Showdown in Badlands

by Shorty Gunn

  ‘No.’ Dickson shook his head. ‘I don’t live in Chicago.’ He needled his new guest.

  ‘Yes, I know that. But you might be interested when I tell you why I’ve come so far to find you. My boss, his name is Horace Throckmorton, owns the Gazette. He sent me all the way down here to Arizona to write the story about your life as a famous man tracker, lawman and pistol shot extraordinaire. You know, all those men you shot down face to face? He wants me to put it all down on paper in a brand new book. Your name is already all over popular dime novels back east. We want to write it from the words of the real thing – you. And here’s the best part that’s going to tickle you. Mr Throckmorton has already given me a signed contract I have right here in my briefcase, that says he’ll pay you twenty-five per cent on every novel we sell. You could become a rich man while sitting right here in this chair and never take another step. You don’t have to shoot anyone to collect it either!’

  Dickson’s face grew stone cold. Lansing saw the sudden, chilling change, pulling back in his chair. More sweat began running down his face, soaking his shirt collar.

  ‘You listen to me, and you listen good.’ Dickson’s answer was short, tense. ‘There isn’t going to be any book written by me, about me, or any other way. You understand what I’m saying?’

  The scribe nodded feebly without speaking, eyes growing wider with fear at the sinister whisper of Dickson’s words.

  ‘You print something like that and every two-bit bar fly with a two dollar pistol will try and make a name for himself by shooting me in the back. This isn’t Chicago, so forget the whole idea. I want no part of it!’

  Lewis sank back in his chair, lifting the soggy handkerchief again to mop his face. He saw his job, great idea and career sinking fast if he couldn’t somehow convince the tall man to change his mind. He desperately tried to think of something else that might work. Suddenly a new idea came to him. He took in a deep breath, girding himself for rejection and more anger.

  ‘Listen Mr Dickson, you have to understand something else I haven’t brought up yet. Please hear me out on this. Try to understand that there already are dime novels out using your name. They’re all over and you’re not making a single red cent out of it. Don’t you see they don’t need your participation to do that? It’s called freedom of the press. They can say or write anything they want, even if it’s a pack of lies. For all I know Mr Throckmorton might go ahead and have me write a book about you whether you help me or not. I wouldn’t have any say in it at all. Wouldn’t it be better if you set the record straight and prove all that other stuff is just hot air? Wouldn’t it be more sensible while you’re making big money at the same time?’

  ‘No, it would not. You’re talking about some stupid book. I’m talking about my life!’

  Lansing’s shoulders sagged. His head fell and he shook it in defeat. He’d tried everything he could think of. It was clear there was no other way to convince the stubborn man. ‘All right, have it your way. I don’t have it in me to try and change your mind. I can’t leave here today either. I’m too tired to take another stage ride right now. I’ll get a room for tonight and try in the morning. Maybe, just maybe, if you have a night to sleep on it you might somehow change your mind and reconsider before I go.’

  ‘I won’t. I told you why so don’t ask me again. I gambled with my life every time I pulled this six-gun. I’m not going to game with it because of some book.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The rising Arizona sun had barely peeked over the rim of the Rincon Mountains when Lewis Lansing rolled over in his bed for the ten tenth time, red-eyed from lack of sleep and soaking wet with sweat. Yesterday’s sweltering heat had not dissipated overnight. His failure to convince Dickson on a book deal only made sleep more impossible. He envisioned the wrath of his boss when he arrived back in Chicago, chewing him out before firing him in front of all his colleagues. He felt about as low and miserable as he had in all his professional life. His big idea, his dream to do a book about the most famous gunfighter in the west, was over.

  The aroma of breakfast cooking downstairs moved him to toss off the sheets. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he tried rubbing the pain out in the back of his neck using both hands. That didn’t work either. At least he could try to leave Double Hot on a full stomach, if nothing else. Forcing himself up, he began dressing.

  Exiting the room, he was halfway downstairs when he saw Dickson sitting at a table alone, eating in the otherwise empty room. ‘Mind if I join you?’ He tried to sound positive, forcing a thin smile as he crossed the room.

  Dickson looked up, nodding him over. ‘Your horse is still outside with the saddle on him. He stayed that way all night. He might be a little ornery to ride once you leave here this morning.’

  ‘Saddled? I wouldn’t know how to get it off or put it on. They did that at the ranch for me. You say you have to take them off at night?’

  Dickson looked across the table at the greenhorn in dismay. ‘You better get back to Chicago. You don’t fit too well out here.’

  The bartender crossed the room to their table. He was barman, cook and hotel register, all in one. ‘What’ll you have, Mister?’

  ‘Do you have a menu?’

  ‘Yeah, right here in my head. Breakfast today is javelina and eggs. That’s it.’

  Lansing stared back at the man with a handlebar moustache, wondering if he was pulling his leg. ‘What’s a . . . javelina?’

  ‘Wild pig,’ Dickson offered. ‘This country is full of them.’

  ‘Wild . . . pig?’ Lewis’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Brush bacon,’ the barkeep added, glancing at Dickson with a small smile, enjoying Lansing’s obvious discomfort. ‘By the way Ben, that kid Zac Wild is sleeping off a big hangover in the back room. He got so drunk last night he couldn’t stand up, so I steered him in there. He started getting a little thorny with me. For a while I thought I was going to have to lay him out. Looks like he’s going to end up a mean drunk just like his old man, Zink.’

  Dickson didn’t reply while Lewis was still trying to decide what to do about breakfast.

  ‘I think I’ll just have two eggs over easy with toast and butter. Make the coffee black, and hold the pig,’ he finally answered.

  ‘We don’t have any bread. How about a tortilla instead?’

  ‘What’s a tor . . . tilla?’

  ‘Mexican flat bread,’ Dickson offered, sipping on his coffee cup.

  ‘Ahh – I think I’ll just settle for eggs and coffee. By the way, do you happen to know when the next stage comes through the valley?’ He looked up at the barman.

  ‘Usually once every other day or so out of Red Rock, depending on how many paying passengers or freight they have on board. Today might be a good bet.’

  Lewis nodded a thank you. ‘I’d better eat and get going. I still have to get that knot-headed horse back to the ranch. I don’t want to miss that stage or I’ll have to stay in this furnace-throated land another day or two. There’s no reason for me to suffer any further now.’

  Dickson finished breakfast, starting his second cup of coffee, watching the man from Chicago gingerly picking his eggs apart like he expected to find something crawling in them. He was waiting for Lansing to try one more time to convince him to help write his book. Sure enough, when Lewis finished eating he looked up with a hopeful smile.’Before I go I’d like to bring up one more thing about my offer to you yesterday.’

  ‘Don’t waste your time. I already told you the answer is no. You better get going if you want to try to catch that stage.’

  ‘I just wanted to add that my boss, Mr Throckmorton, also authorized me to offer you as much as thirty per cent on those book sales we talked about instead of the twenty-five.’

  Dickson leaned forward placing both hands on the table, staring back at Lewis while trying not to lose his temper, when the door in the back room slowly opened to Zac Wild, leaning on the frame and trying to stay upright. His head felt like it would explode and his
stomach churned in sickening revolt. Across the room through fuzzy eyes he saw Dickson sitting at a table with his back to him, talking to another man. He remembered how famous everyone said Dickson was. Even his paw had said so. He also vaguely remembered the remark the tall man made yesterday about falling off his mule shooting himself like a fool. A spark of anger began rising in the kid. Who was Dickson to say he wasn’t man enough to hold his liquor or handle a pistol? That was the kind of talk other people in town said when making fun of him and his family because they lived out in the brush and didn’t have much. This might be the chance to show all of them how much of a man he really was.

  His hand went down for the pistol in his pants top. It wasn’t there. Staggering back into the room he found it lying on the bunk. Grabbing it, he struggled to cock the hammer back. Lowering the six-gun behind his back he exited the room, weaving unsteadily toward the two men at the table. As he came up, Lewis looked over Dickson’s shoulder seeing the kid suddenly lift the six-gun at arm’s length. Before he could yell a warning, a thunderous shot rang out, the .45 caliber bullet smashing into the back of Dickson’s head, driving him face down dead on his plate with a round, red-rimmed exit hole in his forehead.

  Lansing screamed, trying to push backwards so fast he tipped his chair over, spilling him on to the floor, madly crawling away across the room on his hands and knees. Reaching the wall, he sat up covering his face with both hands, expecting to be shot too.

  The barman dove for the shotgun kept under the counter, coming up cocking both hammers back, levelling the deadly scattergun on the kid.

  ‘Drop it Zac, or I’ll cut you in two. So help me God, I will!’

  Confused, still half drunk, Wild hesitated a moment reeling on his feet, unsure what to do, as the bartender advanced holding the double barrel belt-high, his finger firm on the trigger.

  ‘Don’t kill him!’ Lewis suddenly yelled. ‘Drop the gun, kid. Do what the man says. I . . . I have to talk to you about something. Don’t throw your life away now!’

  Zac turned toward the scribe and his strange request, still clutching the wheel gun. Suddenly he felt the cold steel of twin barrels pressing into his back. ‘I won’t tell you again. Let that damn gun fall, or I’ll pull off both barrels!’ the barman threatened.

  ‘I . . . didn’t really mean. . . to do it.’ Wild’s mouth quivered in regret, struggling to explain the sudden killing, letting the six-gun clatter to the floor.

  ‘What are you going to do with him now?’ Lewis questioned, struggling to his feet, crossing the room to look down on Dickson’s body. His face twisted in revulsion.

  ‘You have a sheriff or jail?’ Lewis asked, unable to stop staring at Dickson’s body.

  ‘Hell no, neither one. About all I can do is try to get a marshal over here from Red Rock, to take him in. It’s a pretty long ride, but someone has to do it. We’ve got a telegraph office, though. I’ll run down there while you keep this shotgun on him. And we better get some help getting Dickson out of here too. I can’t believe this dumb kid actually killed him.’

  ‘I can’t hold a shotgun on him. I never handled a gun in my entire life, let alone aimed one at someone,’ Lewis pleaded.

  ‘You’ve got no choice.’ He shoved the heavy double barrel into Lewis’s hands. ‘Just keep it on him and if he tries to run for it, pull off both barrels. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  ‘Wait a minute. I want to talk to him before anyone takes him away or puts him in jail,’ Lewis protested.

  ‘Talk to him about what? You just saw your friend’s brains scattered across this table and you want to talk to him? What kind of a man are you?’

  ‘I’m . . . a writer from Chicago. I came here to talk to Dickson about a book on his life, but now he’s dead. This young man, obviously from the wild wood, just killed the most feared and famous gunfighter in the west. His story will make headlines all over this nation.’

  ‘Story? Who cares about that at a time like this! I don’t care about any headlines either. You just do what I told you to. I’ll be back as fast as I can, and don’t let anyone else in here until I am.’

  The barkeep disappeared out the door at a run while Lewis turned to Wild, sitting at the table across from the man he’d just murdered. He seemed transfixed on the bloody body as Lansing leaned down talking low and fast, trying to break his trance.

  ‘You listen to me young man, and listen good. I came here to write a book about the man you just murdered, but now I can’t. That leaves only you, understand? Now I’ll write your story about the struggles and privation you and your family have had to suffer at the hands of people here in Double Hot. I’ve got some important papers right here in my briefcase, I’ll ask you to sign so I can do that story, your story. The money you can earn from it can buy you a top-flight lawyer when they take you to court. Who knows, you might even get off with manslaughter. If you want to make a deal that can save your life, I’ll get those papers out right now and have you sign them before anyone else comes in here. What do you say? Are you game for it, Zac Wild? Are you ready for fame and fortune?’

  The kid looked up bewildered by the sudden offer. He barely understood what Lansing was even saying, but he knew one thing. ‘I . . . I can’t write my name.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that one bit. I’ll help you. I’ll show you where to make your mark. That’s all we need for it to be legal. Let’s get this deal done and fast.’

  Four days later Zac Wild, in handcuffs, was on his way to Red Rock’s jail in custody of Sheriff Lane Stokes. Stokes, riding next to Zac on his mule, looked over at the pathetic young man. He couldn’t believe someone near idiocy could have ever gotten the drop on Ben Dickson. He knew Dickson well, and of his exploits over the years facing down some of the most dangerous men in Arizona, and everyplace else. It didn’t make any sense for him to die by the hands of a teenage kid who could barely get out a complete sentence, yet there it was. He shook his head without comment.

  On a small rise not far outside Double Hot, the rock-strewn cemetery overgrown with thorny mesquite and cactus had a fresh mound of calichee with a wooden headboard at one end holding the body of Ben Dickson, bound for eternity. It simply read:

  BEN DICKSON

  May he at last rest in peace.

  Dickson had no wife, family or children to leave behind to mourn him. A handful of local people who knew him got enough money together to buy his simple headboard. Above the boneyard a lone coyote standing on a hill watched the small handful of people beginning to leave. When the last wagon and rider went out of sight, the little brush wolf threw his head back, howling a long drawn-out salute of goodbye, before turning to trot back into brush. It was as good a send-off as the man with a fast gun and no conscience expected to ever get.

  On the dusty stage road climbing Mica Mountain, the Canton & Keller four-horse coach rocked to the uneven wheel track while Lewis Lansing sat with his leather briefcase on his lap stuffed full with his fantastic new story about the kid who shot down the most feared gunfighter in the entire west, with only one single shot. He knew his name would be on the lips of every household from the Rocky Mountains to the eastern seaboard when his explosive new novel came out. He even had a title already in mind: ‘Ben Dickson, King of Killers’. Even better he no longer had to ask Ben Dickson if he could write it. When the stage crested Ridington Pass, Double Hot went out of sight behind for good. Lewis Lansing had his story. There was no reason for him ever returning. As usual the Arizona sun began its scorching climb up the thermometer, sending that first trickle of hot sweat down the back of his neck, dampening his collar. For the first time since coming to Arizona, a smile of satisfaction and accomplishment lit Lewis Lansing’s face. This time he didn’t mind the sweat at all.

 

 

 
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