Outlaw in Paradise

by Patricia Gaffney

"Who?"

  "Girl they wanted me to marry. You wouldn't recollect her name, would you, Mr. Gault?"

  "You're joshing me, aren't you? That horse-faced hyena? She had a name?"

  Shrimp looked at the ground, chuckling; the crafty look wavered. Then he cocked his head to the side. "What town in Coos County they from? The Weaver boys."

  Jesse let go of his grin, let it fade slowly, slowly, like an unhurried black cloud covering up the sun. When it was all gone he narrowed his one eye on Shrimp Malone in a stare that could've frozen bathwater. "What did you say to me?"

  "What? Nothin'. I didn't say nothin'."

  "I think you asked me a question."

  "No, I didn't."

  "I think the question had a tone to it."

  "No, it didn't."

  Every slow step Jesse took toward him, Shrimp took a hop backward. "I think it had a tone of disbelief."

  "No, it—"

  "Disbelief. Which says to me you think I'm lying."

  "No, I don't! No, I don't!" He threw up his hands. His crutches stood alone for a second before they toppled over. He looked down at them blankly, realized they weren't holding him up anymore, and pitched face first in the dirt.

  "Oh, shit fire," Jesse swore, hurrying over and hauling the old fool up by the belt and the collar. "You okay?"

  "Ow! Shit! I think I broke it again."

  "No, you didn't." He scooped up the crutches and stuck them under Shrimp's armpits. "Quit that caterwauling, you're all right."

  "No, I ain't."

  "Yes, you are. Now, what was I saying?"

  Suddenly Shrimp was fine, not a thing wrong with him. "I don't recollect. Nothin' important. Well, so long, Mr. Gault, nice talkin' to you."

  "Maybe I'll see you around sometime."

  Shrimp said sure, definitely, you never know, the whole time he was hobbling down the street as fast as his good leg could go.

  Stinking, ungrateful old goat, thought Jesse. Seven hundred bucks were limping out of sight, and he'd bet Shrimp Malone wouldn't even buy him a drink if they met up again. Ingrate.

  Will Shorter's camera was all set up. Jesse posed for pictures standing up, sitting down, smoking a cigarette, pointing his guns. Before he was finished he'd drawn a crowd, and a couple of people in it started making suggestions. "Take off your hat," somebody advised; an old lady called out, "Couldn't you try to smile just once?"

  "That's it," Jesse decided, breaking a particularly badass pose. Will came out from under his black leather covering looking confused. "We're done here, Shorter. Where's my lunch?"

  They went over to Jacques' restaurant and took a corner table. Maybe it was all the ice-cold beer he slugged down to quench the thirst he'd worked up standing in the hot sun. Or maybe Will Shorter, Jr., was a lot smarter than he looked. Either way, when the reporter casually drew a notebook out of his vest pocket and said, "So. How'd you get started in the gunfighter business, Mr. Gault?" Jesse told him.

  OUTLAW COMES TO PARADISE

  Exclusive Interview—Secrets Revealed

  How Bad Luck Started Wounded War

  Vet Down Path of Violence

  "Listen to this part," Glendoline told Ham and Willagail. All three were lying on Cady's bed, while Cady sat at her dressing table, trying to fix her hair. " 'A man doesn't set out to be a gunfighter. But sometimes circumstances don't leave him a choice,' Gault confided to this reporter. T fought for the Union, but after the war, sick and disabled, I came home to find carpetbaggers on my family's land, living in my father's house. It wasn't legal, but the law wasn't going to help us. Traitors and scalawags found a way to force us out and leave us with nothing, so I found a way to re-recip—' "

  "Reciprocate," Cady supplied without thinking.

  "Ha!" Glen pounced. "I thought you couldn't be bothered reading about him. You said we were wasting our time."

  "You are. I can't believe that blowhard's life story is on the front page, and the news about Lyndon Cherney swindling thousands of dollars from the Mercantile and escaping in the middle of the night isn't even mentioned until page three."

  "Go on, Glen," Willagail urged, dismissing Cady with a wave. "Get to the good part."

  "Yeah," said Ham. "Get to the part 'bout how Mr. Gault have to kill somebody to get his house back."

  "Fat lot of good it did him," Cady couldn't help throwing in. "He had to leave Kentucky to evade the law, and he still doesn't have a home."

  Glendoline shushed her and went back to the story in the Reverberator. The paper was a weekly—it came out on Fridays—but this story was deemed so newsworthy, it merited a Wednesday Special Edition.

  " 'I won't lie to you,' Mr. Gault said. 'For the sake of justice, I took the law into my own hands. I righted a wrong with the only weapon they left me: my gun. What I didn't count on was the government I'd fought and nearly died for siding with the very thieves who'd stolen everything from my family.' "

  "It ain't right," declared Ham.

  "What else could he do?" Willagail sighed, lying back, punching Cady's pillow, making herself more comfortable. "I don't blame him for doing what he had to do. I think it's admirable."

  Cady snorted. "He shot a man and ran away. That's admirable?"

  "But it was a fair fight—it says so right here—and they didn't leave him any choice. I think it was brave. And sad, because now he can never go home."

  "And he loved his home," Glendoline said sadly. "The Kentucky bluegrass. Doesn't it sound beautiful? I love that word—bluegrass. And all those horses his daddy raised. What a life."

  "All lost," Willagail murmured with her eyes closed. Cady thought she might cry.

  "Well, I for one think Will Shorter's lost his mind." Cady pulled all the pins out of her pompadour and let it fall past her shoulders. She was tired of that style. Maybe a French roll? "Notice how he doesn't ask any tough questions. He just lets Gault go on and on, and it ends up sounding like the life of Robin Hood—some hero instead of a hired killer."

  "I don't b'lieve he's a hired killer," Ham said sulkily, picking the stuffing out of a hole in her quilt. "What make you think he's a hired killer?"

  "Because he kills people. He does admit that, at least."

  "Yeah, but only the bad guys."

  "And they always drew first. Look, it's right here somewhere..." Glen ran her finger down a column of newsprint, searching for the place where Gault said he was innocent.

  "Oh, so because he says it, that means it's true? You three, I'll swan." They all smiled; "I'll swan" was one of Levi's sayings.

  "Say the part about how he gets wounded in the eye," Ham said. "An' how he be okay now."

  Even Cady quit fooling with her hair and turned around for that. This was the part in the article she'd read and reread numerous times, fascinated, wanting to believe it but finding it all but incredible.

  "It was during the battle of Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia, that Mr. Gault suffered the devastating head wound that left him partially blind and deaf. T was just a kid. I lied about my age to enlist in the First Kentucky Volunteers, and they put me in the mortar and gun crew. Confederate shells hit the artillery wagon I was unloading, and a box of case shot blew up in my face. But I was lucky—our commander, General McCook, died that day in the battle. The war ended during the year I spent recuperating in a Union hospital. I went home scarred and crippled, only to find out I'd lost everything.' "

  Glen paused to fish her handkerchief out of her pocket and dab at her eyes. "Keep going," Ham said impatiently, and Cady sympathized: they were just getting to the good part.

  "It was at this point in the interview when Mr. Gault confided a secret to this reporter, a secret never before revealed in any recent press accounts, or even hinted at in the numerous rumors that constantly circulate around him. 'About a year ago, I started seeing something out of my right eye. At first it was just a gray smudge, like smoke, but lately it's been getting clearer and clearer. I went to a special eye doctor in San Francisco, and he told me I ought to start exercising
it by taking the patch off a few hours every day. I'm up to about half a day now. I don't see perfectly, and I don't expect I ever will, but I can see something, and that's a miracle to me. I attribute it to God and clean living."

  That was the line that always got her. She'd be reading along, thinking, Isn't that wonderful, get to the "clean living" part, and burst out laughing.

  "What's so funny?" said Willagail. "It is a miracle."

  "I can't wait to see 'im without the patch." Ham jumped off the bed and ran over to Cady. "Bet he look good." He threw his arms over her lap and hung on her, swaying. "Las' night he gave me another quarter, Cady. Say he found it on the flo', but I think he jus' like givin' out money. I like him a lot, don't you? He talk to me like he a old friend."

  "An old friend, eh?" She rubbed his back, smiling.

  " 'Don't miss Part Two of this exclusive story," Glendoline finished. " 'Coming Friday: A dramatic account of the gunfighting career of a living Western legend. Read how Gault killed his first man; read how he gunned down every challenger to his skill and deadly quickness; read how a jammed six-gun almost ended his career—and his life!' "

  "No doubt about it," Cady marveled, swatting Ham on the behind to make him move so she could finish dressing. "Will Shorter has completely lost his mind."

  ****

  "With or without?"

  "With," Nestor Yeakes decided after a moment's thought.

  Jesse put his eyepatch back on. Sticking his thumbs in his gunbelt, he glared at the camera. Beside him, Nestor, dressed in his Sunday clothes and a flower in his buttonhole, pressed his hat to his chest and grinned.

  "All right, now, hold it... hold it... hold it... gotcha." Will came out from under the black camera hood, sweat running down behind his eyeglasses and dripping off the fuzzy ends of that pitiful little growth he called a mustache. "Okay, that's it for a while. I need to get out of this sun."

  "Fine with me." Jesse wiped his forehead with his sleeve and walked over to a bench under the porch roof of Rogue's Tavern.

  Nestor trailed after him "When you reckon the picture'll be done?" he asked, still grinning.

  "Ask Will, he's the photographer." But Jesse was getting eighty percent—four dollars—on every five-dollar photo Will sold. Peanuts; not even worth his time. But old habits die hard. It wasn't so long ago that he'd had to scrounge for every dime, and some of the ways in which he'd made his precarious "living" he'd just as soon forget. Back then, five bucks a pop for standing next to some awestruck villager and having his picture made would've felt like a miracle.

  "I took Bell Flower out for a run this morning, Mr. Gault."

  "Bellefleur," Jesse corrected; he'd checked the name on Cherney's sale papers. "Yeah, I saw you ride out." From his rocking chair on the balcony. "How was she?"

  "Better'n I thought she'd be. Nervous, o' course. Fact, she'll probably never get over being scared altogether. But she wants to do what you tell her, and that's a real good sign. Reckon Cherney didn't break her heart after all. Didn't have time."

  Jesse grunted. Nestor didn't look like much, and when he talked he didn't sound like much. But he knew horses, Jesse was finding out, and for that alone he respected him more every day.

  "Wanted to say... I like what you did, Mr. Gault."

  "Yeah, all right." He started hunting in his pockets for a match.

  "Dunno how you did it, but I surely do admire you for doin' it."

  "Okay. Take Peg for a run this evening, hear? And comb him good afterward. And give him a bath tomorrow. He likes a bath about once a week. Like me.

  Nestor cackled and spat tobacco juice. "Sure will. Sure will, Mr. Gault." Like a lot of other folks, Nestor wasn't scared of him anymore. Jesse knew he ought to care about that more, but he couldn't seem to work up a good goddamn. He'd had a nice time today posing with the likes of Sam Blankenship, the real estate and insurance man, and Floyd and Oscar Schmidt, a couple of coots who sat outside the grange hall all day every day, minding everybody else's business. Jersey Stan Morrissey, who owed Jesse some poker money, came out of the dark, cool Rogue long enough to get his picture made, then scuttled back inside like a mole, blinded by the light. Even Shrimp Malone had limped over for a photograph. He'd moved back into his boardinghouse after Jesse gave him his money back, and he looked a little cleaner, and a lot healthier now that he was eating three squares again.

  Will Shorter came over and flopped down beside Jesse on the bench. "This a good time to continue our interview, Mr. Gault?" he asked politely, mopping the back of his neck with a big handkerchief. "Folks say they're really looking forward to tomorrow's edition."

  "Sure," Jesse said agreeably. "Shoot."

  "Heh heh." Will always laughed before he made a little joke, to be sure you got it. "I sure wish you'd rephrase that, Mr. Gault. It makes me nervous when you say 'Shoot.'"

  Jesse said, "Heh heh," back, to humor him. Will had been asking him questions on and off all afternoon, in between photographs. These weren't quite as easy to answer as the last time. Jesse figured somebody had told Will Shorter, Jr., to toughen up, quit being a sucker. Most likely Will Shorter, Sr.

  The newspaperman whipped out his notebook, flipped pages. Uncapped his fountain pen, cleared his throat. Sent Nestor a meaningful look.

  Nestor ignored it and lowered his backside to the curb, all ears.

  "Ahem," Will said again, frowning, but Nestor stayed clueless. Finally he just shrugged and plunged in. "Mr. Gault, some people are interested in knowing how it is that you seem to be all healed up from your devastating wound. Uh, how it is that just three months ago, according to the Oakland Courier, you were shot so badly in the right hand that you said you were going to give up gunfighting. Hang up your Colts and retire."

  Will had been doing his homework. "Who's interested in knowing it?" Jesse demanded, bluffing indignity. "You saying somebody thinks I'm lying?"

  "No. No. No, no, no, no, no."

  "Because I'd like to know who they are. I'd like to hear 'em say that to my face."

  "No, no, no." Violent throat clearing. "Not at all." He unwrapped a folded-up piece of newspaper he found in the back of his notebook. "It's just that here in the Courier you say..." He ran his thumb down a column. " 'My hand's shot to...'—uh, they put 'h_.' Heh heh. Guess you said heck." Jesse didn't laugh back. "Uh, 'My hand's shot to hell. I'll never draw a six-gun again. Now some might call that lucky, but I don't. I never knew when or where, but I always knew how I'd die—by fire, taken out by the hand of some faster triggerman than me. Now I got to recalculate.' "

  "Yeah, well, I had a lot more to recalculate than I thought. See this hand?" He flexed his fingers, turned his palm up and down. "Three months ago it was paralyzed. But the papers got it wrong—the bullet hit me in the arm, right here, between these two tendons." He pointed to a spot under his sleeve. "But it was temporary paralysis. After the wound healed, I started to practice and exercise. Did nothing but draw and target shoot for eight weeks. And you know what? I'm faster now than I was before. Anybody who doubts that is welcome to come and try me." He said that with a snarl, but Will missed it. He was too busy scribbling.

  "What happened to the man who shot you?" he asked next.

  "I'd give a lot to know the answer to that."

  "He seems to have disappeared. Did you ever know his name? What do you think became of him?"

  "I think he ran scared. Because he didn't beat me to the draw—I beat him. The only reason he plugged me is because my gun jammed." He whipped out his right-hand Colt, causing Will and Nestor to jump, and fanned the cylinder a few times. "She let me down," he said sadly. "Not her fault, o' course. I'm suing the Winchester Company—did I tell you that? No? There's a scoop for your paper. I buy my .45 cartridges straight from the factory in New Haven, Connecticut, and what happens?" He shook his head in disgust.

  "Let's see your arm," Nestor said. "Scar must be pretty bad."

  Will looked up at that.

  "It's not pretty. I don't care to show it.
A man's scars are private."

  Will and Nestor continued to stare at him.

  " 'Specially a man in my position. And I'm not just talking about my reputation." He looked down at his hand and made a slow and somehow dignified, even a tragic, fist. "This scar, it's not the only one I've got. But I don't show the others, either. I don't know how else to explain it. I'm a man. I've got... pride."

  Nestor nodded solemnly, pressing his lips together hard to show that he was touched, but in a manly way.

  Will finished scribbling and looked up. Behind his glasses, his magnified blue eyes were positively fawnlike. He'd swallowed every word, and it was all hogwash. Jesse didn't even know what he was talking about.

  "Hi, Mr. Gault!"

  Good timing, he thought, watching little Ham, Levi's kid, barrel toward him on the boardwalk. He stood up when he saw who was strolling along behind him.

  "I heard you was takin' pictures," Ham exclaimed, breathless, barely screeching to a stop before slamming into Jesse's hip. "Can I get a picture with you? Can I?"

  Jesse rested one hand on Ham's head and whipped his hat off with the other. "Afternoon, Miss McGill." He flashed his winningest grin. "How're you today? A little warm this afternoon, though it looks like we might get a shower later. Been shopping?"

  Finally she had to stop, all the words he'd flung at her making it impossible for her to keep walking without saying anything. Plus he was keeping Ham stationary, and she couldn't very well go on without him. "Good afternoon, Mr. Gault," she said coolly. "Yes, it's warm today." She had a big hatbox by the handle in one hand, a hankie in the other; she took the opportunity to dab at her temples and under her nose. She had on a blue dress with a kind of apron thing in front, very demure, and a starched white collar that had wilted in the heat. She looked about eighteen with her hair like that, tied behind her neck in a big white ribbon bow. He wished he could take her for a ride. Right now. Scoop her up on Pegasus and run along the river with her, fast as the wind.

  "I tol' you he look good," Ham said to Cady, and before his eyes, for no reason Jesse could think of, she blushed. Bright pink, pretty as a rose. "Can I git my picture took with Mr. Gault, Cady?" Ham begged, big brown eyes wide and hopeful on her face.