by John Benteen
“Until times changed. Until they saw they was losin’ and went to the law. And when the law come in a-lookin’ fer us, I knowed thet finally it was broken. Thet we couldn’t fight the law, not the whole state. And so we pulled out. We come to Texas because we heerd the law was slim out hyar. We found this land two years ago and settled on hit. Wantin’ only to be left alone...”
He spat. “Then Steed. Steed and Hanna. They wouldn’t leave us be. Had to crowd us, push us. And so Jess shot Steed’s rider. And thet brought in the Ranger and Jess shot him. And now thet brings in ye and probably I’ll have to kill ye and then ... All over again. Goddamn it, all over again, jest like it was before.”
Fargo drank hot coffee.
“I got to think,” Tom said. “I got to think whut to do. Meanwhile, when ye finish eatin’, I’m gonna lock ye up. Ye won’t be harmed, not yit. But I got to decide whut I’m gonna do with ye. I got to think on this and pray on hit and talk to my brothers on hit, and then I got to do whutever hit looks like I have to. Meanwhile, ye’d better not try to run and ye’d better not touch a far-arn. Ye do, and we’ll shoot ye down and thet’ll be the end of ye.”
“All right,” Fargo said. “You think about it. But don’t think too long. Steed will be coming soon, and the Rangers won’t be far behind.”
When he had finished eating, Roaring Tom motioned him to his feet, led him outside around the cabin to a log lean-to that was an offshoot of the structure. “Sometimes a feller’ll git drunk and ructious and we hafta lock him up. This hyar’s our jail. Thar’s blankets and a mattress in thar, and it won’t do ye no good to try to git out. Them logs is sot deep in the ground and they’re a foot through. Ye’d need a choppin’ ax and two days time to make a hole. In ye go.” He unlocked the door, prodded Fargo through with the muzzle of the gun. “I’ll be back to talk to ye in the mornin’.”
Fargo just had time to locate the bed and blankets. Then the heavy door of notched logs slammed shut behind him; a padlock clicked. He was in total darkness. He groped his way to the cot, lay down. Suddenly he was profoundly tired. There was no time to kick off his boots before sleep claimed him.
He slept through the night.
What awakened him the next morning was the sound of gunfire.
~*~
Fargo sat up quickly in the darkness of the little room, reaching instinctively for weapons that weren’t there. Then he relaxed; the rhythmic tempo of the firing told him that the Canfields were taking target practice, just as the gunmen at Steed’s ranch had done. The practice was important; no matter how naturally talented a marksman might be, without that frequent exercise of eye and reflex, that sharpening of his gun-speed, he grew rusty. And a rusty gunman was soon dead.
It went on and on, and his ears identified the sound of the different weapons; the slap of Winchester, the deep cough of sixgun, and the deeper roar, even, of the muzzle-loaders and the Sharps buffalo guns. Fargo tucked in his shirttail, clamped the cavalry hat on his close-cropped white hair. Then he heard someone fumbling at the lock, and the door opened.
Roaring Tom was there, squirrel rifle under his arm, its muzzle loosely trained on Fargo. “Mornin’,” he said coolly. “I reckon ye’d like to git out and move around and have some breakfast.”
Fargo nodded.
“I want yer word ye won’t try no tricks, pick no fight with Jess, reach fer no gun. Ye give me that, ye kin come out. Otherwise, this is whar ye stay until we decide whut we-uns are gonna do with ye.”
“You’ve got my word,” Fargo said.
“I didn’t mention whut ye told me last night to nobody yet. Ye ain’t to mention hit, neither. Ye understand?”
Fargo nodded.
“Then come on out.” Roaring Tom stepped back.
Outdoors, Fargo blinked in the wine-colored light of early mountain morning. On the other side of the settlement, the shooting continued. He could see the Canfield men, down to boys no older than twelve, standing at a kind of firing line. Beyond them, far away, a succession of cedar posts had been set up on the valley floor—two hundred, three, four, five hundred yards. The white squares of targets were tiny on the farthest ones. A Canfield on a mule rode back and forth, replacing used targets with fresh ones as necessary. After each round, he blew a blast or two on a steerhorn trumpet like Tom’s, evidently in some code that told the marksman where his slug had hit.
“Let’s step over thar a minute,” Roaring Tom said. He gestured Fargo toward the firing line.
The shooting dwindled as the Canfields became aware of his presence. Bearded, some barefoot, they turned, looking him over curiously; and their eyes were hard. Their whole aspect was as savage as any jungle tribes Fargo had run into in South and Central America or the Philippines. Jess stepped forward from among them, his Henry rifle in his hands. His eyes glittered as they raked over Fargo.
“I see ye took his guns away,” he said, derisively.
“He gave up his guns,” Roaring Tom snapped. “He’s hyar on private business with me. He’s give his promise not to w’ar no hardware whilst he’s in the Valley. In turn, I give mine he won’t be harmed. Ye understand, Jess?”
Jess Canfield’s mouth twisted contemptuously. “A man that’d give up his guns ain’t worth botherin’ with. Likely he couldn’t shoot ’em anyhow. I figgered all along they was jest fer looks.” He spat into the dust at Fargo’s boots.
“Jess—” Tom began in a voice of warning. Jess’s eyes shuttled to his father. They contained only a little less hatred than Fargo had been the object of, and it was obvious that there was a deeper conflict than he had guessed between the old man and his son. Whatever Roaring Tom felt for Jess, the boy did not reciprocate. Probably he could feel nothing for anyone but himself.
Fargo hadn’t meant to speak. But Jess’s mocking face and bearing rubbed him raw. “I’d like to try a shot with Jess,” he said harshly. “Against a target.”
“No! I said ye wasn’t to have a hand on no gun!”
Fargo pointed at the old Kentucky rifle. “That single-shot. I ain’t likely to try any fancy tricks with one bullet and twenty of you coverin’ me. Or is that Henry all Jess knows how to shoot?”
“By God, I teethed on a squirrel gun!” Jess flared. He seized the rifle from Tom’s hands before the old man knew what he was about, passed his Henry to a young boy nearby. “Come up here, Fargo.”
Fargo glanced at Tom. The old man’s face was clouded, black with anger. But he nodded. “All right,” he said. “One shot each.”
Covered by all those guns, Fargo moved up to the firing line. Jess pointed. “Ye see thet third post yonder? Three hundred yards. Thet target on it’s a playin’ card cut in half. If I hit it dead center, Leroy down yonder’ll blow one long toot on thet horn of his.” He threw the long rifle to his shoulder; its stock had hardly seated itself before he pulled the trigger. The roar of the gun was thunderous, and white powder smoke made a fog around its muzzle. Before it swirled away, there came from downrange a single drawn-out mournful blast from the steer’s horn.
Jess turned, grinning triumphantly. He thrust the empty gun at Fargo. “All right, Mister Big Ugly. Let’s see whut ye kin do. Give him yer powder horn, Pappy, one ball, and a patch.”
Fargo took the long rifle, hefted it. The balance was superb; it was a fine example of the art of the Pennsylvania gunsmiths who had made the best of such weapons. It seemed to float in his hand. He smiled faintly. As a kid of ten or twelve on the ranch of his foster parents, such a gun had been the only one he’d been allowed to use. The penny-pinching man who’d taken him in refused to let him use a cartridge rifle; cartridges cost too much money. Fargo had molded his own bullets, mixed his own powder, even as a child, and had become expert with an ancient musket far less accurate and balanced than the weapon he now held.
Everybody watched in silence now as he raised the empty gun, lined it, got its feel. Then he turned to Roaring Tom. “How’s she hold?”
“Dead on,” said Tom, “at a hundred yards.” His
curiosity was getting the better of his caution. He pulled a round ball of about .38 caliber and a patch from his pouch. Along with the powder horn, he passed them over. “One shot,” he said firmly. “And no tricks.”
“One shot and no tricks.” Fargo stripped the ramrod from beneath the barrel. He unplugged the powder horn. “Store-bought standard powder or homemade?”
“Homemade,” Tom said. “We make ever’thang at home we kin. Thet’s to my own receipt.” There was growing respect in his eyes. The quality of the powder, the proper charging of the gun according to its strength, was as important in shooting the weapon as the accuracy of the sighting.
Fargo nodded, poured out a touch of powder on his palm. He bent his head, licked the black grains with his tongue. It was a trick he had learned long ago when he made his own powder; the final test was tasting; he knew what a good mixture of sulphur, saltpeter and charcoal should taste like.
Now long-forgotten knowledge returned; his senses assessed Tom’s mixture and told him the proportion of ingredients the old man had used, and this in turn gave him some idea of the powder’s strength. He uncapped the charger from the horn, measured carefully. A little too much was better than not enough. He added another dab, saw the glint of admiration in the old man’s eyes that told him he had used precisely the right charge. His taste, and assessment of the size of the grain, had been exactly right. He wrapped the ball in its greased patch and rammed it in, all done with speed and deftness. Then he charged the priming pan with more black powder, eared back the flint-tipped hammer, raised the gun. Meanwhile, he had been assessing the direction and strength of wind.
The marvelous old weapon seemed to possess a life of its own. Like an animal recognizing its master, it seemed to want to snuggle to his shoulder, float in his hands. He drew a fine bead, holding high to compensate for bullet drop over the extra two hundred yards; and his finger caressed the silken-actioned trigger as the sights came into line.
The long gun roared and kicked and made its fog of smoke. Drifting before Fargo’s eyes, it obscured the target and what went on downrange. But as it swirled away, the man on the mule had stripped off the target, was pounding up the range, the square of paper in his hand. He reined the animal to a skittering halt, handed Roaring Tom the target. The old man squinted at it, then grinned. “Awright, Jess; that’s yer answer.”
Young Canfield’s face darkened as he stared at the target. Two holes overlapped in it, making a kind of figure eight. Leroy, the target tender, indicated the lower one. “Thet thar’s the fust one fired. Jess’s, I reckon. Hit was jest a shade low, but hit still looked like a bullseye. Until the second one hit.” There was respect in his eyes as he glanced at Fargo. “They ain’t no question ’bout thet un. Hit is purely in the exact middle. Jess ye done been outshot.” From the way he grinned, and from the murmur that went through the crowd, Fargo guessed at once that nobody was sorry that Jess had been bested. Apparently the other Canfields bore no great love for him.
Roaring Tom took back his gun, deftly recharged it. “Awright, Mr. Fargo. Ye whupped him fa’r and squar’ with the rifle, too. Jess, maybe thet’ll teach ye not to run yer mouth so much.” He turned away. “Come on, Fargo. Ye’re due some coffee and some vittles.” As they walked toward the big cabin, Fargo could feel the pressure of the silent Jess’s eyes upon his back and the short hair at his neck’s nape prickled. He was glad the other Canfields were watching Jess; he was not a man to turn your back on when he held a gun.
“After ye eat,” old Tom said, “we’ll ride out to the still. I got to check hit—and hit’ll give us a chance to talk some more.”
~*~
The still was near the stream that poured through Black Valley. Six big wooden vats of fermenting corn filled the air with a yeasty tang. Men tended a fire under a huge copper boiler, from which steam wound through long, twisted copper tubing—the worm. It then went through cooling barrels to a condenser from which clear, white corn whiskey trickled. Roaring Tom and Fargo reined in their mules, and Tom shifted the muzzle loader slightly; all the way out here it had been in position to knock Fargo out of the saddle if he had made the least false move. “Light,” Tom said and swung down. Fargo followed suit.
Tom inspected the still. “More water in thet mash, thar and keep thet vat covered. Don’t want the stuff fulla bugs or no critters crawlin’ in and drowndin’. And keep thet far a leetle hotter under the b’iler. This is third run; we want hit full stren’th like the other.” He turned to Fargo. “Third run’s smoothest, best. First two runs, they cook out the impurities in the mash; third run’s sweet.” He picked up a fruit jar, then gestured with the rifle. “Let’s go set.”
Out of earshot of the half dozen Canfields at the still, he dropped to a log, unholstering his big Navy Colt and putting it beside him with a significant glance of warning at Fargo. He uncapped the jar, passed it over. Fargo drank, savoring the smooth, potent corn, passed it back. Old Tom drank deeply, watching Fargo over the jar’s rim.
He sighed, set down the jar. “I laid awake all night long,” he said, “thinkin’ about whut ye told me. Thet was the straight goods, about thet valley down in Mexico?”
“Straight,” said Fargo.
“I figgered. Ye didn’t have the look of a man who’d lie. Not about a thing like thet. And ... Steed’s army, these gunslingers of his. They’re comin’ atter us? Fer sure?”
“Yeah,” Fargo said. “And even if you whip them, then you got the Rangers.” He stood up.
“Maybe you ain’t been out here long enough to learn about the Rangers. I tried to tell you about ’em last night. Once a man becomes a Ranger, he’s a member of a clan just as tightly bound together as this one, yours. That is why one Ranger can do what it would take an army to, why he can walk into some hell town and cool it off maybe without firin’ a shot. Because everybody knows that if they kill a Ranger, hell itself ain’t big enough to hide in. Even if you beat Steed’s men—and I don’t think you can—when the Rangers get loose from the border, they will come up here after Jess. And you will have to kill ’em to stop them from taking him. And after that, they’ll send more, and the more you kill, the more will keep coming. They won’t stop until they have hanged or killed every one of you for every one of theirs. But they aren’t looking for a war like that, and that’s why I’m here. To keep one from happening. But you got to figure this, Tom. One way or the other, Jess is a dead man. He may be walking around with that Henry under his arm, but he is dead. And nothing you can do will save him. Absolutely nothing.”
Tom sucked in his breath. “That’s the hell of hit,” he said. “Thet’s whut I laid awake all night thinkin’ about, Fargo. Whut I owe to Jess, whut I owe to my other sons, to my brothers, all the rest of the fambly. They would fight fer Jess, down to the last man, did I tell ’em to. But have I got the right to do hit? Even if he is my own son?”
He stood up, his weathered face mournful and perplexed beneath the heavy beard, a craggy old giant of a man, whose shoulders now were bowed with the weight of decision. “Awright,” he said finally. “There’s nothin’ to do but put it to the fambly, jest like you told me. They’re entitled to decide whether they want more troubles like them we run so fur to escape. They’re entitled to decide whether they want to die fer Jess. They hate his guts, all of ’em, even his half brothers. But—” He squared his shoulders. “Come on,” he said. “We’re ridin’ back to the settlement. When we git thar, the fambly is gonna hold a trial. We’ll try Jess fer shootin’ thet Ranger. Then we’ll take a vote as to whether we want to turn him over to the law or go down fightin’ to save him.”
~*~
Followed by the men from the still, they rode back to the scattering of huts at the valley’s other end. When they reached it, Canfield ordered Fargo to dismount. He gestured to the big cabin. “Go inside and wait. Ye fellers—” he addressed the men from the still “—go in thar with him and watch him. Don’t let him git near no weapons. I’ll round up the others.”
; Fargo went inside, under the muzzles of a half dozen Sharps. Bonnie was there, cooking a meal at the fireplace. Fargo sat down at the table, the others ranged around him. She turned, brought a coffee pot and cups. As she set them down, her eyes met Fargo’s again. Once more, he read bad trouble in them. He turned away, and her red mouth pouted, even as she purposefully smoothed her dress more tightly over full, thrusting breasts.
The morning dragged on. One by one, two by two, Canfields clumped in, carrying rifles, hung with sixguns. They looked at Fargo strangely, aware something was up, and that he was at the center of it, but not knowing what. Young boys came in, too—and the women, but they were shooed back out again. Fargo, however, did have his first look at what the other Canfield women were like, and it was appalling. Like Indian squaws, mountaineers’ women did heavy labor, men’s labor, in addition to cooking, cleaning, and bearing children with the regularity of brood mares. It wore them out before their time, made crones and slatterns out of women not much more than five, ten years past Bonnie’s age.
Fargo thought he understood now the desperation in her eyes. He felt a touch more sympathy for her. She was full of spirit, wildness, resisting the fate that had overtaken the others.
The men ate. They were all here now except for Roaring Tom and Jess. When they were finished, Bonnie cleared the table, then vanished, with one last searching look at Fargo. The Canfields smoked their pipes and cigars in silence, faces full of speculation. The older ones, long beards streaked with gray, were, Fargo guessed, Roaring Tom’s younger brothers. On them, likely, would rest the main burden of decision.
Then the door opened and Roaring Tom and Jess entered. The younger Canfield stopped short, staring at the assembly. “What’s this? What’s goin’ on?”
“Fambly council,” Tom said, softly, wearily. He closed the door and shot its bolt.
“About whut?”
“About ye,” Tom said. “Take off yer guns, son.”
Jess’s face turned red. “Take off my guns? Whut th’ hell—?”