by Joe Corso
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Ban-Chu growled, knowing these men presented d an ger to his master.
Charlie patted the dog on his head. “It’s okay, boy, it’s okay. No one’s going to hurt me.”
While Charlie was calming his wolf down, he didn’t have a good feeling about this. “Excuse me, guys, but I’m hungry and you’re in my way. Come on, Ban-Chu. Let’s get something to eat.”
“We were told that you’re the Lone Jack Kid. Is that true?”
“Yeah it’s true—and you’re still in my way.”
“We’re calling you out, Kid.”
Charlie looked at each man in turn. “Together or one at a time?”
“We’ll decide that when you’re ready to walk outside with us.”
“Tell you what, boys. All this talk is making me hungry. Why don’t you fellas go outside and wait while I have my breakfast, then I’d consider it an honor to rid the world of the likes of you sewer rats.”
Charlie pushed his way past the men and walked to a table. The diners knew what was happening because the three gunmen had been in the dining room earlier asking questions about the Kid. A nervous waitress came to Charlie’s table to take his order. Her eyes darted between him, the wolf and the door, expecting that any minute those hoodlums would burst into the room and lead would start flying everywhere.
Charlie saw how nervous she was and he tried to relax her. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about th ose men . They won’t come in here. They’ll wait outside for me and then the ball will open. But since you have that pencil in your hand I’d like an order of bacon with eggs over easy, toast and coffee. And please don’t rush. Those three fellas can wait until I finish my breakfast and I’m ready to deal with them.” The nervous waitress nodded a few times between writing Charlie’s order and stealing looks out the window. Charlie smiled at her. “I told you not to worry. It’ll be all right. You’ll see. Now do me a favor. Take my dog to the front desk and tell the clerk to have someone walk him, then keep him there until I deal with those men outside and come back to pick him up.”
The waitress left to get Charlie his order, with Ban-Chu tagging behind her.
Charlie knew there was no avoiding the inevitable. He walked through the batwing door s of the Oriental Hotel, down the three wooden steps and onto the dry dirt of the Main Road leading directly through Tucson. The three men stood in the center of the street waiting for him, with wagons, teamsters and men on horseback riding around them, giving them a wide birth knowing that gunplay was about to happen. Pedestrians stared in morbid curiosity at the men circling one another.
Charlie called out to the men facing him. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to die today.”
“We think you’re overrated and we know we can take you.”
“Am I going to face you one at a time so you can prove you’re faster than me? Or are you going to be known as the cowards that threw down on a man with three against one. How is that going to look in the papers?”
Tex Buchanan stepped apart for his friends. “I’ll go one on one with you, Kid. No one can say I didn’t kill you in a fair fight. Anytime you’re ready, Kid.”
Charlie smiled grimly. “ Just to be fair I’ll let you pull that smoke wagon first.”
Tex began to walk in a circle but Charlie stopped him. “That’s far enough. I don’t want to have my back to your friends when I kill you.”
“Why you . . .” Tex didn’t get a chance to finish what he was about to say because he went for his gun. But before he could clear leather he felt two thuds in his chest, driving him back against the wooden support of the sidewalk. He looked down at his chest in confusion. Then he fell face down in the street, and everything faded to black.
Charlie turned to the other two who watched their friend fall to the dirt floor, dead. They looked at one another, marveling at the quickness of the Kid’s draw. They knew they couldn’t go one on one with him in a fair fight, but if both pulled their irons on him they felt they could take him. They spread out to give themselves a further advantage. The Lone Jack Kid would have to shoot one, then spin around and shoot the other. The odds of that were almost zero.
“It looks like you’re gonna have to take us both, Kid. It’s a no-win situation for you. Sorry it had to end this way . . . but not very sorry.”
The Kid looked at what he was facing. While he could usually take two men in a fair fight, he hadn’t counted on them spreading out that far to either side of him.
“Are you gonna jerk those irons or are you going to bore me to death?”
RJ, who had positioned himself on Charlie’s left, went for his gun, but he didn’t co-ordinate it with his buddy. He reacted in anger, which was exactly what Charlie was hoping for. If he could get off a quick shot and kill RJ he might have time to counter Spur Tomas’s move. Charlie pulled his gun quicker than lightning and shot RJ in the head, sending him back into the wheel of a wagon. The driver had stopped to see the gunplay. Then Charlie spun around, crouching low, and fired at Spur’s chest instinctively, without taking aim. He dived into the prone position, making himself as small a target as possible, in case Spur got off a reflex shot. When the smoke cleared, the three men lay dead in the street.
Sheriff Brady ran to help Charlie to his feet as the onlookers crowding the street and sidewalks looked on in amazement.
“Kid, I have to tell you. I watched the whole thing and thought for sure you were a goner.” The sheriff was so excited he was out of breath. “I never seen anything like it before and I seen a lot of shit in my time. Even been in a number of shootouts myself, but nothing like what I seen happen today on the streets of Tucson.”
“Well, Sheriff, I think I’d better make plans to be on my way tomorrow morning, before some other tough guys try to make a name for themselves.
Chapter 24
Just before daybreak on a cool brisk morning, Charlie and Percy were riding along the mail route to Colorado City, with the two wolf pups following in their wake. Charlie bought a burro to carry their supplies f or this leg of their journey, which made it easier to make camp at night. That night Charlie cooked a buffalo rump bought from a butcher in Tucson. He threw a soup bone to each of the wolves, which they carried to a corner of the camp not far from the fire. They enjoyed gnawing on the bones most of the night.
When it came time to sleep, Ban-Chu crawled beside Charlie and snuggled close to him. Charlie rubbed the wolf’s coat in friendship, and together they fell into a deep sleep. When Charlie awoke in the morning Ban-Chu was walking the perimeter of the camp, as if he had heard something. Charlie, who always slept with his gun beside him, walked to where the wolf was standing with his ears up and his tail straight out, his alert eyes showing intelligence.
“What is it, boy? What do you hear?”
Lobo appeared out of the scrubby brush and stood alongside Ban-Chu.
“What is it?” Percy asked
“I don’t know, but the dogs hear something. Better get your Winchester and pour the coffee over the fire.”
Now seven months old, the wolves were almost fully grown and Charlie felt better having the wolves stand watch with him and Percy.
“Come on, boy, let’s see what’s bothering you.”
The men crawled into the thick, scraggly, stunted sage brush and made their way about fifteen feet when they noticed two Indian ponies tied to a tree. Where are the Indians? he wondered. He looked to his right at Ban-Chu and heard a low growl coming from deep inside of him. The wolf was looking to his right and instinctively assumed a position of alertness. Charlie followed the wolf’s gaze and noticed a slight rustling of brush. He patted the wolf’s head.
“Good boy, Ban-Chu. You found them cussed Indians for us.”
“Do you see them, Charlie?”
“No but Ban-Chu has spotted them. They’re over there.” Charlie pointed to their horses.
“Damn! Don’t they ever get tired of trying to steal horses?”
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The two men crawled toward the horses and watched as the Indians began to lead them back through the scrubby pines the way they had come. Charlie levered a round into his Winchester. The Indians having heard this, leaped onto the horses and were about to make their escape. Charlie could only see the sides of the Indians, so he fired two quick rounds, hitting both in the shoulder, knocking them off the horses.
“Go find the horses, Percy. I’ll take care of the Indians.”
“Come on, Lobo, let’s go find our horses.”
Lobo hesitated for a moment then bound toward Percy and followed him through the thick brush in the direction of the horses.
With the horses safely picketed, Percy asked Charlie if the Indians were dead.
“Yeah, my bullet hit them in the side and entered their hearts, killing them instantly. These Indians are Apaches, so we best be on our guard from here on out. They may be part of a larger war party, so it’s best we mount up and get away from here.”
“I found the Indians’ ponies. What do you want to do with them?”
“We’ll do the same thing we did with the other Indian ponies we captured. We can’t let them go because they’ll head back home, so we have to take them with us until we’re safely out of Apache territory. Then we’ll let them go.”
Two months passed without incident before they arrived in Colorado City, where they spent the next few days getting supplies for the short trip to Yuma.
“Wow. Would you look at all the people,” Percy exclaimed when they arrived in Yuma with the now fully-grown wolves. People were crowding along the wide one-hundred-foot right of way for Main Street, laid out and built in 1866 to accommodate heavy wagon traffic and to stimulate business. Percy was impressed with what he saw.
“Man, that’s more like a wide thoroughfare than a street,” Charlie added. “Let’s ride down Main Street and look for a stable for the animals.”
People stopped to stare at the two strangers, with the wolves following close behind.
“Over there.” Percy pointed to a sign that said “Barker’s Stable.”
“Howdy, folks,” greeted the man they took to be Barker. “How long you figuring on staying in Yuma?”
“Don’t know for sure yet.”
“Well, that’ll be a dollar a day each for the horses and the burro.”
Charlie just nodded. “I want the horses and burro groomed, watered and fed with real grain, the best you have. They deserve the best, so see they get it”
“I can accommodate you, stranger, but that’ll cost you an extra dollar for the grain to feed all of them.”
Charlie tossed the man a twenty-dollar gold piece. “Let me know when this runs out and I’ll settle up with you.”
The old timer looked at the shiny coin and found a few good teeth to bite on it. Satisfied that it was real, he smiled and put out his hand. “Zeb Barker, and I own this establishment.”
“Please to meet you, Zeb, this is Percy and I’m . . .” Charlie didn’t get a chance to finish what he was about to say before Zeb interrupted him.
“I know who you are. You’re the Lone Jack Kid, out of Missouri.”
Charlie and Percy looked at one another, wondering how Zeb could know about him. “How do you know who I am, Zeb?”
“It’s in the Arizona Sentinel, our paper. Here, read it for yourself.” Zeb picked up the paper lying on the chair he had been sitting on and handed it to him.
The headlines read: “Famous gunfighter coming to Yuma.”
“Damn. Now for sure I’ll have to watch myself.”
Old Zeb smiled, showing more than a few missing teeth. “The telegraph, son. They wired us from Tucson letting us know that the Lone Jack Kid was on his way to Yuma. When I heard that, I went out and bought that new book Buntline wrote about you.”
“Which one is that?” Charlie wondered if Zeb was referring to a new book.
“Here it is.” Zeb reached into his back pocket and handed it to Charlie. “The Lone Jack Kid Comes East.”
Charlie shook his head in exasperation and looked at Percy. “This is a new book!”
Zeb laughed. “Yeah, and I hear it’s selling like crazy. Everybody in town has bought one, and they’re all looking to meet you. You’re famous, son, and we feel mighty proud that you decided to visit Yuma.”
Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out the wanted posters. “Have these two men been here recently?”
Zeb looked at the posters and nodded. “Yeah they been here. But they left a few days ago. I was in the back grooming Chestnut over there when I heard them talking, when they thought no one was here. Said they were going to San Bernardino and then on to Los Angeles. Are you hunting those men, Kid?”
Charlie squinted, wondering how much to tell the old man. He didn’t want anyone telegraphing them in Los Angeles to warn them he was coming.”
Zeb saw the look in his eyes and knew what he was thinking. “Don’t worry, Kid, they won’t learn anything from me.”
Charlie ground his teeth. “Let’s just say I have a vested interest in meeting up with those two.” He grabbed Percy by his arm. “Come on, let’s get some hot grub. I’m starved.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Zeb pointed across the wide boulevard. “Go on across Main Street to the Yuma Hotel over yonder. They serve some mighty fine grub there.”
“Thanks, Zeb. See ya later.”
When there was a break in traffic, t he two men crossed the busy thoroughfare followed by their wolves and entered the Yuma Hotel.
Chapter 25
Charlie and Percy walked to the front desk and rented two rooms on a daily basis. As Charlie was signing the register he heard the familiar tap-tap-tap. He leaned on the hotel’s desk and hung his head, exasperated at the never-ending parade of fools that managed to come out of the woodwork in every town he entered. He had barely finished signing the register and hadn’t even had a chance to get his keys, and already someone was giving him the three taps, challenging him to a gunfight.
He straightened up and turned to face whoever it was. He spotted a cowboy standing against the wall near the front door, smiling at him. Charlie walked toward the man purposefully.
“Don’t pull that iron unless you want to die.”
That was all he said as he pulled his gun in one swift movement and hit the gunfighter on the side of the head. The man fell forward on the floor, unconscious.
“Get the room key,” he said as he walked past Percy, who was standing with his mouth open, not believing his eyes.
When they got to their room Charlie told Percy to go downstairs and buy a bottle of good whiskey, and not the rotgut the hotel sold to their regular customers. He returned a little while later with the whiskey and poured two drinks. Charlie drank his in one swallow. “Pour me another drink. I need it.” He gulped that down just as quickly. “One more and I’m calling it a night.”
The following morning after washing up, Charlie asked Percy to go downstairs and check the hallway to the dining room to see if it was all clear. “I want to make sure no one is waiting for me down there. It seems the more people that challenge me the more popular I get.”
Percy returned to say it was all clear. They could go to the dining room with no problem. “What do you want to do with the wolves?”
“We’ll take them with us. They’re young and energetic, and if we leave them in the room they’ll wreck it.”
The two men went to the dining room, the wolves walking silently alongside them. When they sat at their table the wolves lay down obediently by their feet.
A pretty blonde waitress came to take their order but she hesitated before the wolves. “Don’t worry, pretty lady, they won’t bother you.” She relaxed and left for the kitchen after taking their order.
When the food arrived, Charlie asked her if there was anywhere they could take a bath and freshen up. “We offer that service here, sir. I’ll tell the manager to have someone prepare two hot baths for you. Since you’re customers y
ou’ll get a discount. But I was told to tell you that in future you can’t bring your wolves into the dining room.”
Charlie became angry, but held his anger in check. He asked the young waitress where it would be acceptable to eat with his wolves. She leaned over and whispered conspiratorially to him. “We have a meeting room, and I’m sure the manager will agree to let you have the room. You can eat there in private and your wolves will be no problem in there.”
Charlie loved the idea of eating in private so he nodded, giving the waitress the impression he was doing her and the hotel a favor.
Charlie stepped out of the dim Yuma Hotel into the cool, bright sunshine. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust and that’s when he noticed two men standing by one of the hotel supports. One man had a foot on the ground and the other leg bent at the knee, with his leather sole resting on the hotel support column. He had a toothpick in his mouth which he moved from side to side nervously. The other man stood with his hands on his hips, squinting and staring at Charlie, with a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth.
Charlie looked around and noticed that everything was quiet in this bustling town, except for the teamsters driving their wagons. He noticed for the first time the curious looks on the faces of the pedestrians. Everyone was watching expectantly, as if he were about to perform his New York act right there in the streets of Yuma. People lined up in store windows. They obviously knew something he didn’t, but he didn’t have the luxury of time. Whatever was about to happen would happen in the next few seconds, and could be measured in heartbeats.
He started to walk past the two men, but the man with his foot on the support stepped in front of him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Charlie actually laughed at the man, which confused him for a moment.
“What’s so funny, mister?”
“You. You’re what’s funny. It seems that in every town I ride into, there’s always jerks like you two itching for a fight. Let me give you a little advice. Back off, because this is too nice a day for you to die.”