one of the men on the boardwalk stepped forward and came toward them. “Here, now, you little jackanapes!” he said as he aimed a swat at the head of one of the boys, who dodged it easily and ducked away. “Run along and stop bothering this gentleman.”
For a second Seymour thought the little devils were going to ignore the man’s scolding, but then they turned away and started across the street, dodging around several piles of horse dung. They were still laughing, but at least they were going away now.
Seymour heaved a sigh of relief and turned to his rescuer. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I was at my wit’s end trying to deal with those two imps.”
The man was taller than Seymour and considerably heavier. An ample belly bulged the vest he wore under a brown tweed suit. He wore a bowler hat, and a waxed mustache spread its wings under a prominent red nose. That nose, and the network of veins in his cheeks, marked him as a drinking man, but Seymour didn’t care about that right now, even though he didn’t approve of imbibing alcohol. At the moment he was just grateful for the assistance.
“Better be glad you didn’t go down to the Black Bull looking for Andy’s pa,” the man said. “He gets belligerent whenever anything interrupts his drinking, just like the little bastard said.”
“You sound like an educated man,” Seymour said. “I was beginning to think that there weren’t any in this town.”
“Oh, I’m educated, but that doesn’t necessarily make me intelligent. I’m still here, aren’t I?” The man chuckled and then held out his hand. “J. Emerson Heathcote is the name. I’m the editor and publisher of the local newspaper.”
Seymour was about to shake hands with the journalist when something struck his arm. Something warm and wet splattered across his cheek. He jumped and yelled, thinking that he had been shot and that blood had splashed into his face. He gazed down in horror to see how badly he was hurt.
Instead, he saw a large clump of particularly runny horse dung clinging to his coat sleeve, just below his shoulder. Howls of laughter made him look up again. His two tormentors had returned. One of them had flung the manure at him. Now they both turned and ran, staggering and almost falling because they were laughing so hard as they fled.
“You, uh, might want to take your handkerchief and wipe your face,” J. Emerson
Heathcote suggested.
Stonily, Seymour cleaned the filth from his face. Then he started to put the handkerchief back in his pocket, stopped and looked at it in disgust instead, and then flung the ruined cloth down. He didn’t see a rubbish barrel, but he didn’t care. No one seemed to care about anything good and decent in Sweet Apple, so why should he be any different? “The newspaper office is right here,” Heathcote said as he waved toward a nearby doorway. “Why don’t you come in and sit down for a minute? You look like you need to catch your breath and get your wits about you.”
“Thank you,” Seymour choked out. “Thank you, Mr. Heathcote. I think you must be the only man with any decency left in this town.”
“I try, I try. Maybe you should get that handkerchief and clean your coat sleeve before we go in, too.”
Seymour retrieved the handkerchief from the ground and wiped away as much of the dung as he could from his sleeve. Then he threw the handkerchief into the street this time. Let the hooves of passing horses grind it into the dust. He didn’t care.
Inside the newspaper office, with its pervasive smell of ink that Seymour found preferable to the stench outside, Heathcote sat him down in a ladder-back chair and brought him a cup of coffee from a pot that was simmering on a stove in the corner. Seymour would have rather had a cup of tea, but he doubted that anyone in Sweet Apple knew how to brew one. He took a grateful sip of the coffee, and sputtered as he realized how strong it was.
“Got a little too much bite to it?” Heathcote asked.
“No . . . No, it’s fine,” Seymour managed to say. “Thank you.” He heaved a sigh.
“Is this newspaper office the lone bastion of civilization in Sweet Apple?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. We have a
school, when poor Maggie O’Ryan can convince enough of the parents to send their young’uns. And there are two churches, one Catholic and one foot-washin’ Baptist.”
Seymour had no idea what a foot-washing Baptist was, but at the moment he wasn’t curious enough to ask. He took another sip of the coffee. Now that he was more accustomed to it, he could feel the bracing effect it was having on him. Heathcote took off his bowler hat, hung it on a peg, and sat down at a paper littered desk. “What brings you to Sweet Apple, Mr. . . .”
“Standish,” Seymour supplied. “Seymour Standish.”
“Yes, I heard what those rapscallions were calling you. What was that about?”
Seymour hated to confess to the humiliation he had suffered at the train station, but there had been plenty of witnesses on hand. If J. Emerson Heathcote was any sort of a newspaperman, he would have heard the story by nightfall anyway. So Seymour told him what had happened, trying not to paint himself in too unflattering a light.
That wasn’t easy to do, though, considering the circumstances. The story made him sound like a craven coward. Which, he supposed, he was . . .
Since Heathcote had asked what brought him to Sweet Apple, Seymour moved on to that subject in short order, telling him all about Standish Dry Goods, Inc., of Trenton, New Jersey, and how his Uncle Cornelius had sent him here to establish the company in West Texas. Heathcote listened with rapt interest, asking a question every now and then to keep Seymour talking.
Finally, Seymour said, “When I first heard the name of the place where my uncle was sending me, I thought it would be a nice, refined town.”
“Well, you were way off about that, weren’t you? Some folks call Sweet Apple The Lord’s Waiting Room, because hardly a day goes by here that we don’t have at least one killing. Sometimes there’s more than that.”
“Has, ah, today’s killing already taken place?”
Texas Gundown Page 11