The Sixteen Dollar Shooter (A Rockabye County Western Book 1)

by Edson, J. T.

  The only woman present was a very attractive, shapely red head in her mid-twenties. She wore a dark blue blouse and a denim skirt which set off a firm, curvaceous figure. Shaking hands with Alice Fayde, Brad found that she was regarding him in a somewhat less quizzical manner than the male deputies. In fact, he thought that he detected an aura of sympathy in her attitude. He concluded, correctly, that it stemmed from her having received the same cautious treatment when she had first joined the Sheriff’s Office.

  Neither Alice nor Brad realized at their first meeting that they would eventually become a team that was second to none in the solving of crimes. [vi]

  ‘This’s our desk,’ Tom told Brad, taking him to it after completing the introductions. ‘We’re not on any case at the moment, which means we’ll catch the next to come in. You’ll find all the standard forms, typing paper and maybe even a couple of pens in the drawers.’

  From the desk, Tom guided Brad around the filing cabinets. He explained briefly each’s purpose and described the Office’s system for handling its paperwork. Next they studied the bulletin board, with its notices and wanted posters. Commenting that they would have to have the big blond’s name placed on the Duty Roster Board, Tom waited until he had logged on watch. Then they went to the two big boxes which flanked the door to the Watch Commander’s Office. Opening each in turn, Tom showed that they held the deputies’ assault armament and its ammunition. There were Thompson submachine guns, M-l carbines, a couple of telescope-sighted sniper’s rifles, riot guns and a couple of cased Federal 235 Emergency Kits, each containing a 37mm Gas Gun and a selection of tear gas bombs and projectiles.

  ‘We each have our own piece,’ Tom explained. ‘Mine’s a carbine. Tom Chu and Hal Letheridge use the rifles. There’s only Harry’s cornsheller left on our watch. It’s the Winchester Model ’12 there.’

  ‘That’s a real good gun to have,’ Brad declared.

  ‘Sure. But it’s not the newest model.’

  ‘I cut my teeth on a Model ’12, back to home, and it never let me down. How about cleaning them?’

  ‘We do it straight after use and try to get one Night Watch a week to give them a thorough going over. It doesn’t always happen.’

  ‘That figures,’ Brad drawled. ‘How about our car?’

  ‘We use Unit SO 12,’ Tom answered. ‘How’re you on our radio procedure?’

  ‘I’ve been reading up on it all week,’ Brad assured him.

  ‘Bueno,’ Tom grunted. ‘Are you ready to go out on the streets?’

  ‘Any time,’ Brad declared, trying not to sound too eager.

  ‘Let’s go down on the range and shoot a few first,’ Tom suggested, wondering if his new partner had understood his exact meaning and was armed.

  ‘You’re the boss,’ Brad replied.

  Picking up the telephone, Tom put a call through to the range in the basement of the building and learned that it was available. So, after entering their intentions and departure time in the log, he and Brad rode the elevator down to it. They found the range master, a grizzled old sergeant of the G.C.P.D.’s Patrol Bureau, waiting for them. The room was long and, although the area around the door was well lit, the rest was in darkness.

  ‘We’ll just run through once each, Sam,’ Tom announced.

  ‘Your taxes’re paying for it,’ the sergeant answered cheerfully.

  ‘And your salary, don’t forget,’ Tom warned. ‘You or me first, Brad?’

  ‘I’ve always been taught it’s age before innocence,’ the big blond replied.

  ‘Now that’s what I like in this day and age, a young feller with a proper respect for his elders,’ grinned the sergeant. ‘Plug up, toe the line and start walking when I give you the word, Tom.’

  Nodding, Tom helped himself to a piece of Kleenex tissue from a box on the range master’s table. Tearing it in two, he put one portion in each ear. Without waiting to be told, Brad did the same and the sergeant donned a protective headset.

  None of the men thought twice about taking such precautions. They knew that the concussion from gunfire, especially in an enclosed space and where heavy caliber weapons were involved, was likely to cause serious damage to the eardrums. No peace officer could afford to develop defects in his hearing. To prevent this, they used formal aids, Kleenex, or loosely wadded cotton wool, which would serve to break up the impact of the concussion; but which still allowed the user to hear the range master’s instructions and other signals.

  Waiting until Tom had taken his place on the firing line, the sergeant threw a switch and the lighting dimmed until it became what might be expected on a street after dark. At the far end of the range stood a six-foot tall target which was shaped like a well-built man in the process of drawing a gun. The vital areas of the body—heart, lungs, forehead —were outlined in white and scored five points. Hits on the other portions of the anatomy earned four, three, two, or one, depending upon how a hit on them would affect the recipient’s capacity to fight back.

  Walking forward with his hands empty, Tom waited and listened for the signal to start shooting. The harsh rasp of the buzzer sounded when he was about seven yards from the target. Instantly, he halted and went for his gun. He used a technique perfected by Assistant Chief Patrol Inspector William H. ‘Bill’ Jordan of the U.S. Border Patrol. Swaying his hips and knees to the left caused the right side of his jacket to swing away from his body. He allowed his right shoulder to drop back, sending his hand in an arching, almost circular motion to the butt of the Smith & Wesson.

  With the gun free from its holster, Tom elevated it at arm’s length to eye-level. However, he aimed along the barrel rather than through the sights. Three times he fired, riding the recoil and realigning between the detonations with deft speed. The target began to vibrate under the impacts and sand was kicked up on the inclined backstop beyond it. After the third shot, he swiftly transferred the weapon to his left hand and cut loose with the remainder of the bullets in the cylinder.

  Allowing the revolver’s muzzle to sink downwards, Tom returned it to his right hand. Thumbing the release stud, he tipped the cylinder sideways and ejected the spent cartridge cases into the palm of his left hand. Not until he had done so did the range master switch on the main lights and, with Brad following, walk along the range.

  ‘Two heart, one head makes fifteen, one in the right forearm, nineteen, two in the left shoulder, twenty-three and a nick on the side of the neck gives you twenty-four all told,’ the sergeant announced, after checking the target. ‘Keep on this way, Tom and you’ll make an eight-dollar shooter yet.’

  ‘I’ll sure try,’ Tom promised.

  Actually, there was no need for the deputy to try. He already was an eight-dollar shooter.

  To increase interest and gun handling efficiency, the Rockabye County Department of Public Safety allowed its peace officers to earn an additional four, six, eight or sixteen dollars a week by their skill with weapons. The qualification course was exacting and demanding, concentrating upon combat shooting under as near realistic conditions as possible, rather than formal target popping. Every member of the Sheriff’s Office was at least a six-dollar shooter and at least a quarter of them matched Tom.

  However, a sixteen-dollar shooter was something special. To become one, a man had to be an expert with every kind of police weapon. He was also likely to have to spend the majority of his bonus on practice ammunition. There were at the most only a dozen sixteen-dollar shooters in the County.

  ‘Now let’s see how the G-men do it,’ Tom suggested, after they had covered the holes he had made with pieces of sticky paper and returned to the firing line. He wondered why the sergeant was eyeing him in that sardonic manner. It was the look of a man with a secret which he did not intend to share. ‘I might learn something.’

  Watching Brad walk through the gloom, Tom still could not decide where he was carrying his weapon. Then the sergeant pushed at the buzzer. On it sounding, Brad came to a halt on spread apart feet and in a slightly crou
ching posture. From what Tom could make out, his left hand grasped the sports jacket’s lapel and the right went across. Then, in something less than a second from the signal, there was the crash of a shot. It was a deeper note than the Smith & Wesson. One which Tom thought sounded familiar, yet he could not believe that he was correct.

  Like Tom, Brad fired three shots from each hand. However, he appeared to be adopting a different technique for unloading the weapon. There was a double, followed by a single clicking sound and he bent to pick something up from the floor. With that done, he turned around.

  ‘Well I’ll be damned!’ Tom ejaculated, staring at the weapon in Brad’s right hand.

  There was good cause for the stocky deputy’s surprise. The big blond was holding a Colt Government Model .45 automatic caliber; with an over-all length of eight and a half inches and weighing thirty-nine ounces. Yet, despite its size and bulk, Brad had managed to keep it concealed from Tom’s careful scrutiny.

  Smiling, for he had guessed that the way he was carrying his weapon had been puzzling his partner, Brad dropped the partially empty magazine and the round which he had ejected from the Colt’s chamber into his jacket’s pocket. Then, while the other two men were examining the target, he drew a full magazine from the double pouch on the right side of his one and a half inch wide, basket weave patterned brown waist belt. Thrusting it home on the Colt’s butt, he worked the cocking slide and set the enlarged manual safety without any need for conscious thought.

  One glance at the target told Tom that he was seeing some very good shooting. Considering the speed with which the big blond had drawn and fired, he had not expected such good results. Every one of the bullets, which had cut clearly defined holes, would have killed, or incapacitated, the man who had received it

  ‘Three head, two heart and one close to it,’ the sergeant commented. ‘I make that twenty-nine. How about you, Tom?’

  ‘How did you do it without taking your shoes off and using your toes?’ the deputy growled, realizing that the range master must have either seen Brad shoot or heard about his ability. Then he turned his gaze to his partner. ‘What kind of rig do you use?’

  ‘A Hardy-Cooper spring shoulder holster,’ Brad replied, drawing aside the left flap of his jacket so that Tom could see it. He placed the muzzle of the Colt into the slot at the front of the holster and pivoted it until the arm of the spring held it in position. On letting the jacket fall back into position, he once again gave no hint that he was wearing the weapon. ‘It’s a fair undercover rig.’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ Tom admitted, then indicated the target. ‘Don’t you get jams, using those wad-cutters?’

  ‘They’re not wad-cutters,’ Brad corrected, knowing the term meant a bullet designed to cut a clean hole in a target. Producing the cartridge from his pocket, he showed it to his partner. ‘I hand-load them, using Jeff Cooper’s design. These base-jacketed, truncated cone bullets feed smoothly enough since I had the Pachmayr Gun Works out to L.A. [vii] accurize [viii] my piece.’

  ‘Huh huh!’ Tom grunted noncommittally, although he was aware that Jeff Cooper rated high among combat shooting experts and had been responsible for many of the techniques which were being used to train peace officers. ‘With shooting like this, you ought to be able to make an eight-dollar shooter.’

  ‘Trouble with that,’ Brad drawled, returning the bullet to his pocket. ‘I fired the Police Combat Shooting Course on Friday—’

  ‘And?’ Tom prompted, although he began to have an inkling of what was coming.

  ‘Well, sir,’ Brad went on, sounding almost apologetic. ‘I must’ve got real lucky. Anyways, I qualified as a sixteen-dollar shooter.’

  ~*~

  ‘Do you like the scenery in this part of town?’ Tom Cord inquired as Bradford Counter guided their black and white Oldsmobile Super 88 Sheriff’s Office car for the second time around the block in the section of Gusher City to which the local peace officers referred as the Business Division. ‘Or do you have a lady friend hereabouts who you’re hoping to see?’

  After leaving the basement range, Brad and Tom had returned to the Deputies’ Squad room. While they had been cleaning their handguns, the big blond had told Tom that combat shooting had always interested him. The success which he had achieved in that field had become more obvious when he had admitted how, at Quantico, he had won one of the coveted silver badges awarded to the F.B.I.’s exclusive ‘Possible Club’. Which meant that he had made the maximum score when firing the Practical Pistol Course. A fair hand with a gun himself, Tom had never been able to exceed a 93 per cent ‘Expert’ rating on it.

  With the weapons cleaned, reloaded and returned to leather, Tom had checked with the Watch Commander. Learning that there was no work to which they could be assigned, he had decided they would take Unit SO 12 out to the Emergency Vehicle Operations Course. Situated about five miles outside the city limits, the Course provided facilities for the local law enforcement agencies to practice handling cars, motorcycles or trucks at high speeds.

  Logging out, the deputies had collected their car from the Official Vehicles Parking Lot behind the building. Tom had allowed Brad to take the steering wheel, so that he could form an impression of how the blond handled the large and powerful vehicle. Before they had gone far, the older man had been satisfied with what he discovered. Brad drove well, showing keen judgment of speed and distance, while acting with courtesy towards the other users of the road.

  Of course, Tom had told himself, the way in which Brad handled the car under more testing and demanding conditions—like when in pursuit of a suspect, or while speeding ‘Code Three’ [ix] to an emergency—might prove a different matter.

  ‘It’s neither,’ Brad replied and, try as he might, he could not prevent a hint of excitement from creeping into his voice. ‘That blue Chevrolet hardtop was parked across from the bank when I came by this morning, with the same two fellers in it.’

  ‘The same two, huh?’ Tom asked, directing a glance at the vehicle in question as they drove by.

  ‘I’d swear to it,’ Brad declared and started to swing the Oldsmobile towards the nearest vacant parking place.

  ‘Don’t stop!’ Tom barked.

  ‘Why?’ Brad began, but kept the car moving.

  ‘Their names’re Corby and Finch, and they’re from Auto-Theft,’ Tom explained. ‘If they’ve been there for that long, they’re probably on a stake-out and it won’t help if we go back and talk to them.’

  ‘Damn it!’ Brad growled indignantly. ‘You knew about them!’

  ‘Like hell I did,’ Tom interrupted. ‘I hadn’t even noticed them as we went by the first time. You’ve got quick eyes and a good memory.’

  ‘Oh sure!’ Brad answered in a disgruntled tone.

  ‘I mean it,’ Tom stated.

  ‘I see two fuzz on a stake-out—’ Brad commenced.

  ‘In an unmarked car,’ Tom pointed out. ‘How long have you been around Gusher City, boy?’

  ‘Not long,’ Brad conceded, somewhat defensively.

  ‘Well, take me now,’ Tom drawled. ‘I’ve been here ever since I was born. And I’ve worn a badge, municipal or County, since I left the Army back in ’45. So I’ve had plenty of time to get to know most of the fuzz, especially the old hands on the specialist details.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Brad replied, sounding more relieved.

  ‘I’ll tell you, though,’ Tom chuckled. ‘Corby and Finch’s be madder’n a bobcat dropped on a hot stove if they heard how you’d made them. Hey, though, did you hear about the old gal up in Spreckley?’

  ‘Nope,’ Brad confessed, feeling mollified.

  The blond sensed his partner was anything but displeased by the evidence of him having kept his eyes open and was amused by the fact that he had caught out two members of the G.C.P.D.’s Detective Bureau. There was considerable friendly rivalry between the municipal and County law enforcement agencies.

  ‘Well, you know what Spreckley’s like,’ Tom went on. ‘Got a
sign there, on one side, it says, “You Are Now Entering Spreckley” and on the other it reads, “You Have Just Left Spreckley”. Anyways, folks up there don’t get out and about much. This elephant got away from a circus truck was passing by. ’Bout half an hour later, an old lady calls Tommy Sanders at the Sub-Office and says, “Tommy, you get down here. There’s the damnedest critter you ever saw out in my truck garden. The son-of-bitch don’t have a head, but he’s got a tail on each end and he’s using the long one to pull up my cabbages”, and Tommy asked her what it was doing with them, “Boy,” she says. “Get down here and look for yourself. You’d never believe me if I told you”.’

  Concentrating on his driving, Brad chuckled. He had heard a version of the story before, but had to admit that his partner’s dry delivery made it much better.

  ‘Pull over and stop, Brad!’ Tom said, the words cutting through the big blond’s thoughts as they were turning a corner.

  ‘Yo!’ the big blond responded, although he could see no reason for the request. Nor did there appear to have been anything to justify the suggestion of urgency which had tinged the words.

  Despite Tom’s reason for speaking, he noticed that Brad selected a parking space and signaled his intentions before making for it. Some young officers tended to act as if they had no need to follow traffic rules and regulations. It was an attitude which Tom had never approved of. He considered that such behavior tended to antagonize private citizens who did have to conform and to whom the young officers would probably give a ticket for acting in a similar fashion.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Brad inquired, as he halted the car.

  ‘Get out and go back towards the corner,’ Tom replied. ‘There’s a tall, burly hombre wearing a brown suit, fawn shirt and black hat on Dainton. If he turns down this way, drift back after him. If he goes across, follow him over and I’ll pick you up at the other side.’