Tanner's Law

by Charles G. West

  “Nope,” Tanner answered.

  “Well, I reckon you’ll be lookin’ for a place to board them horses.”

  “Nope,” Tanner replied. “I’ll be movin’ on to Denver City.”

  Jesse Leach sat in the back corner of the saloon, his chair balanced on two legs as he drank a glass of beer and listened to Jake’s wife torment the new piano. The woman was as lacking in musical ability as she was in physical beauty, but to Jesse the arrhythmic plinking of the keys was as sweet as the chords from an angel’s harp. The smile on the simple man’s face told of his satisfaction with life as he now knew it. Ike had ridden on to Black Horse Creek, and although Jesse missed Joe, his younger brother’s continued absence increased the possibility that he and Garth would split Joe’s share of the money. And Garth had even given Jesse some of his share as pocket money for beer and tobacco. As a result, Jesse was spending a good portion of his time in the saloon, looking at the customers and listening to the piano. Although there was a general suspicion about Garth regarding the murder of the man named Garner, no one could prove he had anything to do with it. In fact, there were more than a few witnesses that saw Garth talking to his brother Ike in front of the saloon after Garner had left for the evening. Jesse, on the other hand, had not been in the saloon until after the murder took place, so there was never any suspicion thrown his way. Jesse’s grin expanded as he thought about it.

  Slurping happily away at his beer, he decided it was time to refill his mug. Letting his chair lower back down to the floor, he was about to get to his feet when someone at the front door caused him to freeze halfway up. Jesse’s simple brain misfired repeatedly as it tried to telegraph the message to his conscious mind. He was startled enough to know that the tall dark-haired man in the doorway represented danger, but his mind was too slow to identify him at once. When the connection was finally made, Jesse’s reaction was to pull his revolver and open fire.

  Oblivious to the few afternoon patrons in Jake’s Saloon, Jesse blazed away, throwing as much lead as he could squeeze off in the seconds it took to empty his pistol. In his wild excitement to kill Jeb Hawkins’ partner, Jesse’s pistol found meat twice, once striking a man standing at the bar and then the back of a man playing cards at the front table. His other shots tore holes in the tent and the door. The man he had attempted to kill ducked down until Jesse’s gun was empty, then calmly rose to his feet, his rifle leveled at the frenzied man fumbling in his effort to jam cartridges into his empty revolver.

  Tanner advanced calmly toward the stricken murderer, his eyes cold and expressionless, a grim executioner with the sure confidence to complete his task. Trying to watch Tanner and load his weapon at the same time, Jesse could not control his clumsy fingers, dropping cartridges to fall and bounce on the board floor. With no show of haste, Tanner continued to walk through the panicked barroom with no sign of noticing the chaos around him of overturned chairs and people running for the door amid the shrill screaming of the piano player.

  Giving in completely to his fright, Jesse finally threw the empty pistol at his stalker and bolted out the back door, running for his life. Still without a trace of urgency, Tanner stepped out the door after the fleeing brute. Raising the Spencer to his shoulder, he took dead aim and fired, cocked the rifle and sent another shot after the first. The two shots were spaced no more than a hand’s width apart in the center of Jesse’s back. The hulking man ran several yards after being hit before falling face forward in the dirt in almost the same spot where he had waited that dark night for Garner.

  Cranking another round into the chamber, Tanner walked slowly over to the oversized figure now lying still in the filth behind the saloon. Standing over Jesse for a few moments, he detected faint signs of life as the simpleminded brute struggled feebly for breath. With the same regard he would have for a rabid dog, Tanner calmly pointed the muzzle of his rifle at the back of Jesse’s head and pulled the trigger.

  The few souls brave enough to have followed Tanner outside to witness the shooting stood speechless as the grim executioner turned and walked back toward them. They parted to give him plenty of room, no one anxious to speak until he disappeared inside the saloon again. “Where the hell did he come from?” someone asked. There was no answer to his question. “I guess it’s a good thing he showed up when he did,” another voice offered, “when that big feller went loco back there.”

  Inside the saloon, Tanner paused to witness the aftermath of Jesse’s wild shooting. Two men were laid out on the barroom floor, one of them dead, the other waiting for the doctor to arrive. Over near the piano, the bartender was trying to calm the hysterical woman who was still crying. Calm, apart from the confusion, Tanner scanned the room, searching for Jesse’s brothers. They were not there. Assuming the bartender was probably the owner, Tanner walked over to the piano. Both the bartender and his wife looked up when the tall stranger approached. Tanner’s cold, dispassionate stare stopped the woman’s crying at once. It was replaced by a look of alarm in her eyes.

  “I reckon we owe you our thanks, mister,” Jake said, although unsure if they did or not. There was a sinister look about the dark-haired stranger whose sudden appearance in his saloon had caused Jesse to go crazy.

  “He’s got two brothers,” Tanner responded coldly.

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake replied.

  A curious spectator who had inched up closer to get a look at the ominous man with the rifle spoke up then.

  “They had a camp over on Cherry Creek.”

  Tanner turned immediately away from Jake and his sniffling wife to face the spectator. “Where is Cherry Creek?”

  “I can show you,” the man eagerly replied. “I can take you right to their camp.”

  “I’d be obliged,” Tanner said.

  Excited to be part of the action taking place, the man led Tanner toward the front door, chattering as he went.

  “Yessir, I know where their camp is. I pass it on my way to town. They pitched a camp right up from my claim, and I tell you I didn’t like the looks of ’em right from the first.” He paused to look back at Tanner. “Rakestraw’s the name.” He paused again, waiting to hear Tanner’s name. When there was no response, he went on. “Me and my partner’s got a claim on the creek. We’re gettin’ a little out of it, not enough to pay off, but ever since that bunch moved in on us, one of us has to stay at the claim all the time to protect what little we’ve got.”

  Outside the saloon, Tanner stepped up in the saddle, and with Rakestraw leading astride a mule, he followed the excited little man through the tents and shacks and up Cherry Creek. After riding about a mile, Rakestraw pulled up and let Tanner catch up to him. “Yonder’s me and my partner’s claim, where you see that tent by the creek. The fellers you’re lookin’ for are camped straight up that slope behind them pines about halfway up.”

  “Much obliged,” Tanner said, and started off straight for the pines that Rakestraw had pointed out, his mind set on finishing what he had started.

  The man Garth Leach feared had never been born. Since the time of his father’s death, Garth had always been bigger, meaner, and more ruthless than any man he ever met. Jesse was almost as big, and strong as an ox, but simpleminded. Ike was not as physically strong as either Garth or Jesse, but he made up for it with evil cunning. Joe seemed to have been shortchanged in both departments, brains and brawn. It was Joe who was on Garth’s mind when he returned from the mining settlement of Auraria later in the afternoon.

  Joe, the youngest of his brothers, had still not caught up to them. It was a matter of mild curiosity for Garth. He had no deep affection for Joe, but he was blood kin, and Garth wondered if he had decided to stay with the Kiowa, or if he had met with some treachery. He didn’t trust Yellow Calf. Maybe I oughta pay that double-crossing redskin a little visit, he thought, just to make sure he knows better than to mess with one of my boys. Having thought about it then, he paused to consider if Joe was worth the trip back into Kan
sas Territory.

  Passing through Denver City, he decided to stop for a drink of whiskey before returning to his camp on Cherry Creek. He was stopped short of the saloon when suddenly confronted with a grim display before the barber-shop. There, propped up in front of the tent like a wooden Indian, stood the body of his brother Jesse. The shock of seeing Jesse, stone cold and pale as a sheet, was enough to cause Garth to back his horse up a few steps without realizing he was even pulling on the reins. Unconsciously, he roared in anger. The barber, who was also the town’s undertaker, heard the primal outburst and came outside to find the source. When he saw Garth glaring at him like a crazed demon, he immediately started to back away.

  “Who did this?” Garth demanded, and pulled his pistol and aimed it straight at the undertaker’s face.

  “I don’t know!” the terrified man cried, his brain momentarily addled by fear. “It was a stranger!” he blurted as Garth cocked the hammer back. “Nobody ever saw him before. He just appeared outta nowhere, and him and this feller started shootin’ at each other.”

  Garth hesitated for a moment, the anger churning bile through his gut. “Where is he?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know, mister,” the undertaker pleaded. “I swear I don’t. I’m just gettin’ this poor feller ready for burial. At no charge,” he added fearfully.

  Garth released the hammer and holstered his revolver, having decided to direct his revenge entirely on this stranger that shot Jesse. “Where’s his horse and saddle?”

  “Down at the stables. Ain’t nobody bothered his belongin’s.”

  “Get him down from there,” Garth commanded, “and get him off the street, or I swear, you’ll be layin’ beside him in another wood box.” He jerked his horse’s head around and started for the saloon.

  “Whaddaya want me to do with the body?” the undertaker called after him.

  Without turning his head, Garth replied, “Bury it,” no longer interested in his brother Jesse’s remains.

  “Uh-oh,” Jake remarked under his breath when the front door of his establishment was flung open and filled with the intimidating bulk of Garth Leach. He and his wife were in the process of cleaning up the blood left by the two shooting victims, and he was temporarily closed.

  “Where is he?” Garth roared.

  “Gone lookin’ for you,” Jake replied, without having to ask who, and trying to keep his voice from trembling.

  “Charley Rakestraw told him where your camp was, and he headed that way.” The bartender could see that it would be useless to tell the menacing brute that Jesse had fired first and was responsible for the blood on his floor.

  Jake’s answer caused Garth to hesitate for a moment. He had said that this stranger had gone looking for him. Who the hell could be looking for me? he wondered. There was only one possibility that came to mind. It had to be the partner of that Hawkins jasper. So he didn’t turn tail and run, he thought. Well, by God, he’s gonna wish he had.

  Tanner found the camp above Charley Rakestraw’s claim deserted. Leaving his horses tied in the pines that ringed the ridge above the creek, he had worked his way carefully up through the trees and rocks until reaching a point where he could see the entire campsite. Impatient for the fatal encounter to occur, he considered the options available. Should he wait here for Garth and Ike to return? Or leave to look for them? Realizing that he had no idea where to look, he decided to wait them out. These last two were by far the most dangerous of the four brothers, so he deemed it a better risk to lie in wait.

  Moving to a sizable boulder that afforded excellent cover from the campsite, he knelt down to wait. While he waited, he checked his rifle to make sure it was ready for use. Close to two hours had passed when his impatience caused him to become more and more restless. Thinking to change his location yet again, he rose to his feet. A solid blow to his back caused him to stumble and fall. Landing hard on the rocky soil, he rolled over and over, coming to rest against a pine tree. He didn’t realize at once that he had been shot. He didn’t remember hearing a gun fire. The fact hit him when he heard the next shot ricochet off the rock above him. Confused because he felt no immediate pain, he rolled over on his side, trying to see where the shots had come from. After a few moments more, he felt the beginning of a stinging pain, accompanied by numbness in his left arm. He cursed his carelessness for letting the bushwhacker get in behind him. His heart began to pound in desperate concern. He was shot, but he didn’t know how bad it was. As he searched the ridge above him, trying to spot the gunman, he could feel the wet spot on his back as blood spread from his wound. Afraid to move, lest the movement might give his antagonist a target, he lay against the tree trunk with his rifle close and ready to fire.

  Above the wounded man, Leach made his way cautiously down between two boulders. He had hit him. He was sure of it because he had a clear shot, and he saw the man go down when the bullet ripped into his back. Now it was a matter of making sure he was dead, and not playing possum somewhere. “Bland,” Garth mumbled, just then remembering. “That was the son of a bitch’s name.” He had killed Jesse, and might be the reason Joe never showed up. “Well, you’re messin’ with me now, and if you’re lucky, you’re already dead. ’Cause if you ain’t, I might take all night killin’ you.”

  Arriving at the rock where Tanner had been kneeling when he was hit, Garth paused, crouching low while he searched for any sign of the wounded man. When he spotted him, his lips parted in a malicious grin. Lying back against a tree, with his shirt soaked with blood, the man looked helpless. Still exercising caution, lest Tanner wasn’t as near death as he appeared to be, Garth took a step toward him, exposing half of his huge body. He stopped abruptly when Tanner tried to raise his rifle to his shoulder. Garth brought his weapon up to fire, but hesitated when he saw that Tanner could not bring his rifle to bear.

  “Well, ain’t that too bad,” Garth said, gloating. “Looks like you’ve about used up all your strength.” He moved down the slope toward the desperate man lying helplessly waiting. “I’m fixin’ to kill you a little bit at a time,” he said, pulling his skinning knife from his belt. “You ever see a Kiowa scalp a man? I watched ’em scalp them farmer friends of yours on that wagon train. I ain’t as good at it as they are, but I scalped that ol’ son of a bitch Freeman. Shoulda heard him holler.”

  Struggling desperately within himself to overcome the pain and numbness, Tanner gripped his rifle, but he could not seem to raise it. His effort amused Garth. “Here,” he said, “I’ll just take that Spencer rifle out of the way.” He reached down and took the rifle by the barrel. When he pulled it up, Tanner squeezed the trigger. The weapon went off with the muzzle no more than a foot below Garth’s chin, sending the bullet ripping through his jaw and into his brain. The huge man crumpled heavily to the ground, killed instantly. Feeling sick and exhausted, Tanner lay back against the tree trunk again, wondering if Ike was coming behind Garth. This was the way Charley Rakestraw found him hours later.

  He blinked his eyes slowly, trying to bring them into focus. “Look there, Mutt,” he heard a voice say, “damned if I don’t believe he’s alive after all.” His eyes wide open now, he looked up into the woolly face of Charley Rakestraw. He immediately tried to sit up, but the sharp pain that raced through the back of his shoulder forced him to lie back again. “You’d best take ’er a little easy, young feller,” Charley cautioned. “You got yourself a nasty-lookin’ hole in your back, but you look a helluva lot better than that big ol’ grizzly you killed up on the ridge.” He gestured toward the other hairy face peering down at Tanner. “This here’s my partner, Mutt Springer. We found you up beside a pine tree when all the shootin’ was over.”

  “Much obliged,” Tanner managed to utter. He realized then that he had a clumsy bandage wrapped around him.

  “Ike?” he asked. When he received nothing in response but puzzled expressions, he said, “There was another brother.”

  “Oh,” Mutt replied. “That other’n took off two, three da
ys ago. He ain’t here no more.”

  “My horses—” Tanner started.

  “We found ’em,” Charley said before Tanner had a chance to finish his question. “They’re all took care of. We got the big feller’s horse, too.”

  Tanner tried to test his shoulder again, but with the same results as before. “I’ve got to get movin’,” he said.

  Charley shook his head thoughtfully. “I don’t expect you’ll be doin’ much movin’ or anythin’ else for a few days. We put a bandage on that bullet hole, but I ain’t no doctor. I don’t know if you need that bullet took out or not. Leastways, it didn’t come out the front nowhere. You need a doctor. There’s one over in Denver City if he’s sober.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Tanner insisted. “I just need to rest for a little while.”

  “If you say so,” Charley said. “This time of night, he’ll be in the saloon, anyway, and he won’t be much good to you. If you ain’t no better in the mornin’, I’ll go fetch him.”

  Morning found him feeling a little better. The numbness in his left arm seemed to have improved, although the wound in the back of his shoulder was extremely sensitive. Charley wanted to go look for the doctor, but Tanner reasoned that if he felt improved after one night, he’d feel better as each day passed. His one thought was that he was losing Ike Leach, and he might as well heal in the saddle. The bullet hadn’t killed him, so it was bound to heal eventually.

  “I reckon I’ll be on my way,” he told the two partners. “I’d be obliged if you would help me saddle my horse.”

  “Be glad to, but you sure don’t look in no shape to ride,” Charley replied, then hesitated before broaching the subject that was burning his curiosity. “Mister…” He hesitated again. “I never did catch your name.”