by Ralph Cotton
“You do that, Dawson,” said Shaw, lowering his voice as well.
“I maybe could have done something different,” Dawson added, still running the fight over and over in his mind.
“Like what?” Shaw asked bluntly.
“I don’t know, maybe jumped out of the way when that one started shooting at me.”
“Which way does a man jump when bullets are flying all around?” Shaw asked, seeing that Dawson was still having trouble turning it loose.
“I don’t know, Shaw,” said Dawson. “I suppose that’s why I shot him…I just wanted those bullets to stop. I stopped them the only way I could.” He took another drink, this one a short sip; then he handed the bottle back to Shaw.
“I expect I could say that about any gunfight I’ve ever had,” said Shaw. He put the cork in the bottle and popped it tight with the palm of his hand. “If you need any more of this, let me know.”
“The whiskey or the talk?” Dawson asked.
Shaw didn’t answer.
“Can I say something?” Dawson called out as Shaw walked away toward the edge of the creek.
Shaw stopped and just looked at him, taking the sawed-off from under his arm and holding it loosely.
“What Renfield said…” Dawson’s words trailed away. “You do have some unlikable ways about you. I hate saying it, but you ain’t at all like the Lawrence Shaw I grew up with.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Shaw, almost to himself.
“Sometimes it looks to me like Lawrence Shaw and Fast Larry are two men in a fistfight with each other,” said Dawson.
“Most times, they are,” said Shaw, turning away.
At dark, when they had finished a meal of jerked beef and coffee, Shaw put out the campfire and they moved four hundred yards farther along the creekbank. Staying inside the narrow strip of woodlands, they made a dark camp for the night and took turns sitting watch. Without a fire’s light they couldn’t be spotted from a distance, and while their tracks could be found along the creekbank, following them was not something a group of riders could do quietly through the mesquite, scrub brush, and juniper.
In the middle of the night, Jedson Caldwell awakened Lawrence Shaw by poking a stick against his sock foot. “Mr. Shaw, wake up, please. I think I hear something,” Caldwell whispered. He poked Shaw’s foot again.
“All right, Undertaker,” Shaw growled under his breath. “I’m awake.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Shaw, but listen out there, upstream,” he said. Then he fell silent for a moment. “There, did you hear it?” he whispered, his voice sounding excited.
“Yep, it’s horses, moving slow,” said Shaw, rolling up from his blanket, bringing the shotgun with him. “You did good, Undertaker.”
“Thank you, Mr. Shaw,” said Caldwell.
“Listen, Undertaker,” said Shaw, pulling his boots on, “you can drop the ‘mister.’ We’ve been in a gunfight together. I think that affords us a certain lack of formality, don’t you?”
“Yes, you’re right, Mi— I mean, Mist— I mean, Mr.—”
“Never mind,” said Shaw. He stepped over to where Cray Dawson lay sleeping beneath what smelled like a vapor of rye whiskey. Kicking Dawson’s leg gently, Shaw said, “Dawson, wake up. Somebody’s coming.”
Dawson groaned and sat up, cupping his face in both hands. “I feel like hell,” he said in a pained voice.
“You better pull yourself together pretty quick,” said Shaw. “If this is some of the boys from the Rafter One spread, the best thing we can do is keep you out of sight for the time being. Get up and make yourself scarce. But keep your ears open.”
“I will,” said Dawson, struggling to get to his feet, then searching around in the moonlight for his hat that had fallen somewhere on the ground.
Shaw picked up Dawson’s blanket and pitched it over on his own, to make it look like there were only him and Caldwell there. Then he said to Caldwell, “Come on, Undertaker; let’s see if we can convince these boys that we’re by ourselves.”
“What if they don’t believe us?” Caldwell asked, sounding a bit frightened.
“I don’t care if they believe us or not, so long as they take our word for it and go away,” said Shaw, smiling thinly to himself. “Don’t forget, my name is worth something. There’s times when it doesn’t hurt to be Fast Larry Shaw.”
Caldwell noted that there was a tone of irony and contempt in Shaw’s voice. He decided to keep quiet and calm down, realizing that he was into this with Shaw and Dawson up to his neck. He had to survive, and his best chance was to learn to handle matters the way these two did, he thought, with a lot more boldness and a lot less fear of the consequences.
He followed Shaw to the edge of the clearing along the creekbank where the two of them squatted down out of the moonlight in the dark shadow of a live oak along a thin, winding trail. After a moment of listening to the sound of horses moving quietly through mesquite brush, Shaw whispered, “They’re on our trail, but they don’t know how far away we are. You sit tight here; I’ll be right across the trail. Don’t shoot unless you have to. Like as not I can talk them down.”
“What if there’s too many of them?” Caldwell asked, regretting his words as soon as he said them.
“There’s always too many of them, Undertaker,” said Shaw. He slipped away across the trail in the moonlight, then dropped out of sight. Caldwell felt his fear well up again now that he was alone in the dark, the sound of men with guns moving forward toward him in the night. A cold sheen of sweat formed on his forehead. He tried to prepare himself for a long, agonizing wait, yet it seemed like only a few seconds had passed when he heard Shaw’s voice call out to the sound of the horses moving closer.
“Hello, the trail,” said Shaw when he judged the riders to be within less than twenty feet away. “You’ve come close enough.”
A short silence passed; then a voice replied, “I’m Martin Sullivan, the foreman of the Turkey Track Ranch. We’re looking for the man who shot two of my drovers back at the Turkey Wells station.”
“He’s not here,” said Shaw with finality. “What else can we do for you?”
“We’ve got to take a look all the same,” the foreman said.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Shaw. “It tells me you’re going to be hardheaded, and make me empty this double-barrel on you.”
A worried voice among the riders said, “Damn it, Sully! If that’s Fast Larry he’ll do it too!”
“Pipe down, Ollie,” said Martin Sullivan. “Let’s all keep our heads here.”
“Now there’s a good idea,” Shaw called out, overhearing them.
“Are you Fast Larry Shaw?” Sullivan called out.
“I am,” said Shaw.
“Then you know it ain’t you we’re looking for. It’s the other fellow, the one who killed our boys.”
“That was an honest mistake, cowboy,” said Shaw. “Your man took a secondhand bullet. Nobody meant for it to happen.”
“I’ve heard a half dozen different accounts of it,” said the foreman.
“But now you’ve heard the truth,” said Shaw.
“What about our other boy?” the foreman asked. “Buddy Edwards didn’t even have good sense. All’s he ever could do was stick a horse or pitch a calf.”
“He knew one other thing,” said Shaw. “He knew how to point a pistol and commence pulling the trigger.”
“Still, he didn’t deserve dying like this,” said the foreman.
“Take it up with God, cowboy,” said Shaw. “I don’t aim to lose any more sleep over it. Turn and ride.”
“We’re staying on this trail,” said the foreman. “I want to hear how it happened from the man who done it.”
“I’m telling you straight up, nobody was out to kill them boys,” said Shaw, cocking the shotgun hammers slowly, letting them be heard and considered. “They were in the wrong place at the wrong time…end of song. Now turn and ride.”
“I can’t do that, Shaw,” said
Martin Sullivan stubbornly. “I know you’re a big gun out of Somos Santos, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to—”
“Hold it,” said Dawson, appearing in the moonlight in the middle of the thin trail, facing the riders. “Here I am. If you want to hear it from me, you’re hearing it.”
Shaw whispered to himself, “Damn it, Dawson, this is not the place to clear your conscience.”
“I killed them both,” said Dawson. “God knows I didn’t mean to, but I did it just the same.”
“No matter whether you meant to or not, you killed them. As foreman of the Turkey Track Ranch, Rafter One spread, it’s up to me to set things right,” said Sullivan. He stepped down from his saddle. Let’s get to it,” he said, giving his horse a slight shove to the side. “Mr. Shaw, since this has nothing to do with you, I’m hoping you won’t have any grudge agin’ me once it’s over.”
“A grudge against you?” Shaw chuckled openly. “Don’t worry about me, mister. Once this is over, the only thing left of you is what your boys there carve on a plank head marker.”
“I reckon there’s a fifty-fifty chance the same thing is going to happen to him,” said Sullivan, giving a nod toward Cray Dawson.
“Then you’re a damned fool,” Shaw said bluntly. “Don’t forget, besides your two cowhands, he also left one of Renfield’s top gunmen lying dead and sent the other running.”
“I realize that,” said Sullivan, swallowing a tight knot that suddenly came to his throat.
Seeing the man begin to weaken, Shaw continued.
Here’s something else you’d best realize. This man is Crayton Dawson, the fastest gun to ever come out of Somos Santos. But I reckon that means nothing to you.” He backed his horse as if giving up in disgust, saying to Cray Dawson, “All right, Crayton, go on and shoot him. He’s not smart enough to live.”
“Stay out of this, Shaw,” said Dawson. “I see what you’re trying to do. But you’re not going to stop it. I killed those two drovers and I’ll face up to it.”
“Wait a minute here,” said Sullivan, getting anxious and a bit confused by the talk between Shaw and Dawson. He reached up and scratched his head under his hat brim, keeping his gun hand away from his pistol butt. Then he said warily to Lawrence Shaw, “You’re from Somos Santos, ain’t you?”
“We’re both from Somos Santos,” said Shaw. “We grew up there together. Broke horses together, swam the creeks together…shot jackrabbits together.” His eyes narrowed on the man in the moonlight. “We learned to draw and shoot togther.”
“I said stay out of it, Shaw!” said Cray Dawson.
But Shaw continued, saying to Sullivan, “When I tell you this man is going to kill you deader than hell…don’t think I haven’t given it close consideration. He looked at the other drovers, then said to Sullivan, “You must have thought an awful lot of those two cowhands to be willing to die for them. I reckon that’s admirable.” He touched his fingertips to his hat brim. “Adios.”
Having lost some of the heated urge to avenge his fallen cowhands, Sullivan looked troubled and bit his lip. “Shaw, if you’re saying this was all a mistake—”
“I’ve said all I’m going to say.” Shaw shrugged. “If you want to die this way, it’s not my place to stop you.” He turned to Dawson, saying, “Hurry up and shoot him, Crayton. Maybe the rest of these boys will drag him out of here, let me get back to sleep. Won’t you, boys?” he asked the drovers.
The men nodded as one. Sullivan turned and saw them; then he said quickly to Cray Dawson, “Mister, I’ve never heard of you. But if Fast Larry Shaw says you’re the fastest gun out of Somos Santos, I don’t reckon anybody can blame me for not wanting to face off with you…‘specially with them two boys’ deaths being an unfortunate accident, so to speak.”
Not knowing what to say, Cray Dawson stood staring silently, his hand relaxed but still close to his gun handle.
Looking at the drovers behind him, then at Lawrence Shaw, then back to Dawson, Sullivan said, “I believe I’m going to ride away from here and call this thing square, if it’s all the same with everybody?”
“You’d be wise to do so,” Shaw said quietly.
Jedson Caldwell watched as if in awe as the foreman stepped back atop his horse in silence, backed it, turned it, and led his men away, one of them lifting a coiled rope from his saddle horn and flinging it to the ground. When the riders had vanished from the moonlight back into the night, Caldwell slipped over, picked up the rope, and brought it to Shaw and Dawson. “Look,” he said in a hushed tone, “they’d already tied a hangman’s knot in it!”
“There you have it, Crayton,” said Shaw, taking the rope and shoving it to Cray Dawson. “It looks like one way or another, your newfound reputation as a gunman just saved your life.”
Instead of taking the rope, Dawson took a step backward, letting it fall to the ground. “I’ve got no reputation, Shaw! I’m not a gunman! You had no right interfering!”
“I had every right interfering,” said Shaw. “You’re riding with me, watching my back. I’ve got to do the same for you. You’ve let killing those cowhands get to you so bad that you’re ready to get yourself killed as some sort of punishment for it. I’m not about to let that happen.”
“How do you know I was going to get killed?”
Dawson said defiantly. “How do you know that I haven’t developed a taste for killing, just like you have?”
“I’m going to overlook that remark,” said Shaw, “because I know you’re not thinking straight right now.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if letting it settle his patience. Then he said, “I’ll tell you how I know…I know because I’ve seen too many men die in front of me not to know. Do you think staying alive in this life of mine has been all about who’s the fastest to draw and fire a gun?” He gave Dawson a questioning look. “If it was, I’d have been dead years ago. This is about staying alive! This is about learning something more every time a man’s face hits the dirt. I can tell how many gunfights a man has been in by the amount of sweat that runs down his face.”
Cray Dawson also settled down, realizing that everything Shaw had said was true whether he’d realized it or not at the time. “All right,” he said, “I do blame myself for those two cowhands being dead; there’s no way around it.”
“This place I live in somebody dies every day,” said Shaw. “Get used to it, before it gets you killed.”
“I can’t get used to it, Shaw, at least not the way you have,” said Dawson. “I’m not a part of it like you are. I’m here to take vengeance the same as you. But when it’s finished, I go home and hang up my gun. What will you do?”
Shaw’s demeanor seemed to soften in reflection. “I don’t know…I wish to God I did.” Then he seemed to snap out of such a line of thought and said, “But don’t kid yourself thinking it’ll be easy to stop, Dawson. You’ve got yourself a reputation to live up to whether you like it or not.”
“Or live down,” said Dawson, “the way I see it.”
“Up or down is your call,” said Shaw, reining his horse toward the trail. “But either way you’ll have to live with it. That foreman and his men ain’t about to tell anybody that you’re an ordinary cowhand like themselves. How would that make them look, not bringing your body back facedown over a saddle? No, sir, they’re going to see to it that your reputation grows, for a while, anyway. By then somebody else will add something to it, if you don’t yourself.” He tipped his hat brim down onto his forehead and added in a lowered tone of voice, “welcome to the circus, Crayton Dawson. Hope you enjoy the show.”
Chapter 16
In the spare room behind the doctor’s office, Lizzy Carnes turned her nose away and picked up the bloody discarded gauze bandage from the nightstand beside Sammy Boy’s bed. She dropped the soiled bandage into an empty washpan to be thrown away. “I think you’re going to kill yourself if you don’t take more time to let this wound heal,” she said to Sammy Boy White, who sat on the side of the bed looking wooz
y and drained.
“This wound will heal just as well on horseback as it will on a feather bed,” Sammy Boy said, stifling a groan as he stretched his right arm and tried to loosen the tight pain in his badly bruised chest. “I’m breathing all right now. The doctor says as young as I am, I’ll heal up quick. I can’t afford to let this opportunity slip past me.”
Lizzy shook her head. “I swear it makes no sense to me, all this killing just to see who kills the other the quickest.”
“You’re a whor— I mean, a woman, Lizzy,” said Sammy Boy. “If you don’t understand it, maybe it’s because you ain’t meant to understand it.” He gestured toward a chair and said, “Hand me my shirt; help me get into it. Time is slipping away from us.”
“You were going to say ‘whore,’ Sammy,” said Lizzy. “But being a whore doesn’t make me stupid!” She snatched up the shirt and tossed it to him.
“It doesn’t make you real smart either, does it?” Sammy replied, grinning, catching the shirt and shaking it out with one hand. “The thing is, I’ve got a chance here to make something out of surviving that gunfight with Fast Larry Shaw. Whether he knew it or not, Shaw just opened a big door for ol’ Sammy Boy. I’m going to take advantage of it. I’m going after him.”
Lizzy looked puzzled. “That’s what I can’t understand, Sammy. The man could have killed you but he spared your life…why on earth would you want to kill him after him doing something like that? It looks to me like you would thank him for it.”
“See?” said Sammy Boy. “That’s how little you know about gunslinging. I’ve got Fast Larry Shaw all figured out, up here.” He tapped his finger against his forehead. “This is all about who makes the first mistake, and he made a bad one, not killing me when he had the chance. He showed me that he’s tired of being who he is. He’s getting old and worn out, and it won’t be long before somebody has to put him to sleep, the way you do any old dog. I plan on being the person who does it.”
“Well, all’s I know is, me and Suzette met him and his friend…. I thought they were both real nice,” she said, reaching out and helping him into his shirt, then beginning to button it for him.