Tishomingo Blues

by Elmore Leonard

  Groove and Cedric, both stripped to the waist and wearing shades, stood in the road at the back of the truck.

  Now Groove was giving high-fives to Hector and Tonto, and Cedric was raising the truck’s loading door, running it up on its tracks, Hector saying, “Man, give us the iron, we got to move.” He said to Dennis coming up the bank, “Leave your rifle there to pick up when we come back. Cedric’s passing out the six-guns, tell him you want one or two and if you think you gonna need an extra loaded cylinder to snap in when the Colt’s empty—you think you gonna do all that much shooting. Pick up the one you snap out. Any people you shoot, pick up their guns and bring ’em back here. Except the general.”

  Hector, looking at Jerry approaching the bank worn-out, trying to breathe, said, “We pick up after the general,” and said to him, “How you doing, you all right? You have cramps? You feeling dizzy, kinda sick?”

  Dennis was up by the truck. He watched Jerry seem to cave in and sit down on the slope, watched him take off his coat and ease back to lie flat in the coarse grass, his shirt soaking wet. He didn’t answer Hector.

  “You sweating,” Hector said, “that’s good. You have a heatstroke you don’t sweat none. Drink some water, it will pick you up.”

  Dennis took off his shell jacket and dropped it on the slope. He believed he could hear the popping sound of rifle fire coming from the battlefield, but it was so faint he had to stop and listen before he heard it again.

  Tonto said, “They still playing.” He took a Colt from Cedric and handed it to Dennis, Tonto in his headscarf and sunglasses looking into Dennis’ face but not saying anything.

  Dennis held the Colt in two hands and turned the cylinder to hear it click to each load and heard Jerry’s voice, his growl:

  “Gimme a Colt. I’m leaving this fuckin sword.”

  And Hector saying, “It’s too heavy, uh?”

  Insulting him again. Dennis thinking, He does it on purpose. And heard Jerry saying he could swing the fucker all day but he wasn’t stupid, use a sword against a guy with a gun.

  Close to Dennis turning the cylinder, listening to the clicks, Tonto said, “It has beauty, uh, you think?”

  Dennis nodded, feeling the shape of the grip that had always fascinated him. He said, “This is the gun they used in Lonesome Dove. They’re in the bar, somebody throws up shot glasses and Robert Duvall and the other one pull these big irons and shoot the glasses right out of the air.”

  “Tommy Lee Jones,” Tonto said. “You want two?”

  Dennis said, “You’re expecting me to get into this with you?”

  “What else can you do, Jerry watching?”

  “I don’t know. Hide behind a tree.”

  “What did he tell you, he sees you not shooting?”

  Dennis watched Hector go down the bank to hand Jerry a Colt and an extra cylinder. He said, “It’ll happen fast, won’t it, when they come?”

  “They all come the same time it will.”

  “You shoot them, then what?”

  “They go in the truck, also the pistols we brought, and nobody ever finds those guys. They disappear.”

  “How do you explain it to the cops?”

  “Explain what? We weren’t here.”

  Dennis said, “I know I shouldn’t be.”

  “But you are.”

  “You actually think,” Dennis said, “I’d shoot one of those guys?”

  “I don’t know,” Tonto said. “You don’t either.”

  “Well, I don’t intend to shoot anybody.”

  “Yeah, but you still don’t know.”

  Robert Taylor in his youth was a down-the-block-and-around-the-corner kind of runner, not ever an oval-track runner or a cow-pasture runner, the ground all uneven and waiting to wrench your ankle, put you out of action at the wrong time. He saw the danger of it on the first charge, running with his sword pointing at the Yankees, yelling the famous Rebel yell, shit, and tripping on the rocks and ruts and clods of earth hiding in the weeds. On the second charge he took a hit and said, “I’m hit, boys, get the motherfucker shot me,” and stuck his sword in the ground as he went down, first picking his spot, not a hundred feet from the trees on the north side. He crawled over that way as the Rebs fell back and lay there till the next charge came out of the orchard. Robert pulled the sword free, waved it in the air, and saw Hector and Tonto and Dennis break from the line and run into the trees. He waited, giving them time, wondering if Jerry would keep up. The Rebel charge came to a halt so they could fire their guns, have some fun, and Robert looked back toward the orchard to see Walter off his horse, with Arlen and his retards, Arlen careful, looking this way to watch him. “Well, watch this,” Robert said and took off—forgot the sword, fuck it—got into the trees and remembered where he was going: through these woods and across the clearing and through some more trees to the truck waiting on the road. He asked Groove if he’d jacked it. Groove said no, man, he bought it off the bread people, the Wonder Bread bakery in Detroit being a casino now, dealing in the other kind of bread. Hey, shit, and there they all were, coming out of the trees on the other side of the clearing Robert thought looked like a park that hadn’t been kept up. This was where he believed the shootout would happen.

  Let’s see, he’d put Hector and Tonto over on one side, down a ways in cover, Groove and Cedric on the other. Arlen tries to edge around the clearing either side, he’d run into somebody. Robert would stay back here with Jerry and Dennis—Dennis not looking too happy to be along.

  Arlen started out loosey-goosey, sure he could get ‘er done. Hell yeah, catch Robert in the woods loading his gun, the smoke not use to doing it, dropping bullets in the leaves. Step up to him and bam, one less smoke. Arlen believed he had the advantage knowing the woods, pretty sure General Grant and the two greasers would set up to hit him coming out of the trees into those glades. Get the smoke quick and don’t even worry about the diver.

  But now he didn’t know where his boys were, slow coming into the woods and not paying attention or following him like he’d told them, Fish and Eugene still fighting over Rose. He’d hear them thrashing around in the trees, yelling at each other, both with a load on from the shine. He’d stop to listen and then wouldn’t hear nothing. They sounded like they were somewhere off to the right. They couldn’t be far. Newton could be with them but was drunker’n either one and wouldn’t be any help. They might’ve stopped to load their weapons. He’d told them to do it before they left the orchard, but then was busy getting Walter off his horse and hadn’t checked to see if they had. Arlen would bet that was it. He thought of sending Walter to find them, but knew Walter would run off he had the chance. All Walter did was piss and moan about this not being his business and he shouldn’t ought to be here, till Arlen said, “I’ll shoot you you don’t shut up and do what I tell you. Stay close to me. We come to that open part, I got an idea how to play it.”

  Walter said, “You think they’re gonna be standing out in the open waiting for you?”

  Arlen the campaigner, gear hanging from him, a loaded Colt in his hand, said, “If they ain’t, I believe I can bring ’em out.”

  Newton was the one remembered. He said, “Shit, we doodlin’ around in the woods with empty weapons. Didn’t Arlen tell us?—Yes sir, he did. But you two’re barkin’ at each other—shit, I forgot.” Newton carried a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun that was dark and scarred and looked almost old enough to be authentic. He brought shells from his pocket and slipped them into the side-by-side barrels.

  Once they’d loaded their pistols, Newton pulled the cork on his canteen, still some corn whiskey in it, to pass it around. He said to Eugene, “Fish gonna pay you anything for his killing Rose?”

  That started them again. Eugene saying Rose was worth more to him than any amount of money. Fish saying, “Then I don’t have to pay you nothing. Which I wasn’t gonna anyway.”

  Newton believed it was Fish’s sissy tone of voice that hooked into Eugene—prissy, what it was, irksome—a
nd got Eugene to slash the barrel of his Colt at Fish and cut him across the forehead. Fish was stopped and fell back. Eugene, the hook still in him, went at Fish to cut him again. Fish saw him coming and thumbed the hammer of his Colt and shot Eugene in the belly. It doubled him over, Eugene going “Unnnh,” like he’d been punched, but was able to straighten enough to put his Colt on Fish and shoot him in the face almost the exact same time Fish fired his second one and shot Eugene through the heart.

  In the quiet that settled, Newton said, “Jesus Christ.”

  They heard the shot and then two more that sounded almost like one and they listened until Robert said, “That’s not us.”

  They were in the trees on the north side of Robert’s park. Jerry came over and he told him the same thing he told Dennis, and said, “Let’s wait and see what’s going on.”

  A couple of minutes passed and Jerry said, “We’re taking too fuckin long. I’m going home.”

  Tonto appeared as he was saying it.

  “Two dead. The Fish and I don’t know the other one.”

  “Not Arlen?” Robert said. “Or Kirkbride?”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “The one on the horse.”

  “No, it wasn’t him.”

  There was a silence.

  “Eugene,” Robert said. “It was Eugene.” He waited a moment, thinking about them in the camp, and said, “Jesus, Christ.”

  When Arlen looked up hearing the shots he turned toward the sound—from the same direction he’d heard his boys yelling at each other. Walter wanted to know who was that, as Arlen thought about it and said, “Shit, those’re ours. Pistol shots, so it wasn’t Newton, else I’d have voted for him.” Arlen said, “I don’t want to believe what I suspect happened.” And said, “Jesus Christ.”

  Walter stood there crouching his shoulders. Arlen looked at him, studied him, and then nodded, giving approval to what he was thinking of doing, and said, “Come on.” He brought Walter through the woods, a hand on his belt, to where they got close enough they could look out at the glades—at sunlight slanting through green ash and sweet gum standing out there—but not be seen from across the way.

  “Go on,” Arlen said, “show yourself and let’s see what happens.”

  “You crazy?” Walter said. “I know what’ll happen.”

  “Go on, or I’ll shoot you myself.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t care. Stand there and look around.”

  “What if they shoot?”

  “I doubt they will. They do, I’ll see their smoke and know where they’re at. Go on, goddamn it, or I’ll tell Traci not to fuck you no more.”

  Arlen came behind him to the edge of the woods, gave him a shove, and Walter walked out to the glade, the pistol held low at his side, took five strides across shafts of sunlight and stopped. He stared at the dark wall of trees no more than thirty yards away. If they wanted to shoot him he was dead.

  Arlen’s voice behind him said, “Go on out’n the middle there.”

  Walter didn’t move.

  Now another voice called to him from the wall of trees. “Walter, come on over here or get out of the way. We won’t shoot you.” Robert’s voice, the voice calling again, “Come on, Walter.”

  But he still didn’t move, afraid if he ran Arlen would shoot him. But now he saw Robert—there he was, like one of Old Bedford’s colored fellas in his kepi, Robert stepping out in the open and waving his arm to come on.

  Arlen yelled, “Shoot him,” and fired past Walter. It got Robert to strike a sideways pose and return fire, squeezing off shots, Arlen firing back, Walter in the middle:

  Walter aware of himself in his Confederate officer’s uniform, standing there like the statue of some general nobody ever heard of, a stone figure in a park, of no more use than a place for birds to land and take a shit.

  It was how he felt as the two-bit ex-convict yelled at him again, “Shoot, goddamn it!”

  And this time he did. Walter half-turned raising his Colt and shot Arlen in the chest. Bam. It felt so good Walter thumbed the hammer back and shot Arlen again and watched him fall to the ground dead.

  They came out of the trees from three sides: Hector and Tonto walking up to Walter; Groove and Cedric coming this way toward Robert, Dennis and Jerry with him, Jerry growling.

  “This is how it’s suppose to happen, these clowns shoot each other? This was some fuckin idea.”

  “I don’t see nothing wrong with how it’s turned out,” Robert said, “except there should be one more, Newton. ‘Less he passed out along the way. He might’ve been with Fish and Eugene and took off seeing the odds change.”

  Robert didn’t sound worried about him.

  Dennis watched Tonto down there taking Walter’s gun from him. Now the two walked over to where Hector was looking at Arlen.

  “Checking him out,” Robert said. “How about old Walter? Surprised the hell out of me.”

  Jerry said, “Let’s get outta here.”

  It sounded good to Dennis. But now he saw Hector down there saying something to Walter and saw Walter reach into his pants pocket and bring out something—a coin, yeah, because now he was going to flip it with his thumb, Hector and Tonto watching.

  Dennis, Robert and Jerry were spread out and watching from about sixty feet away. Jerry still growling.

  “The fuck’re they doing?”

  “It looks like,” Robert said, “they gonna see who wins the coin toss.”

  “For what?”

  “Have to wait and see.”

  They watched Walter toss the coin. He let it land on the ground and all three looked down, Hector and Tonto nodding their heads. Now Tonto handed Walter’s Colt to Hector and Hector handed him Arlen’s.

  “The fuck’re they doing?”

  Robert didn’t answer him this time.

  They watched Tonto step away from Hector and Walter. They watched him pull a Navy Colt from his belt and stand looking this way, a gun in each hand.

  He said, “Jerry?”

  Jerry raised his voice. “The fuck’re you morons doing?”

  Tonto said, “Take your shot, man. Is in your hand when you feel like it. You go, I go.”

  Jerry looked at Robert. “He’s serious?”

  “He’s calling you,” Robert said.

  “You fuck. You set this whole thing up for this?”

  “That’s your big ego talking. No, man, this part’s an afterthought.”

  “You’re making a mistake. You know I’m connected.”

  “Jerry, come on. You never had a friend in your life.”

  “I raise the piece I’m going for you.”

  “Don’t matter who you raise it at,” Robert said, “long as you raise it. Go on tend your business, Tonto’s waiting.”

  Dennis, listening to all this, was thinking, Jesus Christ. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing and couldn’t help thinking, Shane.

  It happened within the next few seconds. Dennis wasn’t even sure if Jerry raised his gun or if it would’ve mattered. He saw Tonto bring up both of his—at his legs and the next second straight out in front of him firing, emptying both guns, and Jerry was blown off his feet.

  Dennis didn’t move. He watched Robert walk over to look down at Jerry.

  “One in the chest. One in the neck it looks like, and one in both arms. Arlen, before—what’d he fire, three times?”

  Groove, standing over to the side with Cedric, said, “He got off four at you, you come out waving your arm.”

  Robert said, “So Tonto hit him four times out of I guess eight, huh? Man, that’s shooting. See how they grouped? Where’s Jerry’s coat at?”

  Groove said, “I’ll get it,” but didn’t move. “You never told me this was in the plan.”

  “Man, I didn’t know it myself,” Robert said, “till I saw the coin toss. You know, we’d talk about it. Anybody had a good idea . . . I saw the possibility soon as Walter shot Arlen, but didn’t know Tonto and Hector did
too. Man, we doing fine here.”

  Dennis still hadn’t moved. He listened, not saying a word. Heard Groove say, “We put them in the truck?”

  Robert said, “No, don’t have to now. See, here’s Hector coming with Walter’s gun, the one shot Arlen. He’s gonna put it in Jerry’s hand. Look down there. Tonto’s put his in Arlen’s hands. Now he’s telling Walter no, he didn’t shoot Arlen, the general did. It might be a stretch, two-gun Arlen Novis hitting the general four times. I hope he was known as a deadeye ’cause that’s how the police, the CIB, all those people are gonna see him.” He looked over. “Dennis, you understand what happened?”

  Dennis said, “I was standing right here, wasn’t I?” an edge to his tone, though not because he resented the question or Robert’s cool. It was being here, seeing two men shot to death and not knowing what to do because he was part of it and didn’t want to be.

  Robert was staring at him.

  Robert said, “You weren’t here.”

  “Like I wasn’t there,” Dennis said, “when Floyd was shot. I see three different guys killed in front of me and I’m nowhere around.”

  Robert stared another moment and turned to Groove and Cedric. “Get Jerry’s coat and Dennis’, the rifles, anything we brought from the reenactment. Put what you brought back in the bread truck and call me tonight. I want to know you got home.”

  Groove and Cedric moved off and now Dennis saw Tonto coming toward them, Walter still back there standing over Arlen. Now Robert was giving Tonto a high five, calling him “my man Tonto Rey” and saying nice things to him, that he saw it coming, but still was caught by surprise, loved how they set it up, loved the gunplay, Dennis seeing how natural violence was to them, no big deal. Tonto looked at Jerry on the ground and said, “Today we had enough of him.” He walked over to Hector, and Robert turned to Dennis again.