Jeremiah Tucker The Gunfighter - Book One

by James Butler

  JEREMIAH TUCKER

  THE GUNFIGHTER

  James Butler

  (This is a work of fiction. Even though some of the places and people named in this book did or do exist, they are used in a fictitious manner as are all of the dates, events and characters which are the product of the author’s imagination. Any character resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.)

  Chapter 1

  Jeremiah Tucker was a gambler first and a gunfighter second. One always seemed to go with the other. He was tall, over six foot three, like his dad, with black hair and blue eyes. He had a way with the women, but the kind of women who frequented the gambling houses and riverboats were just like him - not the kind to settle down - so he had never married. The Civil War had been over for five years. It was 1870 and he was waiting to go into the courtroom for the second time. As he sat there waiting, he was surrounded by reporters and dime novelists wanting to hear the stories of his gunfights. He leaned back in his chair and lit a cigar:

  ***

  I ran over to my dad laying on his back in the dirt. I lifted his head and shoved my leg underneath, trying to give him a little comfort. He had a hole in his chest big enough to stick my finger in and blood was bubbling out of his mouth as he tried to talk. I leaned over trying to hear. He took my hand and squeezed it. I was barely six years old.

  “I’m not gonna make it this time, son. You’re gonna have to find a way to take care of your mother. I’m sorry.”

  His body stiffened for a second. I heard him groan and then he was dead. The cowboy who shot him rode up to me laughing.

  “He wasn’t much of a man,” he said. “I’d be willing to bet that when you grow up, you’ll be a cowardly bastard just like him.”

  My dad was over six feet tall and as strong as an ox. That cowboy could’ve never taken him without a gun. He walked his horse into me while I was holding on to my dad, crying. I had to let go and jump out of the way while the cowboy’s horse trampled the body. The cowboy was lean and rawboned. His face was as hard as leather and with deep wrinkles. He rode a spotted horse and one of his spurs was missing a rowel.

  “You killed my dad,” I said. “He didn’t do anything to you. He didn’t even have a gun.”

  “You mean one of these?”

  He pulled out his six-shooter and fired a shot close to me. I ran to our barn with him shooting at my feet and laughing. My mother came running out of the house with the only weapon she had, a broom, and swatted him with it while his horse was spinning in a circle and he was reloading his gun. She was a little woman, barely a hundred pounds. He laughed and grabbed her up, laid her across his legs on her belly and pulled up her dress.

  “That’s one fine little ass you got there.” He shoved her off onto the ground where she fell in a heap. He stepped down off his horse. He looked at my dad and said, “He ain’t gonna be no use to you now.” He grabbed her by her feet and dropped down on his knees. Mother was kicking and screaming, but he didn’t care. He just kept on laughing. The only thing that made him stop was when I stuck the pitchfork through his neck. He fell over on his side, spitting blood just like my dad. His six-shooter fell from his hand. I picked it up and my mother screamed, “Shoot that son of a bitch!” It hurt my hand when I cocked the hammer back, but I fired every shot into his head. He wasn’t laughing anymore. I was standing right over him and the blood from each shot splattered all over me.

  My mother and I buried my dad under his favorite tree. We tied the cowboy to his spotted horse and drug his body out on the plains far from our house where the buzzards and crows could peck out his eyes and the other critters could eat what was left of him. We took all his money, guns and his spotted horse and saddle. I even took his spurs with the missing rowel.

  He raised up his boot and showed them the spur with the missing rowel. The reporters from the newspaper and the dime novelists sat there listening without uttering a sound, writing it down word for word. It wasn’t often they got to hear the story from a real gunfighter.

  My mother always read the Bible to me at night. She believed it was wrong to take another’s life, but as I helped her up off the ground and brushed the dirt off of her dress, I could tell she was proud of me.

  ‘Find a way to take care of your mother,’ my dad had said. I was going to make sure that no one ever hurt her again. I was six years old and that was the first man I ever killed.

  I’ve heard, said one of the reporters, that being a good gunfighter was like being a good poker player: Mostly bluff. Is that a true statement?

  I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you and me step out into the street and I’ll give you a chance to test that theory.

  Oh, no, I’m just a reporter. I’ve never been a good poker player and I sure ain’t no gunfighter.

  In poker, you have to play the hand you’re dealt. Once you have your hand, it’s not going to get any better. From that point on, it’s a matter of knowing the game and the men in the game. It’s luck more than not, but the more I learned, the luckier I got. It was the same with gunfighting. I didn’t know most of the men I went up against, but I knew the game. Better than them or they’d be here telling their story, not me.

  Now that your getting older, do you plan on continuing to be a gunfighter?

  I never planned on being a gunfighter ever, as far back as I can remember. It just happened. And I don’t consider 30 as getting older.

  The reporters laughed.

  My mother was a beautiful woman and, naturally, she could turn a man’s head. My dad told me to find a way to take care of her and I guess that’s the way I did it. It’s not like most people think. I didn’t just go looking for a fight, but I kept that cowboy’s pistol wrapped in a blanket and stuffed under the seat of our buckboard. As I grew up, I gambled to support us and gunfighting just followed. No one was ever going to hurt my mother again. When I came back home from the war, I found that my mother was dead. I hadn’t been there to protect her. She was killed by the Yankees and we didn’t own the property anymore. That was five years ago. I sat outside this very courtroom, maybe in this same chair. I remember it just like it was yesterday.

  Chapter 2

  “Please stand and put your right hand on the Bible.”

  I stood and placed my hand on the Bible.

  “Repeat after me: I do solemnly swear that the testimony I am about to give is the truth and nothing but the truth so help me God.”

  I went through the whole swearing in bit with the Yankee lawyer.

  “Please say your name loud and clear so that the people in the back can hear you.”

  “My name is Jeremiah Tucker.” I stepped up on the makeshift stand and took a seat.

  “Mr. Tucker, can you tell this court why it should grant to you the freedoms offered under the Confederate Amnesty set down by the late President Abraham Lincoln?”

  “Well, I was a Confederate soldier. I was a property owner before the war and I see no reason why my property shouldn’t be returned to me. I never owned a slave. I’ve done nothing to deserve this.”

  “Were you an officer in the Confederate Army?”

  “No, sir. I was a private.”

  The people in the courtroom laughed.

  “You’re awful old to be just a private.”

  “I guess I wasn’t cut out to be in the army. I’ve done nothing wrong, yet the United States is still holding my property.”

  “The economy of the union is in dire straits. The United States is holding your former property because taxes were never paid to the Union. You people have to pay your taxes. The people who own that property now were immigrants from Germany. They paid the back taxes and bought the
property fair and square. Yoder was their name. Isn’t it true that you’re a gunfighter?” There were gasps in the courtroom.

  “No, that is not true. I am definitely not a gunfighter. I will defend myself when necessary, but I never go looking for a fight.”

  “According to what I’ve read, you have to defend yourself quite often.”

  “Don’t you Yankees up North defend your families and your honor?”

  “That’s enough of that kind of talk, Mr. Tucker. If you want the court to show leniency, there better be no more of that.”

  “Leniency? It was my property you took, my mother you killed while she tried to defend it. You’re the one who should be asking for leniency.”

  “I’m sure the Union Army had nothing to do with your mother’s death.”

  “What you mean is that you want us to bend down and kiss your Yankee ass. Isn’t that what you want all of us Southerners to do? I was a private in the Confederate Army, but it was better than being a general in the Union.”

  “Well, I suppose that just about wraps it up for you, Mr. Tucker.”

  The Yankee asshole smiled and turned to the jury.

  “What did you do in the army?” I asked.

  “I was a federal lawyer and exempt from battle.”

  “I thought so. They kept all the cowards at home so as not to embarrass Mr. Lincoln.”

  The jury didn’t even get a chance to discuss my case. The Yankee judge slammed down his gavel and said, “Amnesty denied. Next case.”

  I walked out of the courtroom worse off than when I went in. Now I knew that the South was being punished for things they didn’t do. Slavery had almost nothing to do with it. Northern Imperialism. They wanted our property and the people who lived on it. It was all about money. The Yankees had been some of the biggest slave owners before the war. Now, they wanted to make the entire South their slaves. I had no other choice but to head west like many of the other Confederates and gunfighters who had been denied amnesty, but I made a promise to myself and my dead mother that I would come back when the time was right and take our property back again.

  Chapter 3

  I boarded the stage in Coffeyville, Kansas, and headed for the railroad in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I’d heard that the train went straight across the country from there, all the way to San Francisco. I hoped I could ride in peace without any trouble.

  After the war, money was so hard to come by many honest citizens were turning into outlaws. Most of the so-called gunfighters were a joke. Usually just drunks who, on the spur of the moment, let their tempers get the best of them and started blazing away. Most of the time when the smoke cleared and they could finally see, one of them was gone. Snuck out the back door and was glad he was still alive. Sometimes they both ran.

  Then there were the fast draw artists. Kids who thought they were gunfighters. Sometimes they were lucky and actually hit the guy they were aiming at. Usually though, they missed and killed a horse or a passerby who had nothing to do with it. In my opinion, the best gunfighters were those who didn’t get in a hurry and just took their time while the other guy was blazing away and, when the smoke cleared, they’d shoot the fast draw expert right between the eyes. It was like poker in this respect: The poker player who takes his time to make his bet agitates the other players who want to move on with the game. He does this intentionally to aggravate his opponents. They make the wrong play and he wins the pot. You have to learn to stay calm and not get excited. Just draw your gun and kill the crazy bastard.

  The real gunfighters didn’t wear their guns all strapped down on their legs like you novelists like to write. If they had a holster at all, it would just be hanging from their belt. Most just stuck their pistol down in behind their belt, nothing fancy. When they went after a guy to kill him, they usually ambushed him or shot him in the back. Only a crazy person would walk out onto the street and challenge someone to a gunfight. I carried my pistol in a holster hanging from my belt just inside my coat at pocket level. I had the bottom cut out so I could get to my gun without taking my hands out of my pockets. I never really gave the other guy a chance. They were dead before they could even draw. I got most of my reputation as a gunfighter from the poker tables where I was forced to either kill or die. But the reason I’ve survived as long as I have is that, when I heard someone was looking for a fight, I’d leave. I’ve never wanted to kill a man just because he was a gunfighter. I never took a job as a hired gun. I never had anything to prove to anyone. After the war was over, a lot of the gunfighters fled into Mexico and California. So did many of the Confederate soldiers. I’m heading for California. Maybe to build a new life or maybe to build an army of real gunfighters to come back and reclaim the South.

  ***

  I had no reason for going to California except to catch a freighter and work my way to Alaska. As far as I was concerned, my gunfighting days were over. I was bound and determined to leave my past behind me. The dime novelist would have his story that he would blow all out of proportion. He’d sell the book using my name and the Yankees would think I was coming back for them. Meanwhile, I’d be hunting for gold and, maybe if I was lucky, I’d find enough to buy back my parents’ property. I found my mother’s grave where the Yankees had buried her. I dug her up and buried her next to my dad under his favorite tree. I had no intention of letting some Yankee come in there and take over their property, at least not for long. I was going to take my first train ride all the way to California.

  The old stage lines had seen their day. With the stage only making a hundred miles a day, the whole trip including the stage ride would put me in California in less than two weeks, depending on how many stops we had to make along the way and I didn’t have to worry about being attacked by the Sioux. Hopefully, the James gang would be working farther south.

  I met Jesse James once while we were both fighting the Yankees. He was such a happy man, always smiling. I’d hate to have to kill him.

  Chapter 4

  I’ve always found it awkward riding on a stage with other people. Strangers that I didn’t know. The stage lines made their money carrying other things like mail, freight and payroll, not from the few passengers.

  There were outlaws still around left over from the war. The James brothers, the Daltons and the Youngers. There was always a chance of being robbed on the stage or the train. I never knew who I might be sitting across from so I kept my hand in my coat pocket most of the way.

  “I swear,” she said, looking at me. “Isn’t this weather ever going to break? I don’t think I can take this heat much longer.” She was a pretty little thing, not more than twenty, but I thought she was overdoing it a bit. She pulled up her dress above her knees and fanned her legs with it.

  The reporters laughed, but listened intently.

  “How far are you going?” said the young man sitting next to her. I had thought they were married. She didn’t even look at him.

  “I’m going all the way to California,” she said, never taking her eyes off of me. “I have kin in San Francisco. I’m going for a visit and maybe even stay there. How about you?” she said still looking at me.

  “I’m going to California, too. I’m taking the train.” There were only the three of us on the stage and she moved over and sat beside me.

  “I’m taking the train, too. I’ve never been on a train before,” she said smiling. “This will be my first time. Where do we sleep?” She smiled an inviting smile.

  “I’ve never been on a train myself, but I’ve heard they have sleeping cars.”

  She curled her feet up in the seat and took me by the arm. “You don’t mind if I borrow your shoulder, do you? I want to take a little nap.”

  As a gunfighter, I had learned over the years to never use my gun hand, to always keep it free. You never know when you’ll need it. Being right-handed, I always used my left. Only an inexperienced thief wouldn’t know that. This little lady had been watching every move I made. When she moved over by me, she moved to my left side
. She was sitting so close to me she felt like a second skin. I could feel her leg rubbing against me trying to find a gun. She even ran her hand down my leg.

  They waited until we were well out on the prairie and then the young man said, “I’m sorry to have to do this to you, being we just met and all, but would you be kind enough to hand over all your money and anything else you have of value?” He was about the same age as her. They could’ve been brother and sister. He unbuttoned his coat and exposed his Navy colt. I just sat there and smiled. I already had my gun in my hand and was ready to blow his young head off if he so much as moved for his.

  “Take his money, Lilly.” Lilly reached under my coat and I grabbed her by the neck and forced her head into my lap. He started to go for his gun, but when I raised my right hand, he knew it was over. I fired a shot out the window and the driver pulled over. He left his man riding shotgun there to hold the horses and look out for bandits, then he climbed down with his double-barreled shotgun and opened the door. I was sitting there with Lilly’s head in my lap and my gun aimed at her partner’s head.

  “What’s the matter? You folks can’t get along?”

  “They’re a couple of thieves,” I said. “Very poor ones at that.”

  Lilly had reached up under her dress and I caught her hand just as she came out with a derringer.

  “I’ve got just the thing for you two,” said the driver. I took the derringer and threw it out the window on the opposite side, then shoved Lilly out the door to the driver. Then I very carefully moved over to the young man and shoved the barrel of my pistol into his mouth.

  “Now,” I said, “you can take your gun belt off with the tips of your fingers and drop it on the floor or you can die right here and now.” I cocked the hammer back. I could feel his teeth chattering against the barrel.

  He took his gun belt off and stumbled outside. It looked to me like he had pissed himself. The driver shackled their hands and feet, then tied them together and shoved them back into the coach. “If you give this man any more trouble, I’ll tie a rope around both your necks and drag you the rest of the way.” He looked at the young man’s wet pants and laughed. He slammed the door shut and climbed back up. He was still laughing when I heard him release the brake and, at the crack of his whip, we were moving again.