The kid was grinning as Sam went into another crouch, cross-drew suddenly and held the trigger of his .45 against the guard as he fanned three shots with his left palm against the hammer of the gun in his right hand, the echo of one explosion fusing with the bang of the next round. Graham not only missed the target, but the entire tree.
“Damn! Never could hit the near side of a barn, fanning. Makes this single-action as fast as a double-action revolver, but it’s not very accurate. Don’t try that in a gunfight unless you’re in real close.” Now Graham took his time, extending his right arm and sighting along the short rear sight and through the removable front sight of his shortened 4¾'' barrels. Three shots! He didn’t miss, either.
“Wooo!” exulted Gillom.
“One bullet in the right spot, kid, is all the truth you’ll ever need.”
Gene Rhodes roused himself from the stump where he’d been observing.
“Nice shootin’, boys. That’s probably enough scarin’ the horses for today.”
Gillom reloaded and offered his revolver to the older wrangler.
“You wanna try, Mister Rhodes?”
“No thanks, son.” Gene hitched up his short frame. “When I was a little boy on our family farm I watched one of the field hands remove his glass eye at lunch one day to wash it. Being four years old I thought that was some trick and I tried to remove my own eye, too. Hurt like a sumbitch and I’ve had a weak left eye eve’ since. Can’t see worth a damn at distance. I’d be a dange’ to all mankind shooting pistols.”
They lingered over coffee and the dessert Gene had cooked in his dutch oven in the fireplace—“spotted pup,” rice cooked with raisins and brown sugar.
“You gotta gift with guns, Gillom. Which is probably you’ misfortune.”
“I don’t know about that, Gene,” replied Sam Graham. “Pistol fighters can always find a job out West. Earn plenty of respect to go along with a payday, too.”
“And an early grave.” Rhodes shook his head.
“Maybe not. If I stay on the right side of the law,” argued Gillom.
“Yes, if,” added Gene. “And you respect what the old cowboys used to call the code of the West.”
“What’s that?”
Gene Rhodes rubbed his small belly to aid digestion.
“Well, it’s sort of a rattlesnake’s code, to give fai’ warning before you strike. It’s to the death after that, the barbarous code of the fighting man. Neve’ take unfai’ advantage of someone. Neve’ use sneaky tricks in a business deal ah a fight, like shooting someone in the back when he’s unarmed. You cannot eat a man’s food and then stand up and shoot him. You can’t kill someone without warning them first you’re out to get them, but then ambush is okay, since they’ve been fai’ warned. And keep you’ word. Do what you say you’ gonna do. Always.”
His reddish-haired friend snorted. “That’s how most of these gunfighters’ reputations were made, Gene, back-shooting and killing drunks and ignorants. John Wesley Hardin’s, for instance.”
“Yeah and it caught up with him, didn’t it? Hardin got shot in the back of the head in the Acme by an angry old lawman, who got off scot-free fo’ his murder.”
Sam scratched his chin stubble. “John Selman got shot himself not long after for that crime.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’. You cross the law’s line, it’ll catch up with you, soone’ ah late’, one way ah anotha. You’ brothe’s fate is gonna be yours, too, pardne’, you don’t straighten up,” Gene lisped.
Graham scowled at the family reference, got up from the table to pour more coffee from the kettle resting in the fireplace embers.
“You’re good with guns, too, Sam. We just saw. You’d make a helluva bank guard ah even a small-town sheriff yourself, somewheres fa’ away, unde’ another’ name.”
“My fate lies somewheres else.”
Gillom had gotten up to take out his revolvers, unload them, and pull out his cleaning rod, gun oil, and a tiny screwdriver. He held up one of the .44-.40 Remingtons, admiring its silver shine in the lamplight as he spun an empty cylinder.
“What should I call ’em, fellas? Fire and Brimstone? Shouldn’t I name these guns, like that fair warning you mentioned, Gene? Blood and Death maybe?”
Gene Rhodes’s lecture on fair gunplay hadn’t quite taken.
* * *
Gillom took a respite the next day, letting Sam follow Gene in breaking one of the last wild horses. The kid’s tailbone was aching from several days’ banging in the saddle, so he watched from the rail and grinned as Graham launched off the back of a big sorrel whose white socks flashed as it crow-hopped around the corral, celebrating unhorsing a rider.
“You did let him buck, Miste’ Graham!”
“Jesus to Genoa.” The outlaw got gingerly to his big feet, brushing off his pants and his pride.
Rhodes caught the bronc and led him back docilely by the reins to the jockey. “If at first you don’t stay on—”
“All right, damn it. My ass says no, but my pride says go. But if I take another circus tumble, Gene, you’ll have to iron this nag out for me.”
“My pleasure,” grinned Mr. Rhodes, helping his house guest back aboard. The horse just stood there, breathing hard as Sam lifted the reins, adjusted his fanny in the saddle. Then he gave it a little spur with an iron rowel.
The tall horse was off instantly, sun-fishing with all four legs in the air while it twisted to show its belly, with Sam yelling and grabbing its blond mane. But his saddle weight wore the scared horse down and its buck jumping gradually lessened with Graham yipping and Rhodes yelling at his pupil. “Lean back! Keep its head up!”
The reddish horse pranced by them at a hard trot. “You can bust broncs for me anytime, cowboy!”
“No, one’s enough today. Don’t wanna push my luck!” yelled the Texas cowboy as he slid off the saddle and let Gillom take the reins of the skittish horse. Gene got the cinch loosened and the saddle off and the teenager yanked the headstall off the feisty animal, which leapt away with a last cow kick at its captors, narrowly missing Sam’s head.
“Whew! I’ll leave the horse wrangling to you, Gene. Ain’t my favorite line of work.”
The ranch owner put the sweaty tack atop a railing to dry, and the men tromped off with towels to the bathing spring to dunk their sore butts.
Snow melt burbling up into the two rock pools laved their undersides and made the chilly water bearable. Gillom lay back against the smooth sandstone. Gene joined him in the larger pool, leaving the smaller one to the big bandit.
“Those fou’ horses are green-broke now, so I need to drive ’em down to the Ba’ Cross for the boys to use as replacements and get ’em cattle-trained before fall roundup. I’ll ride down to Engle tomorrow for supplies. It’s thirty miles to that cattle depot on the railroad, which will take you anywhere you want to go. You wanna go down with me, Gillom, ah stay up here fo’ a while?”
“Oh, I probably should put more miles between me and my trouble. I don’t know where to go, though, besides west?”
Graham stopped soaping his head. “Oughta try Bisbee. There’s a real fast town. All that copper money has dolled it up pretty good and those free-spending miners keep their saloons open all night. Douglas is building another big smelter a little south right near the border, and it’s starting to hop, too. Tombstone nearby has slowed way down since its silver mines mostly played out, but Clifton to the north has got rich copper diggings, I hear. Bisbee’s cornered most of the excitement, though, kid. Hottest town in the whole southwest, besides El Paso.”
“You can pick up a Santa Fe express in Engle, Gillom, and be in Bisbee in two days,” said Gene.
“Aways wanted to see that Arizona Territory. Can I sell my horses and tack in Engle and buy a ticket?”
“Sure. I know Slim, the stableman.”
“Bisbee’s got the mine and bank jobs you’re seeking, kid, guarding all that mineral wealth,” added Sam from his nearby bath.
“S
ounds good. What are you gonna do now, Mister Graham? Why don’t you come along with me?”
“No, too well known in Bisbee. I’ll stay up here till Gene gets back from Engle. Then I’ll push off for Texas. Need to tell my kin what happened to brother Tom.”
Their host was trying to remove soap from an earhole with a knuckle.
“You’d be wise to stay shy of New Mexico, too, Sam, for quite a while.”
Sam Graham stretched his muscular body. “Central Texas is home. Lotsa good outlaws come from that underbelly of America between Abilene and Austin. Ed Bullion was a train robber, so were the Kilpatrick brothers, George and Ben, the notorious Tall Texan. Will Carver left our gang to join up with the Wild Bunch for some of their better-planned escapades. John Wesley Hardin, too, came from San Saba County. I remember the trouble Blackjack and I got into in San Saba. We were just little kids, but Tom got thrown out of church one Sunday for chasing a barking dog down the aisle.”
Gene Rhodes marveled. “Thrown out of church?”
“Yep. Even as a little boy he was a shit disturber. Guess a rope burn was inevitable, but Tom didn’t deserve to have his head yanked off. Can’t tell that to my kin in Texas or a few of ’em’s liable to ride back here to even the score with these uncivilized New Mexicans.”
“No, we can’t have that,” agreed Gene.
Seventeen
After a big meal and a long nap, the three made the hike up to the clearing on the mountainside again. Gillom had more energy this breezy spring day since he hadn’t done any horse breaking that morning. As he placed playing cards in their shooting tree, he noticed Sam rubbing his aching ass.
“Look a little butt-sprung, Mister Graham.”
“That horse broke me.”
“Aw, Sam. Horses are noble steeds. The cowboy’s best friend,” replied Gene Rhodes.
“Not mine. Horses are strictly transportation. Can’t see making pets out of ’em.”
Gene took a tender seat on his stump to watch the fireworks.
“Why, Mister Graham. You’ll neve’ make a good cattleman with that attitude.”
“Exactly,” agreed Sam as he checked his Colt Bisley.
Gillom started practicing his gun juggling, tossing one revolver by the handle to catch again after a full rotation in the air. With his right hand he essayed a tougher toss, catching his other Remington by the barrel after one full flip. Then he was pulling both pistols at once, tossing them across his body in the air, catching them in opposite hands and reverse-twirling the guns back into his dual holsters at the same time.
“You oughta join Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, Gillom,” applauded their ranch host.
“You pull that fancy stuff in a gunfight, they’ll be nailing your coffin shut before you can take a bow,” warned Graham.
“Just tryin’ to warm up my hands.”
“Just remembe’,” offered Gene, “you’ playin’ with three pounds of steel a foot in front of you’ face. Dangerous doesn’t begin to describe those tricks.”
“Gettin’ shot hurts like a sumbitch, too. Like someone stuck you with a hot poker,” added Sam. Reloaded, their bank robber friend got to his feet. He laid his big Colt flat in the palm of his hand, barrel forward. “Ever see the border roll?”
Sam suddenly dropped the pistol down, caught his forefinger in the trigger guard, and flipped the weapon into normal position in his hand, cocking with his thumb and thrusting the gun forward to fire. All in the blink of an eye.
“Or, you can hand it over butt first.” He offered Gillom the gun butt first, who reached to take it, but Sam instantly rolled and reversed the revolver in his hand.
“Wes Hardin pulled that trick on Wild Bill Hickok in Abilene back in the 1870s. Move’s become all the rage in Texas.”
Gillom tried the road agent’s spin both ways and after several awkward fumbles, once even dropping his revolver to the grass, seemed to get the hang of the quick maneuver.
“Road agent’s spin is mostly useful when you’re getting arrested, ’cept most Laws now know that trick.”
Tired of gun tossing, Gillom took his stance, drew, and cocked and fired at the playing card in the tree maybe twenty feet away, then pinwheeled the revolver in his right hand, thumb-cocked and fired again, then pinwheeled a second time to fire. He hit a black king with his second shot.
“Damn! Gotta work on my aim.”
Gene nodded. “All those tricks are sure flashy, but if you can’t hit much, what’s the point of going around heeled?”
Sam answered, “This is a Colt Bisley Flattop Model built for target shooting. Perfect balance. Bigger grip for a better feel in my hand and improved accuracy with these special sights. Best revolving pistol ever made. And my 4¾" barrel is shorter than your 5½", easier to draw. Know the first shootist to use these shorter barrels?”
Gillom shook his head.
“Bat Masterson. Marshal of Dodge City. Ordered ’em special from the Colt factory. Many imitators followed.”
“Books’s sweetened Remingtons have only a two-pound pull, J. B. said. Hair trigger.”
Sam Graham nodded, impressed. He crouched, drew cross-handed, cocked, fired, fanned his second shot, did a Texas rollover of one spin forward and cocked and fired a third round. He hit the jack of diamonds twice, all in a few seconds.
“Beats me.” Gillom shook his head as he strode off to change targets. They were using smokeless cartridges, so no powder lingered in the air to obscure their vision.
“Nice shootin’, Sam.” Mr. Rhodes nodded.
Gillom plodded back but Graham stopped him as he started to reload. Reaching, he turned the youth’s pistol around butt forward in his right-hand holster.
“You show up to a gunfight with your gun butts forward, you’ll intimidate ’em before they even start shootin’.”
Gillom tried the different draw several times, starting his wrist backward, then snapping it outward, while they watched.
“It’s just a flashier draw, not faster?” he questioned.
“Exactly. Just somethin’ different to practice, that they may not have seen before. You distract ’em with a flashy trick, then kill ’em with your sharp aim.”
Gillom suddenly drew both guns, cocked, and blasted away at the card targets, hitting them both.
“Shoot to kill with both hands!” he exulted.
“Head shot’s the deadly one,” offered Graham. “But tougher to make. Wes Hardin was a head-shooter. But you hit a man in his bigger target, his stomach, that lead bullet’s such a shock to his body, he’s paralyzed and will have a more difficult time returning fire. That’s where the Apaches always tried to shoot their poisoned arrows, right in a man’s wide gut.”
At all this talk of killing, the horse wrangler roused himself.
“You boys blast away all you want. Scare off the game for miles around while I start supper.”
“One more thing,” said Sam to his protégé. “If you have only one shot, take it between your two heartbeats as you surprise the trigger.” The master gunman raised his target pistol at arm’s length, squinted, listened to his own blood pulsing and then triggered his short-barreled Bisley. A smokeless slug ripped into the queen of hearts twenty-five feet distant.
Young Gillom was open-mouthed again at his instructor’s accuracy. The fast gunmen smiled at each other as Gene Rhodes lumbered back down the mountainside, holding his sore ass. They didn’t hear him whimpering.
* * *
They had a peaceful night’s sleep since Sam had finally run out of liquor. They assembled in front of the stone house after breakfast. Gene had saddled the easiest of the four horses they’d taken turns breaking and was going to drive the other three broncs in the cavvy ahead of them down to the Bar Cross Ranch on their way to Engle. Gillom had saddled the black gelding, with the smaller bay mare he’d taken from the Mexican cousins packing his personals. He left the last of his food supplies at Gene’s since the horse wrangler had refused any payment for Gillom’s stay.
Sam Graham idled near the front door while the other two tightened cinches and pack ties.
“You ever come up against a man who covers his pistol with his hat, watch out. ’Cause he’s probably drawing his gun beneath it or from behind his back while he’s talking to you.” The train robber demonstrated with a sly smile.
Gillom matched his grin and shook the outlaw’s hand after he’d reholstered.
“I’ll watch out for that, Mister Graham. Sorry our trails never crossed, but it’s been my pleasure.”
Sam stretched to his full six feet as his pale blues watched the teenager mount.
“You’re a real whizbang with those pistolas, kid. Your calling cards. Hope they’re not your funeral.”
Gene Rhodes whistled and shook his lasso at the three loose horses.
“Hi-ya! Git along, horses! I’ll be back up from Engle late tomorrow, Sam, with more grub. Can I get you anything else?”
“You know my taste for barbed-wire extract, boss.” The tough outlaw waved. “So long, you saddle-bumpers! You run across any old ladies or dogs need kickin’, send ’em along to me!”
Eighteen
The long ride on the wagon road Rhodes had laid down from his high valley to the Bar Cross Ranch was uneventful, with only short stops to change saddles among the six horses, especially the four green broncs Gene was still training to work the roundups. Not many bucksnorts did either man endure as they schooled these rank horses to a riding saddle. Gene did have to put the Fish to one bangtail when it started acting up, chousing it around the neck with his Fish brand rain slicker, hazing the nervous horse until it settled down, worn out, most of the fear of its new rider exhausted.
They rode across the southern fringe of the notorious Jornada del Muerto, the Day’s Journey of the Dead Man. Here sand dunes rose occasionally from broad swales where yuccas grew in groves and alkali flats dipped across the desert prairie, where even scrub greasewood barely held its own. The yuccas, man-high and sinister at a distance in the morning light, deceived Gillom’s sharp eyesight at first. If I got stuck out here, fighting Apaches, I’d be a goner, he thought.
The Last Shootist Page 10