The Gun is my Brother

by Matt Chisholm

  ‘You’re scaring me, Mr. Wragg,’ she said. ‘It’s not easy living alone here like I do.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, ma’am. That’s what I thought. Not a man of substance in town that wouldn’t be happy and proud to remedy that. Myself included.’ That was offered as the supreme compliment.

  ‘You’ve said as much before,’ she said and managed a fair show of calm, ‘and I’m gratified. But the answer’s the same. It could be different if—’

  A show of eagerness came into the little man’s eyes.

  ‘If—?’

  ‘If you found out who killed Will.’

  If she had slapped him across the face, she could not have had a greater effect. He stepped abruptly backwards, mouth and eyes wide before he rapidly recovered himself. Suddenly the initiative was with her. She was profoundly surprised.

  ‘Who killed Will?’ Voice uncertain, shaking slightly. Never had the little man looked at a loss before. ‘Why, ma’am, nobody’ll ever know that, I guess. Shot down from cover, like you know as well as me. Man who done it got out of the country fast. Nobody’ll ever find the murderer.’

  ‘You’ll excuse me now, Mr. Wragg—I have a deal to get through.’

  Mr. Wragg found a smile.

  ‘Sure, sure—I’m intruding. My apologies. Don’t you fret on that murderer, Mrs. Overell. We’ll take care of him. Take a bet he’ll hang before long.’

  He nodded, chuckled a little in the direction of the child, turned smartly and stepped out of the door. They heard his neat footsteps going down the path.

  ‘Did he hear?’ Mrs. Overell asked.

  ‘What if he did?’ the child replied.

  The woman said nothing. She knew if Wragg had heard, the man in the bedroom was as good as dead. The little man would tread carefully because of her, but he’d get what he wanted just the same. And she had a strange and maybe unreasonable feeling that Wragg wanted Spur very much indeed. Not only with the idea of justice in his mind.

  The man beyond the bedroom door started mumbling and she hurried to him, saying over her shoulder to Janey, ‘Watch the road from the town, honey. See that man’s clear of here.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When Wragg got back into town, he headed for the sheriff’s office. Only Ely was there and he was so confounded tired from hunting out fee-Ions it wasn’t right he should be a-sitting there doing duty. No, sir. Too wore out for the cards even. Wragg learned that the sheriff was at his house and went there.

  Mrs. Carlson was a big, fat Swede with eyes as blue as his own, but not as wide. They were small and probing and Wragg didn’t like them. He didn’t like her much, either. Not his type. Sheriff was having a meeting in the parlor and she was certain sure he’d be proud to have him join him and the other gentlemen. Wragg wasn’t so damned sure about that, but he marched in just the same.

  There were several men there. John Carlson, the sheriff; Smelling, drinking beer and looking gross; Bob Thurminger, wispy and long, still wearing his hogleg and the signs of last night’s battle on him and liking them; Wright Schwartz, the saloon owner, cool as you like, and a couple of others Wragg knew.

  Wragg nodded to them and said their names as was the custom and they shook with him.

  The sheriff said, ‘Glad you come along, Henry,’ but he wasn’t.

  Smelling said, ‘Sure,’ but he wasn’t either. Wragg didn’t let that worry him. Contrarily, it pleased him.

  Wragg chuckled good-humoredly and said, ‘Making medicine, huh?’

  Bob Thurminger grinned a little self-consciously and murmured, ‘Reckon,’ John Carlson thrust a beer into his hand and said, ‘Take a weight off your feet, man.’

  ‘I was a-tellin’ the fellers,’ Smelling offered, belching gently on the beer, ‘that son of a bitch is hid someplace around town. I hit him with my second shot—plumb square.’

  Wragg demanded, ‘Where is he, then? We looked every place he could hide.’

  Smelling said, ‘The widder’s house.’

  The sheriff put in, ‘You went there.’

  ‘That’s about all we did do too. We went there.’

  ‘You mean Mrs. Overell would hide a criminal?’ Carlson sounded shocked.

  Bob Thurminger shoved in, ‘Put a gun on her more like.’

  ‘It don’t matter a damn how or why she’s got him hid, but we ain’t searched the place thorough,’ Smelling affirmed. ‘Wragg here took over. Leaved her stand talkin’ at the door. We didn’t never git insides even.’

  The sheriff jerked his around and looked at Wragg.

  ‘That right, Henry?’

  ‘Yes,’ Wragg agreed primly, ‘that’s right so far as it goes.’

  Smelling gave that short, thick laugh of his.

  ‘How goddam far does it go?’

  Wragg smiled at him innocently.

  ‘I’ve just this minute come from there.’

  That created a stir. He knew it would and he liked that.

  Carlson stood up. Wragg sat back, comfortably despising him. The man was too fat and too lazy for the job. The night’s manhunt had him tottering on his tiny feet.

  The sheriff said, ‘You mean you searched the place?’

  ‘That’s what I mean.’ Pointedly, he added, ‘I didn’t march up to her door with a half-dozen armed men with torches in the middle of the night and breathe down her neck. She’s real lady and I treated her like one.’

  ‘Aw, for Christ’s sake!’ burst out Smelling.

  ‘Result, she let me search. There’s no gunman hid out at her place. Take my word on it.’ He became aware of Wright Schwartz’s hard eyes on him.

  Smelling laughed from deep in his belly.

  The sheriff knew that laugh and he muttered, ‘All right, now, Smelling…’

  Wragg sat upright and boomed, ‘Say it,’ and put the china-blues on the big man.

  ‘Say what?’ the rancher roared back. ‘That you’re a goddam liar? No, sir, you don’t hear me a-sayin’ that. I ain’t a quarrelsome man. Maybe I believe you an’ maybe I don’t—but I ain’t sayin’.’

  Thurminger suggested, ‘How about some sleep? I’m bushed. I’m hittin’ the hay for a coupla hours. The dogs had his scent down the crick. I’ll bring ’em out a coupla hours past noon. Suit you, John?’

  The sheriff groaned and said, ‘I reckon so,’ and they all stood up. Hands shaken all around, slow departures and Wragg managing to stay a second behind the others so he could say quietly to the sheriff, ‘You checked on this Spur, John? Know where he’s wanted?’

  Carlson looked as if he’d been caught out in a mistake.

  ‘No. I didn’t think—There ain’t been time, Henry. Things started happening soon as the fellow got in town.’

  Wragg nodded understandingly.

  ‘I know, I know. But you could do worse than get on the wire.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  Wragg went down the hall, nodding with affable distaste to the sheriff’s wife and stepping on to the street behind Schwartz, the saloon man. He hastened his short paces till he was alongside the taller man and said, ‘Walk a ways with you, Wright.’

  Unsmiling the other replied, ‘Okay.’

  They paced two of Wragg’s to one of Schwartz till they came to the Golden Glory, standing with its faded paint to the now high sun. Men stepped aside for them; the two of them lifted their hats to the feed merchant’s wife and went into the gloom of the interior.

  There were maybe a dozen men there, all standing, mostly handling a beer.

  ‘Drink,’ Schwartz said.

  ‘In private,’ Wragg suggested. Schwartz nodded and led the way past the end of the long and battle-scarred bar to a small room at the back of the place.

  Here there was a carpet of sorts under foot and polished wooden furniture. The saloon-keeper indicated a chair, produced bottle and glasses and poured. He sat at the table opposite Wragg and waited, not speaking. He could be sociable enough when he wanted, but right that moment he didn’t want.

  ‘We know
each other pretty well, Wright,’ Wragg said. The other nodded. ‘We know guns.’ Another nod slighter this time. ‘I have a proposition to make.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘This Spur … he’s not wanted around here. But there’s places where they’d pay good for him—dead or alive.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘You and me could collect.’

  Schwartz took a stogie out of a vest pocket and stuck it carefully between his thin lips.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.

  Wragg stood up.

  ‘You do that. Only don’t take too long. Spur’s hid out mighty near here or he’s dead. We ain’t the only ones want him.’

  ‘Why do you want to share?’

  The little man was taken aback for a second. He said quickly with a little laugh, ‘I’m good with a gun—but this is Sam Spur. I ain’t a fool with chances.’

  The saloon man coldly smiled his approval.

  ‘I’ll let you know.’

  ‘I’ll be to home, I don’t doubt, till past noon.’

  He walked home knowing he’d hooked Schwartz and knowing that he had chosen well. There wasn’t a cooler man in town under gunfire. God knew he’d stood up to enough of it in his place when the fights broke out between the miners and the cattlemen, between the Texans and the Yankees. He lay down for a short siesta glowing with satisfaction. But Schwartz would have to hurry. There were plenty more beside Wragg who would like to catch up with Spur. Some smelled blood, some reputation, some money. They could all make a man take risks.

  Charlie Bontine’s mind ran along the same lines, attracted to the thought of taking Spur for those three reasons. Almost equally. Though maybe the reputation part of it was the more important. Beside Wragg, Charlie was the other reputation in this neck of the woods. But whereas the little man’s name had been made over the past few years because he had shot a man or two more or less in the name of the law, Charlie had shot five or six in no name except his own.

  He was a winning young man, and he lost what he won as soon as he won it. He gambled with cards and with life—particularly with life not his own. The things he won were mostly coveted by other men and that made them more worth winning for Charlie. He had liked to have things that other men wanted since the day he discovered that a ragged-assed kid from the brasada, brought up on guns, and who had never had two Mex cents to rub together, could change all that by turning the gun he had shot animals and Indians with on his fellow Americans.

  What he did when he frequently rode out of town was anybody’s guess and most people guessed right—though they could never prove anything. What he did in town was common knowledge—he spent it drinking in the Golden Glory, losing money at cards there or catting it up at Rebby Smith’s. He wasn’t respectable and men didn’t admit to their wives they knew him, but they went out of their way to be civil to him, especially when he’d been drinking. Which was often.

  He was drinking now, leaning against Wright Schwartz’s long bar and speculating about the nude lady who had reclined above the bottle-shelves and the mirror since opening day. The flies had made a bit of mess of her, but she still held attraction for men who had seen nothing but steers and squaws in weeks.

  Being a badman himself, he knew what Spur must be feeling hiding out around here. Being helped by somebody. In Spur’s boots, Charlie would have wanted help willing or unwilling. And Bob Thurminger had said the poor jasper’d been hit. The town had claimed his horse and it was now in the livery—a roan showing Spanish lines and a lot of bottom.

  Charlie had been along there to take a look at it, not admitting it to anybody, because he didn’t want anybody to know that Spur got any respect from him. And it had given him a kind of funny feeling, standing there staring at the animal that had been ridden in here by a man as big as the great Sam Spur himself. He grinned a little to himself, nervously, seeing himself a riding out of here on that horse himself, his by rights because he’d killed its owner.

  But he had to find him. That made for thought.

  He signaled to Harry behind the bar and a whiskey arrived at his elbow in quick time. A man spoke to him from one side and Charlie told him without turning his head that he was drinking on his lonesome tonight. The man moved off. When Charlie said a thing like that in a voice like that he got his own way with the small fry around here. Last week they had seen the crippled remains of the cowhand who had got fresh with him because Charlie wouldn’t drink with him.

  But when Wright Schwartz’s voice came from the open door behind the bar, Charlie turned his head and gave it his attention. You did with Wright. He was a quiet man, but handy with a gun and of some reputation. Wielded plenty of influence one way and another. In Charlie’s game it could be useful knowing a man like that.

  ‘Step inside, Charlie. I’d like a word with you.’

  Bontine made a show of ignoring him for the benefit of the others present, tossed his drink off carelessly and hitched his belt before he drifted along the bar and followed Schwartz inside.

  He sat in the chair that Wragg had sat in some time before.

  The saloon-keeper pushed a drink towards him, offered him a cigar and lit for the both of them. He took both with cool politeness. He never bucked Schwartz, never gave him offence. He told himself that was him being smart because the man was useful to him, but he was lying to himself. He knew Schwartz was a dangerous man and had no more feeling than an iron bar, he knew Schwartz wasn’t afraid of him. The fact was brought home to him very quickly.

  ‘I have a proposition.’ The saloon-keeper’s words were clipped and precise in a way that was irritating to the Texan. The man was a damned Boston dude—which was doubly hateful, because he was tough and dangerous.

  ‘Sam Spur is somewhere near or in town. I’d gamble I know where he is. You’re good with a gun, but you couldn’t take Sam if he had his eyes shot out. I’m better, but I couldn’t handle it either. Together we both have a good chance. There’s money on that bucko’s head—I don’t know for sure how much, but you can bet your boots it’d be enough to stake us both to something big.’

  Bontine sneered a little.

  ‘Keep talkin’,’ he said softly.

  ‘First, I want to know if you’ve enough salt to go along with me?’

  Charlie set his glass down with a bang on the table and snapped out, ‘You funnin’ me?’

  ‘Have you or haven’t you?’

  The Texan climbed to his feet, about half-drunk.

  ‘I don’t need no damned Yankee sidin’ me takin’ that used up son of a bitch.’

  Schwartz grinned suddenly and unexpectedly. It didn’t soften the hard lines of his face. They merely extended themselves.

  ‘You go ahead then.’

  Bontine sat down and finished his drink.

  ‘Say your piece.’

  ‘There’s nothing to say. I’m propositioning you. Either you throw in with me or I’ll team up with Wragg.’

  ‘Wragg!’ The thought of being compared with that little sawn-off runt shocked him profoundly. ‘I’ll split fifty-fifty.’

  ‘You don’t know where Spur is.’

  ‘My gun comes high.’

  Schwartz leaned gracefully against his high-backed, roll top desk.

  ‘Get this into your fool head. You’re nothing but a punk hick kid from the sticks that’s gunned down a few poor saps that didn’t know any better. But you’re good enough for the chore on hand.’

  The blood got into Charlie’s eyes and he didn’t see so well. When he stood up his chair fell over with a clatter. The saloon man didn’t move.

  ‘I don’t have to take that kind of talk,’ Charlie said and his voice was thick.

  ‘The only way to get out of it is to walk out.’

  ‘I’ve cut men down for less than that.’

  ‘Punks.’

  Schwartz’s eyes were the only indication that he was laughing.

  He was enjoying this and Charlie knew it. The thought made him want
to weep with rage.

  All he managed to say was, ‘You kin purely go to hell.’,

  ‘Just as you like. Pay what you owe at the bar and get out, Charlie. Get out of town. Stay out and don’t come back. Not ever.’

  Charlie looked like he was choking.

  ‘By Gawd …’ he said. ‘You ain’t big enough for this, Schwartz.’

  ‘Show me,’ Schwartz whispered.

  Ten minutes later a humiliated and raging Bontine was drinking savagely at the bar, swearing to himself that he’d gut-shoot that bastard Spur. After a while he started doing it out loud to any man within earshot.

  An hour later he was joined by a friend of his, one George Artemus, and together they went down-town to the Greeks and ordered steaks. Here he mussed the woman up a mite, put Nick, the stinkin’ Dago, in his place and told the world he was going to get Spur and get him good. With the money he would obtain from the exploit he would start a horse ranch in Wyoming Territory where he’d heard tell the grass was sweet as all sin.

  George said but he didn’t know where Spur was and Charlie laughed and said if he didn’t, by Gawd, Wright Schwartz did.

  An hour later there wasn’t a man, woman and child in town who didn’t know that Charlie Bontine had sworn to get Sam Spur. That included Wragg.

  Rumors started and within a short while had reached the proportions of myths and legends. There was a long-standing quarrel between the two gunmen. Spur had insulted Bontine’s sister down in San Antone and Bontine had sworn to get him. Every time Charlie had caught up with him, Spur had fled. That was why he always rode a fast horse. There was a lot more of it and it read as if Charlie had written it up himself. He hadn’t—it was just that he was a local badman and Spur represented foreign parts. Charlie had friends around town.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Overell House stood above the creek about a couple of hundred yards back from the crown of the bluff. Once it had been the headquarters of a prosperous ranch. The owner had had a legal claim to a stretch of the river—the rest had been public range. When the farms came, the owner found his empire shrinking and had ended up by selling his valuable river-land to Will Overell. He’d made a good thing of it. A steady man, Will, and looking like he was going to be a pretty important man in these parts. Not because he was ambitious or had any fancy ideas about himself, but because he was a good man and folks knew it. It doesn’t often happen that way, but this time it did. You couldn’t miss it with Will.