Showdown at Dead End Canyon

by Robert Vaughan

  “No. I just killed him.”

  “I see. And were you elated? Relieved? Did you feel a personal sense of power over having just taken a man’s life?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, were you remorseful?”

  “No.”

  “You felt none of those emotions?”

  “No.”

  “Then what did you feel?”

  “Killing Ebenezer Priest was like stepping on a cockroach. I felt nothing at all.”

  The prosecutor shook his head, then made a big show of walking away from Hawke. Standing several feet from the witness chair and looking out toward the audience, the prosecutor asked his next question in loud, well-articulated tones.

  “By your own admission, your altercation with Priest was not a test of skill and courage. It was simply a killing. How can you be so cavalier about that, Mr. Hawke?”

  “Have you ever killed anyone?” Hawke replied.

  The prosecutor turned back. “I’m not on trial here, sir, you are,” he said loudly.

  “I thought this was an inquest, rather than a trial.”

  “All right, an inquest.”

  “Have you ever killed anyone?” Hawke asked again. “I’m just curious.”

  “All right, I’ll answer your question. No, sir, I am proud to say that I have never killed anyone.”

  “Do you think gunfighters like Ebenezer Priest, Clay Allison, Bill Hickock, Temple Houston, and Ethan Dancer are successful killers because of their skill and courage? The answer is no. Killing is not a matter of skill and courage, it is merely a willingness to do it. The average man, the man with a soul, does not have that willingness. Even if he is faster and more skilled with a gun, he will hesitate, just for a moment, before killing someone. But men like those I just named have no soul. That’s what gives them the edge.”

  “Like stepping on a cockroach, Mr. Hawke?” the prosecutor asked triumphantly.

  “Yes,” Hawke said without flinching.

  “I see.”

  “Were you in the war, Mr. Prosecutor?”

  “No, I was not.”

  “I was,” Hawke said. “I killed many men during the war. No doubt some of them were evil, but the majority of them were decent, morally upstanding men. Each one was somebody’s husband, father, son, or brother who just happened to be wearing the uniform of the other side. Do you think that if I killed good men like that, I would hesitate for one second before killing someone like Ebenezer Priest?”

  “I thought you said that those who could kill without hesitation had no soul.”

  “Yes,” Hawke said. “That is exactly what I said.”

  “So you are…”

  “A man without a soul,” Hawke answered.

  After hearing all the evidence, the judge retired to his chambers for a short while, then returned to deliver his finding.

  “On September tenth, last year, Ebenezer Priest killed William Grant. Mr. Grant was a man who, by mistake, took a drink from Priest’s beer mug. Although Mr. Grant apologized, many times, Priest finally goaded him into drawing his gun, thus making it, officially, an act of self-defense. One of the ways he did this was by shooting the beer glass.

  “In May of this year he goaded James Herrington into drawing his gun, by shooting his hat off his head. When Mr. Herrington went for his gun, Priest killed him. Both cases were officially ruled as justifiable homicide.

  “Well, this time it did not work for him. If Mr. Hawke believed that Ebenezer Priest actually planned to kill him, then he was entirely justified in acting to save his own life. And, given Mr. Priest’s history, I have no doubt that was the state of Mason Hawke’s mind.

  “Accordingly, I find this to be a case of justifiable homicide, and will allow no charges to be filed.” Judge Norton struck the desk with his hammer. “This case is dismissed.”

  With the judge’s ruling, those in the gallery applauded, then hurried forward to congratulate Hawke. Even the prosecutor congratulated him. “I was just doing my job,” he said.

  Dwayne Kirby, who was not only the bartender at the Lucky Dog, but half owner, saw this as a tremendous opportunity. He painted a sign and put it up behind the bar:

  COME, MEET

  MASON HAWKE.

  THE MAN WHO SHOT

  EBENEZER PRIEST.

  He had just finished posting it when he turned around and saw Mason Hawke carrying his saddlebags over his shoulder.

  “Are you going somewhere?” Kirby asked.

  Hawke nodded. “It’s time for me to move on.”

  “But why would you do that? The judge said there wouldn’t be any charges against you. And think of how much money you will make in tips over the next several weeks because of this. Everybody is going to want to meet the man who shot Ebenezer Priest.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly why I’m leaving,” Hawke said. “I’ve no wish to meet anyone who wants to meet the man who killed Ebenezer Priest.”

  “But…” Kirby said, clearly distressed by this news. “Look, I’ll tell you what. I’ll cut you in for a percentage of everything we take in for the next two months.”

  “Thank you,” Hawke said. “That’s a generous offer. But I think I’d better be moving on.”

  Kirby nodded, then sighed, and looked up toward his sign. “All right,” he said. “I can’t keep you here. But you sure are passing up the opportunity to make a lot of money.” He took the sign down.

  Hawke stuck his hand across the bar. “You’ve been a fine man to work for, Mr. Kirby,” he said. “I wish you the best.”

  “Same to you, Mr. Hawke,” Kirby said as he morosely tore up the sign. He bent down to put the torn pieces in the trash can, and when he straightened up again, he saw Hawke stepping through the bat-wing doors.

  Chapter 2

  THE TOWN OF BITTER CREEK, WYOMING TERRITORY, was little more than a fly-blown speck on the Union Pacific Railroad. It had reached its peak when it was End of Track, a “hell on wheels,” with enough cafés, saloons, and bawdy houses to take care of the men who were building the railroad. But as the railroad continued on its westward trek, Bitter Creek lost all of its importance and most of its population. It was gradually beginning to recover, though, and its hearty citizens hung on, waiting for the eventual bounty the railroad was sure to bring.

  Two young men, passing through the town, stopped in front of the Boar’s Breath saloon. Swinging down from their horses, they patted their dusters down.

  “Damn me, Boomer, if you don’t look like one of them dust devils,” one of the men said, laughing at his friend.

  “Yeah, well you ain’t exactly a clean white sheet yourself, Dooley,” Boomer replied. “What do you say we get us a couple of beers?”

  “Sounds good to me,” the other man said.

  Pushing through the bat-wing doors, the two men entered the saloon and stepped up to the bar. The saloon was relatively quiet, with only four men at one table and a fifth standing down at the far end of the bar. The four at the table were playing cards, the one at the end of the bar was nursing a drink. The man with the drink had a scar that started at his right eyebrow, came through the eye, disfiguring it, slashed down his cheek like a purple lightning bolt, then hooked into the corner of a misshapen mouth.

  As the boys stepped up to the bar, the man with the scar looked over at them with an unblinking stare.

  “What’ll it be, gents?” the bartender asked.

  One of them continued to stare back at the man standing at the end of the bar. He had never seen a face quite as disfigured.

  “Dooley?” Boomer said. “The bartender asked what’ll we have.”

  “Oh,” Dooley replied. “Uh, two beers.”

  “Two beers it is,” the bartender replied, and turned to draw them.

  “And I’ll have the same,” Boomer added.

  The bartender laughed. “You boys sound like you’ve got a thirst.”

  “Just sayin’ we’re thirsty don’t quite get it,” Dooley said. “Why, I got that much
dust you could grow cotton in my mouth.”

  “Cotton, huh? You boys must be from the South,” the bartender said as he put the two beers in front of Dooley.

  “You got somethin’ against the South?” Boomer challenged.

  “No, Lord, no,” the bartender said, chuckling. “I’m from southeast Missouri myself. I wore the gray and fought with ol’ Jeff Thompson durin’ the war.”

  “We wasn’t neither one of us old enough to fight in the war,” Dooley said.

  “But if we had been, we woulda fought with General James Henry Lane of the Texas Fifth,” Boomer said. “He’s my uncle,” he added proudly.

  “So, you boys are from Texas, are you?”

  “Yes, sir. We just rode up here.”

  “It’s a long ride all the way up here from Texas.”

  “Sure is. We ’bout rode the legs offen our horses,” Dooley said.

  “What brings you to Wyoming Territory?”

  “Well sir, we just got a little bit of the wanderin’ fever, so we thought we’d come up here ’n’ see what it’s like,” Boomer said. “We’re pretty good cowhands. Do you know if any ranchers are hiring?”

  “Cowhands, huh?” the man with the scar said. It was the first time he had spoken, and he snorted what might have been laughter.

  “I beg your pardon?” Boomer asked.

  “I’d be willing to bet that you aren’t cowhands at all. More than likely, you’re store clerks, out for a little adventure, and you don’t know the difference between a cowhide and a buffalo turd.”

  “Are you hirin’, mister?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anyone that is hirin’?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then, whether we are cowhands or not ain’t none of your business, is it?”

  “Who did you say your uncle was? Some general?” the scar-faced man asked.

  “I said my uncle was General Lane. General James Lane,” Boomer said. He took a swallow of his beer, leaving some foam trapped in his moustache. “You got somethin’ to say about that?”

  “I heard of General Lane.”

  “Yeah? What did you hear?”

  The scar-faced man poured himself another whiskey, then drank it, all the while holding Boomer in a steady gaze.

  “I heard he was a cowardly son of a bitch, leadin’ a pack of Texas cowards,” the man replied.

  “That’s a hell of a thing to say,” Dooley said, joining the conversation.

  “Mister, I expect you’d better take that back,” Boomer challenged.

  The bartender leaned across the bar and said, very quietly, “You boys might want to ease up just a bit. Don’t you know who that is?”

  “I don’t care if he is Abraham Lincoln,” Boomer said. “I already don’t like the son of a bitch and just met him. And if he don’t shut the hell up, I may just shut him up.”

  “Easy, Boomer,” Dooley said, reaching out for his partner. “We’ve come a long way from home, and we didn’t come up here to get into no fight.”

  Boomer glared at the scar-faced man, but the expression on the man’s face never changed.

  “I ain’t goin’ to just stand by while my own kin and a bunch of brave men are being insulted by some ass-faced son of bitch who doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Boomer said.

  “Cowboy, no!” the bartender gasped, reaching across the bar. “My God, do you really not know who this is?”

  “Whoever he is, I reckon I can handle the likes of him,” Boomer said.

  “Boomer,” Dooley said. “Come on, have your beer and leave this be.”

  Boomer stared at the man for a moment longer, then, with a shrug, he turned back toward the bar. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll let it go this time. Maybe folks up here just don’t have as much sense as the folks do back in Texas.”

  “Texas,” the scar-faced man snorted. “If it weren’t for whores and their bastards, there wouldn’t be anyone in the whole state but Mexicans and coyotes. You don’t look like a Mexican, and you didn’t come in here walking on all fours. I guess that means your mother is a whore.”

  “That’s it, mister!” Boomer shouted in almost uncontrolled anger. “I’m going to mop the floor with your sorry hide!” He put up his fists.

  The scar-faced man smiled, though it was a smile without mirth. “Well now, cowboy, if we’re going to fight, why don’t we make it permanent?” he asked. He stepped away from the bar and flipped his jacket back, exposing a pistol that he wore low and kicked out, in the way of a gunfighter.

  “Mr. Dancer, I’m sure these boys would apologize to you if you asked them for it,” the bartender said. “There’s no need to carry this any further.”

  “Dancer?” Dooley said, his voice cracking. “Did you call him Dancer?”

  “I tried to warn you boys,” the bartender said. “This is Ethan Dancer.”

  “Boomer, back off,” Dooley said. “Back off. My God, you don’t want to go bracing the likes of Ethan Dancer!”

  Boomer realized then that he had gotten in much deeper than he ever intended, and he stopped, then opened his fists and held his hands, palms out, in front of him.

  “My friend is right,” he said. “There’s no need to carry things this far. This isn’t worth either one of us dying over.”

  “Oh, it won’t be either of us, cowboy. It’ll just be you,” Dancer said. He looked over at Dooley. “Both of you,” he added. “You came in here together, you are going to die together.”

  Dooley shook his head. “No, it ain’t goin’ to be either one of us. ’Cause there ain’ neither one of us going to draw on you,” he said. “So if you shoot us, it’s goin’ to have to be in cold blood, in front of these witnesses.”

  “Oh, you’ll draw all right. You’ll draw first, and these witnesses will say that.”

  “They ain’t goin’ to be able to say it, ’cause we ain’t goin’ to draw on you,” Dooley said. He looked over at the four card players, who had stopped their game to watch what was going on. “I want you all to hear this. We ain’t goin’ to draw on Ethan Dancer.”

  “Oh, I think you will,” Dancer said calmly, confidently.

  “Please, Mr. Dancer, we don’t want any trouble,” Dooley said. “Why don’t you just let us apologize and we’ll go on our way?”

  Dancer shook his head. “I’m afraid not, gents. You brought me to this ball, now it’s time to dance with the demon.”

  Boomer and Dooley looked at each other, then, with an imperceptible signal, they started their draw. Though the two young men were able to defend themselves in most bar fights, they were badly overmatched in this fight. They made ragged, desperate grabs for their pistols.

  So bad were they that Dancer had the luxury of waiting a moment to see which of the two offered him the most competition. Deciding it was Boomer, he pulled his pistol and shot him first. Dooley, shocked at seeing his friend killed right before his eyes, released his pistol and let it fall back into his holster. He was still looking at Boomer when Dancer’s second shot hit Dooley in the neck. He fell on top of Boomer.

  Dancer stood there for a moment, holding the smoking gun. He put it back in his holster, poured himself another drink, then turned his back to the bar and looked at the four card players. Their faces registered shock and fear.

  “Is there anyone who didn’t see them draw first?” he asked.

  “They drew first, I seen it,” one of the card players said.

  “Yes, sir, I seen it first too. They drawed first, the both of them.”

  “Bartender, you saw it too?”

  The bartender was staring down at the two young men who, but a moment earlier, had been laughing and joking with him.

  “Did you hear the question, bartender?” Dancer asked.

  The bartender looked up at Dancer. His face showed more sorrow than fear.

  “You goaded them into that fight, Dancer,” he said. “They was just two cowboys mindin’ their own business, and you goaded them into it.” />
  “Did they draw first or didn’t they?”

  “They drew first,” the bartender said. “But you prodded them until they did.”

  Dancer put a silver dollar on the bar. “Give these boys a drink on me, and have one for yourself,” he said.

  “A drink, yes,” one of the card players said. “Damn, do I need a drink.”

  The four card players rushed to the bar. Dancer reached over and picked up one of the beers Dooley and Boomer had left behind.

  A tall, silver-haired, dignified-looking man sat at his breakfast table reading the London Daily Times. Brigadier Emeritus of the Northumberland Fusiliers, Sir James Spencer Dorchester, Earl of Preston, Viscount of Davencourt, was wearing a wine-colored, silken robe. Over the left breast pocket was his coat of arms, a white shield with a blue mailed fist clutching a golden sword, placed at the intersection of a red St. Andrew’s Cross.

  The remnants of his breakfast, the bottom half of the shell of a soft-boiled egg, was still in its silver cup. The rind of half a grapefruit and the crust of a piece of toast were pushed to one side.

  A balding, older man wearing a morning coat and striped trousers came into the room. Stepping up to the table, he raised a silver teapot.

  “Would you care for more tea, sir?” Terry Wilson asked.

  Wilson, Dorchester’s valet, had served him for thirty years. Before that he had succeeded his own father in service to Dorchester’s father. In all, the Wilsons had been “in service” to the Earls of Preston for five generations. When Dorchester got ready to leave England, he gave his valet a choice. He would either find a position for Wilson somewhere else, or Wilson could come to America with him.

  Wilson could not imagine serving anyone else, so he chose to come to America. Here, even though the trappings of peerage were removed, Wilson continued to maintain a “proper” separation between them. Dorchester would have preferred a less formal relationship between them, but he honored Wilson’s wishes.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wilson,” Dorchester said as his valet poured the tea.

  “Is there anything of particular interest in the Times today, sir?” Wilson asked.