The First Fast Draw

by Louis L'Amour

  “I’ll not permit that.” Chance spoke angrily. “There might be shooting.”

  Katy smiled at him. “That is why I shall go along, so there will be no shooting. I want to be sure this prisoner really gets to prison.”

  Chance hesitated, not knowing how to stop her. I knew he intended to hang me, and realized that only Katy stood between the hangman’s rope and me.

  Yet I could wait and listen, and maybe there would be a spot of luck between now and the moment of death. At the same time the slightest wrong move would have me ballasted down with lead.

  “It’s all right,” I told Katy. “Nothing will happen.”

  Joel Reese laughed sardonically. “Don’t be too sure of that. I’ve already got the rope.”

  There were men here who feared me, and fearing me they hated me because of their fear, and Katy herself might be in danger if they became too drunk or too reckless to care. Yet any mob is composed of cowards, and each hopes to commit brutality and cruelty within the safety of the mob. He does not wish to be singled out.

  So I chuckled, and never did I feel less like it, but I knew whatever must be done must be done now, while they were still sober-headed enough to listen and to know fear. “You have the rope, Joel, but have you eyes that see in the dark? Eyes that can see an aimed rifle before it hits home?”

  Oh, I had their attention now, and I meant to push home the point. If I reached Jefferson or Boston or wherever they meant to take me, I would be a surprised man. Yet much as they wished to hang me they wanted to live even more.

  “Did you believe I was alone here? The boys are out there now, just beyond the edge of darkness, and they’re watching. If anything happens to me not one of you will live.”

  “You’re lyin’!” Reese yelled at me. “You’re lyin’, damn you!” But there was a note in his voice that sounded from the fear in his belly.

  We rode out, and I was tied to my mule which Reese had found, and my feet tied to the stirrups. There was a man on either side of me, three before and three behind, and others scattered about, and each man rode with a gun ready in his hands.

  The words I had spoken as a warning had touched them to the quick. Once, when out in the forest a twig snapped, they jumped in their saddles, lifting their rifles.

  “No use to fight,” I told them. “When they want you they’ll take you. Right now you are alive because they have seen that I am unhurt. If anything happens to me not one man jack of you will live to see town.”

  “Shut up!” Reese said angrily. “When we get you into town it will be a different story.”

  The stocky man on his right leaned toward him. “I want a hand on the rope that hangs you, Baker! That there rope will sell for a pretty penny. Feller could cut it into three- or four-inch lengths and sell them as the rope that hung Cullen Baker! I could stay drunk for a month on what I’d make from that!”

  Out in the dark forest an owl hooted, only suddenly I knew all my talk had not been empty talk, for that owl hoot was Bill Longley! From the road ahead I heard it again, only that time it wasn’t Longley who hooted, but one of the others.

  A moment later and the sound was repeated from behind and on both sides.

  Reese swore savagely, but the fright in his voice was plain to hear. The riders behind began to bunch up as if afraid of being caught alone.

  “You’d be better off turning me loose,” I said. “If I should fall off my horse there’d be a lot of dead men around.”

  There was no chance to rescue for my own crowd were outnumbered three to one, and I’d probably be killed in the fight. So bunched tightly we rode on into town, and the jail was opened for me.

  Chance came to the cell door. “So now we’ll see the end of you, Cullen, and we’ll get the rest of them, too.”

  “Not a chance.”

  “We’ve drawn them close now, so we’ll just bring in the soldiers from the other towns and draw a tight line around outside of them. Then we’ll just move in toward town and bring them all right on in.”

  When I said nothing to that, Chance added. “We’ve informers. Bob Lee won’t last any longer than his next visit home, and Longley will go with him.”

  “You had a bit of luck catching me,” I told him, “you won’t be so lucky with them.”

  He laughed. “We had word you were there, although not from a regular informer.”

  From the window I could overlook about an acre of grass-covered lot and could look diagonally up the street. Judge Tom Blaine’s office was in view: he was an old friend of Katy’s.

  It was warm and still. Nothing moved outside in the night. From a few windows along the street, light fell into the black avenue, and overhead wind rustled in the leaves of the elms along the walk. Occasionally someone walked up the street and their heels echoed on the boards of the walk. Off across the town a dog barked.

  Reaching up I took hold of the window bars and tried them with my hands. No man I’d ever met but one German in the mines of Colorado had been able to lift as much as I, or pull as much. Taking hold of the bars I tested them with my strength, for although set in stone such bars are often loose.

  They held firm, and I tried a little harder, and nothing happened. Well, that was a remote chance, anyway. Prowling the square cell, which was about ten by ten, I tried to find some weakness, some way in which I could get out. The door into the space beyond the bars seemed the best chance, but I dared not try that with a guard in the outer office. It looked like the barred door might be set only in the wooden frame, and if that was true I’d have it out of there, door and all.

  Somebody had informed. Who? Katy? That was impossible. What about that schoolteacher, Warren? But he had talked so much about Katy getting hurt if the soldiers came, and it was unlikely. He had no real reason.

  Some time after that I fell asleep, and I opened my eyes with a rooster crowing next door, and I sat up.

  One thing I had…the derringer.

  When they had taken my Colts and rifle they had looked only so far as the bowie knife, and no farther. But in this country derringers were relatively unknown, and they were considered a woman’s gun. There was nothing very feminine about those two .44 slugs.

  The man who brought me food was a stranger wearing a blue uniform coat. He was tall, stooped and gawky. His big Adam’s apple bobbed as he looked at me. “You that there Cullen Baker?”

  “I’m Baker.”

  “They fixin’ to hang you.”

  “When?”

  “Maybe tomorry. I dunno.” The guard eyed me thoughtfully. “You married.”

  “I’m not so lucky,” I said. “Only two things I’ll leave behind are a mule and a corn crop.”

  He looked at me and blinked his eyes. “A corn crop? They said you was an outlaw.”

  “First crop I ever raised all to myself. I used to help my pa, but he died while I was out West. It’s a good crop, only I couldn’t do all I wanted, hiding in the swamps and all.”

  “What about the mule?”

  “He’s a buckskin riding mule with an ingrown disposition. Ornery most of the time, but once started he’ll take you from here to yonder with less water and less food in more heat than any horse you ever saw.”

  “I got me a team of mules in Pike County.”

  From the front of the jail a voice raised. “Hey, Wesley!”

  The food he brought me was not bad. Side meat, eggs and hominy grits, so I ate it, thinking of the night. The coffee was strong enough to float a bullet.

  I’d not see that corn crop again. It was like my other dreams and would come to nothing, but one thing I did know, some way, somehow, I was not going to hang. The more I looked at that door the more I liked it, and the warmer I felt toward the slipshod carpenter who’d put it up. It did not look like it was bolted to the stones and if it was just fitted I could take it out of there like you’d take a picture out of a frame.

  Wesley brought in a newspaper. It was a week old but it had things to say of me. They were calling me “the s
wamp fox of the Sulphur” and they were calling it a “new rebellion” and writing wild stories of all I was supposed to have done.

  Standing at the window I saw Seth Rames out there. Seth was a hard man, and a close friend to Bob Lee. He had been through some fighting in that country, but he was not a known man in Jefferson. They knew him over west of here, and in Louisiana, but not right about here. He was standing on the street lighting his pipe.

  Nobody needed to tell me why he was there. Seth Rames was a tough man and he was no Reconstruction man, but dead set against them with at least one soldier killing held against him. If Seth was here it was because he was a friend to my friends, and was a man not known in Jefferson. So they were thinking about me, and they were planning. But I almost wished them away from there. I wanted no man in trouble because of me.

  While I was still figuring what Seth Rames might be doing out there, there was a footstep outside the cell door and I turned around to see John Tower standing there.

  He glanced back toward the cubbyhole of an office that was in front of the jail. Then he said quietly, “Lacy was afraid of this.”

  “She warned me.”

  “She also,” he spoke very low, “wants you out. And she’ll still buy your land.”

  “Is that what she wants to get me out?”

  John Tower’s lips tightened and there was not much that was pleasant in the way he looked at me. “She’s not that kind,” he said, and his voice was mighty cold. “She wants you out, that’s all.”

  “We won’t have any argument there.”

  “Have you any ideas?”

  Considering that, I decided I had none. All I knew was that somehow I was going to get out of here, but the walls were stone and they were thick and there was a guard around most of the time. The door frame was of two-by-sixes and they were fitted into the stone door in a mighty snug fashion, with the barred door hung on this frame. A man might take that frame out of there if he had time and there was no one around to hear. It would be a big job, but I was figured to be a mighty powerful man and might do it. But I didn’t want my life to rest on that, but as a last resort I’d sure enough have a try at it.

  At noon Katy Thorne came to see me. Her face was pale and her eyes looked larger than I’d ever seen them. She was frightened, I could see that.

  “Now see here,” I said, “what’s worrying you?”

  “You ask that? Oh, Cullen! I’ve been afraid of this, so afraid!”

  Well, I looked down at my hands on those bars and then at her. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, her going to marry him and all, but I’m no kind of a hero and a bad lot generally, and the way I figured it there was only one answer.

  “Chance told me somebody tipped them off. And it was right after Warren left your place.”

  “Cullen!” she exclaimed. “You can’t believe that! Oh, but that’s absurd!”

  “Who else then?”

  That stopped her, and she stared back at me, as if thinking something out, then she said, “Maybe Judge Tom could stop this.”

  “The hanging you mean?” At her surprised expression, I added, “I know all about it.”

  We were quiet for a few minutes and then in a low voice I whispered to her to get hold of the boys, at all costs, and to warn them to stay away from Jefferson and me, that I was being used as bait for the lot of them. They were going to hang me, they’d said that, but one thing worried me. How were they going to do it? Now all they had to do was hang me, all right, but without a trial and all folks might start asking why, and some of those Reconstruction people might ask questions themselves. Some of them were honest, I’d heard.

  Right about then I had an idea that I didn’t like even a little: Suppose there was a jail delivery by Sam Barlow? No sooner did I have the idea than I was sure that was just how Chance would want it, and no blame could fall on anybody but a fight between outlaws. It was just the sort of thing Barlow would want to do and that Chance would think of.

  “Katy, you’d better get out of town. Go back to Black-thorne and stay there. There’ll be trouble before this is over, but if you can stop the boys from trying anything I’ll be forever grateful.”

  We talked then as folks will, about much of nothing, but making talk because I didn’t want to see her leave, and from the way she acted she wasn’t overeager to go.

  Whatever happened now must happen here in town, and I could see trouble building around like the thunderheads piling up before a storm.

  “Cullen, I’m frightened.”

  She was, too. Guess it was the first time since I was a youngster that anybody worried about me. Well, right now I was worried about me, too. I’d no idea of hanging to any tree for the pleasure of Chance Thorne and those others. But I didn’t see much of a way out.

  Sure, I had the derringer. In one way it was less than good to have. It had two bullets. It would be fine if nobody called my bluff, but if I had to shoot with that gun and only two bullets…well, it would be an invitation from them to mow me down, and they’d do it.

  “You’d best go home, Katy. I’m afraid there’ll be trouble here, and if there’s careless shooting you might get hurt.”

  “I’m afraid for you.”

  Well, I grinned at her, although I wasn’t feeling too much like grinning. “Forget it,” I said. “There’s no use both of us being scared.”

  When she turned to go she started to say something, but then she stopped and hurried out, and I stood there looking after her and I knew that no matter how she felt, that I was in love with her and had been for some time. Maybe I’d been afraid to admit it to myself, because I’m usually a man who speaks up for what he wants, and I back up for no man in trying to get what I want, but with her it seemed so hopeless that I guess I’d shied off from even admitting to myself that I was in love with her.

  When she was gone something inside me exploded. Maybe it was anger: I don’t know about that, for a man has many emotions and they are not as easily catalogued as folks would have you believe. Anyway, something happened and I just busted wide open inside, and I was suddenly frantic to get out of there. Not that I was wild or anything. I’m not the sort to go off my head. Inside I was wild but outwardly I was cold as ice, and I really began thinking. Get a man or an animal in a trap and they really do some thinking. There had to be a way out of here, and I meant to go out, but I didn’t want to die in the process. There was no difference to me between being hung or shot. I just had a healthy urge to go on living, for no matter how bad it was there was always a chance it could get better, and that I could make it better. Now, with the whole West opening out for me, I wanted out of here.

  So I paced the floor. Again I tried the bars on that window—nothing doing. So I went to the door and took hold of the bars of the door and I braced my feet. With all my strength I began to pull, not wanting to be free at the moment, but to test the strength of that door. Nothing stirred, yet somehow I had a feeling there was weakness there.

  The floor was solid stone and well fitted together. Circling the walls I could find no weakness there. The door was a slim chance and it meant going out through the front, and if I made too much noise that guard would be in on me, but tonight I was going to try it. Believe me, I was.

  So I went back to my cot and laid down. It was almost two in the afternoon, and it was hot.

  Wesley came to the door with a fresh bucket of water. He put it down and handed me a gourd with a handle long enough to reach the bucket through the bars. “He’p yo’self,” he said. “A man gits mighty dry.”

  Maybe I napped for a spell. [?? 118]but it couldn’t have been long for the first thing I know Chance Thorne is there at the bars looking in at me. “Sleeping your life away?” he said. “If I had only a few hours to live, I’d be awake and enjoying it.”

  Well, I got up off that crummy cot and stretched myself, and took my time, looking bored all the while. Not that I was feeling that way. I was wishing I could get through those bars and have a try at him with m
y hands. “Don’t let it bother you. I’ll live to spit on your grave.”

  He didn’t like it. Chance wanted me to beg, he wanted me humble, but surprisingly enough, suddenly I felt very good. Maybe it was because no man really believes he’s going to die at a time like that. Right up to the last minute he’s hoping something will happen to save his bacon. Whatever was going to save mine had better happen pretty sudden.

  “Don’t think you’ll get out,” Chance told me, “Bob Lee can’t help you. Nobody can. Lee is too busy hunting a hole himself. This town is ringed with soldiers, and others are searching the swamps like they’ve never been searched. Peacock had men watching for Lee at his home, and you know how any Peacock hates a Lee, and Bob in particular. If he isn’t dead within a few hours, he’ll die within the next week or two.”

  Right now I was thinking of tonight and I wanted to feel him out. Turned out it didn’t take any careful words to get at the truth, he was too sure of himself, and of me.

  “You can’t get away with hanging me without a trial,” I said. “Folks will be down here investigating right off.”

  He chuckled, and couldn’t resist a good brag. “Not if you’re hung by somebody who isn’t authorized,” he said. “Supposing the soldiers should all hear about Bob Lee being some place and take off after him. No telling what might happen here in town, you’ve made a lot of enemies, Cullen, enemies like Sam Barlow.”

  Showed I could guess how he was thinking, anyway. The worst of it was, it could happen just that way.

  What happened next I never heard of until later. It was Katy herself told me of it, and Jane Watson told me some more that she’d overhead. Jane was the name of that girl I’d helped take out of Sam Barlow’s camp, the one who was about to get whipped.

  If anybody was thinking of Jane Watson right then it wasn’t me, and I didn’t even know her name, to tell the truth. She was one person I’d forgotten all about, and never expected to see again, but the way it turned out she hadn’t forgotten me. I like folks, but never expect too much of them. We’re all human, and most folks are apt to forget favors you’ve done them, fact is, they remember the favors they do for you far better. Right then I didn’t know it, but Jane had come up to Jefferson with blood in her eye, wanting to do something for me, and later she came to see me at the jail, but first she heard a conversation that was repeated to me.