Riders of Judgment

by Frederick Manfred

  “What you probably forgot, Jesse, was that we all got that Hammett neck. You can’t hang a Hammett.”

  Jesse snarled. “Lord save me if the next time I don’t butcher you. In fact, just to make sure, by the Lord the next time I will eat you. Without salt and pepper too. Just to make sure that when I see you after’s you got to be hant.”

  “Do it and you’ll have you as fine a case of the skitters as ary a man ever had in Bad Country.”

  Jesse whacked his glass down on the bar, bottom first, hard. “Set’em up again, Avery. Five. Some more of your kill-me-quick rye. Mitch, Stalker, Hog, Ringbone, and me here.”

  Nodding solemnly over his neck bloat, Avery slid off his stool and poured.

  Jesse drank up. He smacked his lips. He twirled the sweeping ends of his walrus mustache. “Harry, I tell you plain. You’re a goldurn rustler. And not only that, you’re a goldurn coward. And not only that, all of you goldurn Hammetts is cousin lovers. Your tough brother Cain included.”

  Harry looked at Avery. “This Jesse here, when he gets snock-ered, he really gets low-down mean drunk, don’t he?”

  Avery shrugged. His neck bloat rolled.

  Harry said, “Avery, pour me some snake poison. Two. For me and myself here.”

  Jesse lowered his head. His darksome face became savage. “A thief. A coward. And a cousin lover.”

  “Too bad my brother Cain ain’t here to speak for himself.”

  “Thief. Coward.” Jesse picked up the bottle and poured himself yet another shot. “Thief. Coward. Burn me, there it is, Harry Hammett, if you want it. And if you don’t want it, burn me, there it is anyway.”

  “Durn if it ain’t.“

  Jesse hung his hand near the butt of his .45. “You ain’t gonner fight?“

  “Draw on you here? Five agin one?”

  “Why not? You’re Hammett, ain’t you?”

  “If I did, I’d have about as much sense as last year’s birdnest.”Jesse studied a while.

  Mitch whispered to him under a pudge hand.

  Jesse brightened, eyes opening high in his darksome face. “Harry, I hear ye’re a heller with your fists.”

  “I ain’t never bragged about it.”

  Jesse placed his right hand on the bar. The ruby on his ring finger glowed like a geranium petal. “If I took off my gun, would you fight me then?”

  “No.”

  “If all of us here took off our guns and stored’em behind the bar with Avery there, would you fight me then?” Jesse spoke low, drawling.

  “No.“

  “Harry, I’m going to stay here all night for my meat if I have to.”

  Harry swore. “You galvanized Yankee you. Go hunt yourself a hole and pull it in after y’u.”

  Jesse’s face screwed up fiercely savage again. Calling a former Confederate soldier a “galvanized Yankee” meant the death gobble. Such a critter was a captured Confederate turned loose by the Union on the promise that he’d go West and stay West for the duration of the Civil War. Jesse roared, “That did it! Goldurn you, will you fight with yore fists or must I just shoot you down like a gramma-whore?”

  Harry’s wild one lunged around inside; finally broke halter. “Sure I’ll fight you with my fists if it comes to that. No man on this old earth can insult me, as you’ve just did, not even if you had you a hundred stars on your vest.”

  “Done! Boys, unpack your hardware and hand it all over to Avery. We’re gonna have us a fun.”

  Heels stumped hard on the wooden floor; guns clunked down on the bar; tables were pushed back for more room.

  Jesse and Harry squared off. Jesse held up his arms in the old-fashioned style, fists balled up in front of his face. Harry stood with his fists at his sides.

  “You ready, cowpuncher?”

  “Ready.”

  Jesse made a bull’s rush for Harry and tried to catch him with a lifter. Harry sidestepped to the right and as Jesse went by tipped up a boot toe and tripped him. Jesse fell hugely, piling up against the log door, hat falling off and rolling away in a curve under a table. Jesse got up, bellowing. He rushed Harry again, this time with head down and with his arms spread out like the pincers of a great crab. Again Harry sidestepped, to the left and further away, except that this time he leaned forward some, and just as Jesse was upon him he jammed up a knee. The knee hit Jesse in the middle of his black hair. Taut kneecap cracked against bony pate. Jesse went down, face landing in a brass cuspidor. Jesse lay still.

  Avery leaned forward, looking down over goiter and bar both. Avery smiled.

  Mitch began to curse softly. He clawed for a gun that wasn’t there.

  Slowly Jesse got to his feet. Tobacco-juice slop ran off the tips of his mustache. Slowly a cunning smile creased across his face. Jesse started another bull’s rush; stopped it just short of reaching Harry; waited for Harry to make his move; then swung from his crab position. The blow caught Harry click on the chin and he sank like a sack of mud.

  Harry lay.

  Jesse came up and stood over Harry. Jesse puffed, swelling high. “Get up and fight, you cowardly pup.”

  Harry lay curled up. Harry thought: “I’ve just got to get up off this floor and hit him at least one good one with my fists. I’ve just got to.”

  Harry got up, bone by bone. He wavered. Jesse seemed to be doing a kind of dance in front of him. Harry tried to cock a fist; fell down again. He could see, and hear, but the rest of him was numb.

  Jesse stood over him. Jesse made as if to stomp him.

  From over the bar Avery threw something, whistling. It cracked Jesse across the shin. It was Avery’s stool. Jesse fell down, clutching his shin, groaning.

  Avery said quietly, “That’ll learn you to keep your opinions under your hair.”

  “Goldurn you, Avery,” Jesse groaned, “I’ll get you for this too.“ Avery nodded over his goiter. “You forget I got all the guns. Also, you forget this is my homestead. There’ll be no shooting.”

  Then the back door opened and Queenie stepped in. She was slim in green velvet and high green shoes. Her light green eyes and light green diamond earrings sparkled in the low kerosene light. Queenie said, “Aren’t you boys a bit old to be playing leapfrog?”

  The next Saturday, in Antelope, Harry had the luck to run into Jesse and his bunch again, this time at Butcherknife Bain’s saloon. It looked like an exact repeat.

  Jesse sneered from his end of the bar. “Well, well. Look what the cat just drug in.”

  Harry laughed, silver. “You again, Jesse. Deuce take it, but this luck of mine is spreading faster than a secret among women.”

  Jesse said, looking him up and down, “All duded up too, I see. Mitch, go over and smell him and see if he took whore perfume up there where the end of his neck is haired over.”

  Harry said, “There’s men who’ll tip you their hole card. Or help you out in a bind. Such men are long rides apart. And you ain’t one of them.”

  Jesse whacked down his glass, ugly. “By the Lord, I still say somebody I know is a thief and a coward. And a cousin lovert’boot. I ain’t mentionin’ any names but his front name is Harry.” “I see you’re still a bully when you drink, Jesse.”

  Jesse glared. “I’ll say more. I’ll say you can’t even ride a hoss. Why, you couldn’t even ride a sawhorse snubbed down to a stump.”

  Harry raised at his end of the bar. This was a new deal. “I’ll ride anything you’ve got to put up. Just so long as it has four legs. And a head to put the bridle on.”

  “Want to bet on it?”

  “Sure I want to bet on it.”

  “A hundred silver dollars says I got a critter you can’t ride ten seconds.”

  “Has it got four legs?”

  “It has got four legs.”

  “Has it got a head?”

  “It has got a head. With an arse to balance.”

  “All right, a hundred silver dollars it is.”

  Jesse hove up on his sore leg. “Stalker, go get Old Blue. It’s moonlight out
tonight, so I guess Harry can see to ride.”

  Old Blue was got. When Harry and Jesse bowlegged through the swinging saloon doors out onto the main street of Antelope, half a hundred bardogs crowded after them. Harry found Old Blue to be a wild longhorn steer from Texas. It was one of the last of the old longhorns, and also one of the toughest meanest- looking critters he’d ever cast eyes upon. It had a horn spread of at least seven feet. It stood almost as high as a horse. It breathed slow like a mad bull-alligator. And but for the tensile strength of half a dozen hemp ropes stretched taut from half a dozen pommels, it would have cleaned the town. It stood pawing slowly, bellowing in a low guttural primeval moan. The low bellowing hurt a man all the way up into his belly.

  Harry smiled some. “Old Blue.”

  “You’ll ride him?”

  “You won’t get a bridle on that head.”

  “You’ll ride him?”

  “Hell, yes, I’ll ride him. If somebody will side me I’ll ride Old Blue to a finish.”

  Jesse waved a kingly hand. The ruby on his ringfinger burned like a red coal in the blue moonlight. “Drop him, you cowpokes.

  Two expert ropers, each with legs as bowed as warped rain- barrel staves, stepped out of the crowd. One made a gesture, and Old Blue reared. The other whirled his loop and caught Old Blue around the front feet. The two ropers grabbed the rope together and down went Old Blue on his side. The half-dozen ropes from the various pommels held Old Blue’s head steady. Every rope hummed as Old Blue jerked convulsively. Four more punchers leaped in and helped hog-tie him on the ground. Dust rose a blue smoke in the moonlight.

  Jesse let the dust settle some and then turned to Harry. “Well, cowboy, she’s yours. Ride ’im.”

  Harry stepped over to where his horse Star stood hitched to the railing in front of the saloon. He uncinched the saddle and slid it off and carried it over to where Old Blue lay. He set it on Old Blue’s back. He placed his boot on Old Blue’s ribs and drew the cinches up tight. The tighter he drew the cinches the more the backbone of the old steer began to crack and undulate. The spine of the old steer moved like a stiff bull whip.

  Harry set his Stetson on firm. He looked up at the bright and shining silver moon. He bowed elaborately to it, hand across his pink shirt. “This is for you, my dear,” he said softly. He turned to Jesse. “Boss, if you’ll just tell some of your boys to haze that critter a ways, I’ll sure as blazes make them one-hoss Antelopers sit up and take notice for once. They’ll know they’re livin’ in a town with hair on at last.”

  “The boys are at your service,” Jesse said.

  Harry handed Jesse his gun and holster. He tightened up his bright red sash. He made sure of the buckles on his silver spurs. Then he stepped across.

  The boys on foot slipped off all the twines and ran for cover, crowding in through the swinging double doors along the street. “Now,” they all breathed, holding back wonder and wild laughter.

  Old Blue lay, throbbing and undulating.

  Harry raked him with his rowels, once, lightly.

  Old Blue lay, vibrating violently.

  Harry said to the punchers on horseback, “Haze him some. Snap a knot at ’im.”

  One of the cowboys whirled an arm, and a long rope whizzed through the moonlit air and whacked Old Blue across his whirling tail.

  Old Blue surged. He came up off the ground like a blue whale surfacing and trying to stand on its tail. There was a great shout, a quick one; then, equally quick, a great shut-off silence.

  Harry rode out the mighty leap and except for his hat came down all of a piece with Old Blue.

  Old Blue bellowed. He jumped around in a circle. He swapped ends. With every jump he got madder and madder, bellowing and bawling. The louder he bawled the louder the cowpunchers began to whoop it up. Some shot off their forty-fives. The boys on horseback hazed Old Blue from behind with stinging ropes. Harry reefed him from stem to stern with his spurs.

  Suddenly Old Blue had enough at the spot and he headed down main street. Old Blue roared. Old Blue bucked. Old Blue ringtailed. Old Blue jumped for the moon. Sudden dust boiled up. Dust came down the street like a fierce prairie fire. Townsfolk in nightshirts and nightgowns who had popped out of doorways to see what all the commotion was about popped right back in when they saw Old Blue and his great spear horns headed their way. Antelope had been taken over again by them crazy shooting whooping cowboys.

  When Old Blue hit the end of main street, out where the trail from the south came in over the bridge across Sweet Creek, he startled everybody by doubling back. The townsfolk in nightshirts and nightgowns who’d ventured forth after he’d passed by, suddenly had to reverse themselves and pop back inside again. The bardogs following on foot, whooping and shooting, scattered for cover too, behind rain barrels, under front porches, behind wagons, into strange doors, even underthrough strange nightshirts and nightgowns. The boys aboard the ponies skittered out of the way the best they could. All the while, laughing, silver hair throwing this way and that at every jump, Harry reefed Old Blue from stern to stem and back again, waving one wild hand free while the other clutched leather.

  Then, just down the street from Butcherknife Bain’s saloon, at the end of one of his ringtailed jumps, Old Blue happened to land face-first in front of the new plate-glass window in Alberding’s Mercantile. The plate-glass window was the new thing in town. Old Blue stopped dead. Dust settled slowly. Gradually Old Blue began to make out another steer, just about his size and exactly his color, glaring back at him in the moonlight. Old Blue stared long and steady. Old Blue seemed to be sizing up the length of the other blue steer’s great seven-foot horns.

  Silence fell along the street. Everybody wondered what next, bardogs, nightgowned townfolk, dogs. Harry’s arms hung at rest; his silver hair hung down his forehead.

  Old Blue bellowed, once. The echo bellowed back at him, once.

  That was enough. Lowering his head, bawling, waving his tail, Old Blue rammed into it. His long horns hit the huge plate-glass window with a ringing crack. The glass shivered; exploded inward. Old Blue’s momentum carried him inward too. Glass rattled and fell all over him. Ducking his head, still hatless, Harry rode him in. The two disappeared through the black prickle-edged hole. There was a milling and a moiling inside. And a terrible bellowing, sometimes smothered.

  On the boardwalk outside, a man in a nightshirt began to jump up and down, bawling, “Get ’em out of there, you crazy galoots, get ’em out of there!”

  Two cowboys spurred their ponies, urging them toward the prickle-edged hole. But the ponies shied off, refused to jump through it.

  The man in the nightshirt covered his face and began to sob. “My God, my God, there goes all our life’s savings!”

  The next moment Old Blue suddenly reappeared, coming out through the black hole, bawling and ringtailing, his great long horns decorated with clothes, mostly black bloomers and a stack of new wide-brim Stetson hats. Harry was still aboard, laughing and reefing. Old Blue turned a sharp right and went heels-over- head out for the country again.

  The man in the white nightshirt took his hands from his face. “My God, stop ’em! There goes all our life’s savings!”

  A great whoop rose. Some pistols went off. The boys on horseback set out after Harry and Old Blue. Two blocks down the street, ropes whizzed through the moonlit air. Out of six thrown, five connected. Five ponies set back on their heels and dug in. Old Blue managed one more leap and then hit the end of the five ropes. He came down hard, with a tremendous belly-whack. Just as he was about to hit ground, the sixth rope caught Harry around his thick neck and shoulders and jerked him off, up in the air, so that when he landed he lit on Old Blue’s rump. It saved him. Harry quick jumped for safety. The boys on foot with ropes got in their licks next and tied Old Blue down.

  When dust and horns and boot heels stilled, bareheaded, silver in the moonlight, Harry stepped up to Old Blue. Carefully he pulled the wide-brim Stetsons off one long horn and the black bloomers o
ff the other. The hats had all been punched through the crown. The bloomers were intact, though dusty. Harry dusted them all off and stepped across to where Jesse stood leaning on his sore leg.

  “Maybe bloomers don’t go well with Stetsons, Jesse,” Harry said, looking down with a modest smile, “but I didn’t get much of a chance to shop around.” Harry smiled again. “Though I think there’s plenty to go around. One apiece for each of you.” He dumped the merchandise in Jesse’s arms and took back his gun and holster.

  The man in the white nightshirt came running up, bawling. “You’ll pay for this, you golderned wild-eyed—”

  Harry held up a hand. “What’s the damages, Alberding?”

  Alberding’s wild eyes rolled in the moonlight. “You crazy peerootin’ golderned—”

  “Tally it up, Alberding!”

  Alberding’s mouth closed to. His mustache worked, first one end up then the other end down. “One hundred dollars and I’ll forget it,” he said suddenly, low.

  Harry turned to Jesse, silver, still laughing. “I won the bet fair and square?”

  Jesse nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “You won fair and square.” “Then pay it all over to Alberding. I had a fun and that’s enough for me.”

  Later, back in Butcherknife Bain’s saloon again, Jesse limped over and had a drink with Harry. “Harry,” he said, putting an arm over his shoulder, “you can ride. I’ll never question that again.” Jesse lowered his voice confidential. “Harry, boy, how about letting bygones be bygones, and riding for the Derby again?”

  Harry smiled under the heavy arm.

  “Tell you what, Harry, tell you what. I know how much you prize them cows of your’n. And I admire you for it. Harry, listen, ride for me and I’ll let you run your cows with mine at one dollar the head per year. Then we both win.”

  “What about Cain and his little spread? Will you let him come in too?”

  “I’m talking to you, Harry. What do you say?”

  “The offer don’t hold good for my brother Cain?”

  “No, it don’t hold good for your cousin-lover Cain.”

  “But why not?”

  “He ain’t our kind, that’s all. You know that.”