The Desperado

by Clifton Adams

  “You go buy yourself some clothes,” Pappy said quietly. “I can take care of this.”

  He seemed to forget that I was there. He turned and pushed through the batwings of a place called the Mule's Head Bar, going in quick in that special way of his, and then stepping over with his back to the wall. I didn't think about it, I just went in after him. Somehow, Pappy's fights had got to be my fights. I hadn't forgotten the way he had taken care of the cavalry for me that time at Daggert's cabin.

  We stood there on either side of the door, Pappy sweeping the place in one quick glance, taking in everything, missing nothing. “Well, son,” he said, “as long as you've dealt yourself in, you might as well watch my back for me.”

  I said, “Sure, Pappy.” But it looked like it was going to be a job. The saloon was a big place with long double bars, one on each side of the building. There were trail hands two and three deep along the bars seeing how fast they could spend their hard-earned cash, and the tables in the middle of the floor were crowded with more trail hands, and saloon girls, and slickers, and pimps, and just plain hardcases with guns on both hips and maybe derringers in their vest pockets.

  Down at the end of the bars there was a fish-eyed young man with rubber fingers playing a tinny-sounding piano. The tune was “Dixie,” and a dozen or so cowhands were ganged around singing: “Oh, have you heard the latest news, Of Lincoln and his Kangaroos...” One of the million versions of the tune born in the South during the war.

  The gambling tables—faro, stud, draw, chuck-a-luck, seven-up, every device ever dreamed up to get money without working for it—were back in the rear of the place. That was what Pappy made for. I hung close to the doors as Pappy wormed his way between the tables and chairs, trying to keep my eyes on the gallery—I didn't intend to let a gallery fool me again—and on the men with the most guns. Before Pappy had taken a dozen steps, you could feel a change in the place. It wasn't much at first. Maybe a man would be talking or laughing, then he'd look up and see those awful, deadly eyes of Pappy's, and the talking or laughing would suddenly be left hanging on the rafters. One after another was affected that way, suddenly stricken with silence as Pappy moved by. By the time he had reached the gambling part of the saloon, the place was almost quiet.

  I moved over to the bar on my left, keeping one eye on Pappy and the other on the big bar mirror to see what was going on behind me. Most of the men had turned away from the bar now, watching Pappy with puzzled expressions on their faces, as if they couldn't understand how a scrawny, haggard-looking man like that could draw so much attention. Then mouths began to move and you could almost feel the electricity in the place as the word passed along.

  Somebody spoke to the man beside me. Automatically, the man turned to me and hissed, “It's Pappy Garret! He's after somebody, sure's hell!”

  The men around the piano sang: “Our silken banners wave on high; For Southern homes, we'll fight and die.” Still to the tune of “Dixie.” Their voices died out on the last word. The piano went on for a few bars, but pretty soon it died out, too. All eyes seemed to be on Pappy.

  I didn't have any trouble picking Jim Langly out of the crowd. His eyes were wider, and his face was whiter, and he was having a harder time of breathing than anybody else in the place. When he had looked up from his poker hand and had seen Pappy coming toward him, he'd looked as if he was seeing a ghost. And maybe he was, as far as he was concerned. Maybe he'd figured that Pappy would be dead on a creek bank by now, and all he had to do was wait for the reward money to come in and think up ways to beat Hagan out of his share.

  He started to get up, then thought better of it, and sat down again. You could almost see him take hold of himself, force himself to be calm. He laid his cards face down on the table, fanning them carefully.

  “Why, hello, Pappy,” he said pleasantly.

  He was a big, slack-faced man wearing the gambler's uniform of black broadcloth and white ruffled shirt. He wasn't wearing side guns, but there was a bulge under his left arm that looked about right for a .38 and a shoulder holster.

  “Hello, Jim,” Pappy said quietly. “I guess you didn't expect to see me coming in like this, did you?”

  I thought I saw the marshal's face get a little whiter. “Nobody ever knows when to expect Pappy Garret,” he smiled. One of his poker partners wiped his face uncomfortably, gathered in his chips, and eased away from the table. Langly pushed the empty chair out with his boot. “Sit down, Pappy. It's been a long time.”

  Pappy shook his head soberly. Carefully, I moved down the bar, looking for a place where I could do the impossible of covering the saloon with two guns. I saw that Langly was having trouble again getting his words out.

  “What can I do for you, Pappy? Is there any trouble?”

  “Maybe, Jim,” Pappy murmured.

  Marshal Langly wiped his face with a neat, clean handkerchief. “What is it, Pappy? What do you want?”

  “I came to kill you,” Pappy said softly.

  The words were soft, but they hit Langly like a sledge. You could hear the wind go out of him, see his guts leak out. He groped for words, but there weren't any there.

  “That's the way it goes with men like us, Jim. You tried to kill me and failed. A man only gets one chance in this business.”

  “Pappy, what the hell's wrong with you? I don't know what you're talking about!”

  “Sure you do, Jim,” Pappy went on in that velvety voice of his. “Hagan, our trail boss, came to you yesterday with a proposition. A profitable proposition for you, Jim —maybe fifteen thousand dollars, if you could figure out a way to keep Hagan from getting his split of the reward.”

  “How could I do anything to you, Pappy? Hell, I've been here all day playing draw.”

  “But not your deputies,” Pappy said. “They're right on the job. The job you put them on.”

  The saloon seemed to be holding its breath. I glanced at faces around me. There were quizzical half-smiles on most of them, as if they thought it was all some kind of a big joke. I turned back to Pappy. I couldn't take my eyes off of him.

  For a long moment he was silent, motionless. Langly was frozen. Then Pappy said, “You might as well draw, Jim.”

  The marshal's mouth worked. “Pappy, for God's sake!”

  “I'll give you time to clear leather,” Pappy went on, “before I make a move. That ought to make it about even.”

  “Pappy, listen to me!” The marshal was begging now, begging for his life. “Pappy, for God's sake, I had nothing to do with it!”

  “I'll count to three,” Pappy went on, as if he hadn't heard. Then something hard jabbed me in the small of the back.

  I jumped, grunted instinctively. Pappy stiffened, but he didn't turn around. “What's the matter, son?” he asked quietly.

  I had to tell him.

  “Somebody's got a gun in my back,” I said. “I'm sorry, Pappy. I guess I'll never learn.”

  Chapter 10

  I couldn't see who was holding the gun, and I didn't turn around to look. The slightest movement, I knew, would only get me a sudden trip to Boothill.

  Marshal Langly started to breathe again. He stopped sweating and shaking, and his face began to get some color. Suddenly he sat back and laughed out of pure relief.

  “Pappy Garret,” he chuckled after he caught his breath. “The notorious gunman!” Then his voice barked. “Unbuckle your cartridge belts and drop your pistols to the floor!”

  Or I would get a bullet in the back, his eyes said.

  For an instant I wondered if Pappy really cared what happened to me, as long as he could take his revenge out on Langly. But I didn't have to wonder long. Wearily, he unbuckled the belts and the pistols dropped at his feet.

  “All right, Jim,” he said tiredly. “I guess you've got it going your way now.”

  Langly had his own .38 out now. “You bet I have, Pappy. I've got it going my way and that's the way it's going to stay.” He sat back, looking pleased with himself. “You didn't think your old
friend Jim Langly would be the one to bring you to your knees, did you? Well, you were wrong, Pappy. You haven't got any friends— not even that kill-crazy kid you've been riding with. Sooner or later he would have turned on you, because he's just the same as you are.”

  He was enjoying himself now. Him with a pistol in his hand and Pappy's .44's on the floor. And me with a gun in my back. He wasn't afraid of anything now. He was a hero and enjoying every minute of it. But the crowd in the saloon was still too stunned to be sure that is wasn't a joke.

  “You know what you are, Pappy?” the marshal smiled. “You're a mad dog. You kill by instinct, the way a mad dog does. I'll be doing the whole country a favor by locking you up and turning you over to the Texas authorities.”

  My stomach sank. I might as well die here as on a carpetbag gallows.

  But Pappy didn't move. He said, “I don't suppose the price on my head had anything to do with it.”

  Langly went on smiling. He could afford to smile now. He got up from the table and said, “All right, Bass, take the kid's guns and we'll lock them up.”

  The man behind moved around in front. When he got around to face me I was too startled to guess what was going on in Pappy's mind. The man was Bass Hagan.

  He must have come into Abilene right behind me and Pappy, but he hadn't used the same trail we had. He stood there with the pistol in my belly, grinning that wide grin of his.

  “The pistols,” he said. “Hand them over, kid.”

  And then I began to get it. Pappy still had his back turned to me, but I knew what he must be thinking. I reached very carefully for my right-hand pistol, slid it out of the holster.

  “Butts first,” Hagan grinned. He was the careful kind. He was standing back far enough so that I couldn't rush him, even if I wascrazy enough to rush a man with a cocked pistol in his hand. “Just hand them over, kid,” he said.

  If he had known more about guns and gunmen he would have done as Langly had done, ordered me to unbuckle my belts. But he didn't know. I took the pistol by the barrel, slipping my finger into the trigger guard, and held it out. It had been a beautiful maneuver when Pappy had done it. But this time it wasn't Pappy. And the gun in my belly was loaded and cocked.

  Maybe I would have handed the gun over if he hadn't been grinning. But he kept on grinning and I thought, There never would have been this trouble if it hadn't been for you. And my hand did the rest.

  The pistol was just a blur as it whirled forward. The hammer snapped back as it hit my thumb on top of the turn, and fell forward.

  I think Bass Hagan began to die before the bullet ever reached him. I could see death in his eyes even before the muzzle blast jarred the room, before the bullet slammed into his chest and he reeled back without ever pulling the trigger.

  The shot affected the saloon customers like a stunning blow of a pole ax on a steer. They stood dumb, watching Hagan go to his knees and die, then fall on his face. Even Langly couldn't seem to move.

  But Pappy could. He sliced across with the edge of his hand and sent the marshal's little .38 clattering to the floor. A split second was all it took. I wheeled instinctively to turn my pistol on Langly, but Pappy said sharply:

  “No, son!”

  For some reason, I held my fire. Nobody but Pappy could have stopped me then. But Pappy's voice did it. I held the hammer back and my finger relaxed a little on the trigger.

  Pappy said, “He's not worth wasting a bullet on.” But his eyes, not his voice, put the real bitterness into the words. “Come along, son,” he said, picking up his guns. “I guess Abilene's not our town after all.”

  Well, if that was the way Pappy wanted it... I started toward the doors, moving sideways, trying to keep my eyes on both sides of me and on the bar mirror on the opposite wall. Then Pappy said:

  “Just a minute, son. The marshal will be going with us.”

  I began to get it then. With the marshal dead, our chances of getting out of Abilene would be cut down to nothing. But with the marshal going with us, under the threat of sudden death if anybody tried to stop us, then maybe we could do it.

  I waited, covering Pappy's retreat. Langly's mouth was working again. He looked as if he was going to be sick on the floor.

  “Pappy, for God's sake, can't you take a joke?” he said quickly. “You don't really think I'd turn you over to the Texas police, do you?”

  Pappy's face didn't show a thing. He reached out with a clawlike hand, grabbed the front of the marshal's ruffled shirt, and gave him a shove toward the door. Then he paused for just a moment to address our stunned audience.

  “I don't guess it will take a lot of figuring,” he said, “to guess what will happen to the marshal if anybody tries to follow us out of town.” He waited another moment to make sure that they had it clear. Then he said, “All right, son, let's be moving.”

  I waited at the doors, keeping the crowd covered, while Pappy got our horses in the street. He said something under his breath and Langly got on a gray mare that had been hitched beside Red. It was funny, in a way. Men with guns on both hips, pushing and shoving in both directions on the plank walk, and none of them bothering to give us a second look. I slammed the batwings then, turned and vaulted up to Red's back.

  We fogged it down Texas Street in a wedge formation, Langley in the point and me and Pappy on both sides. Pappy let out an ear-splitting yell like a crazy man, then drew one pistol and emptied it in the air. But Pappy wasn't so crazy. The crowd in the street, thinking we were drunk trail hands, scattered for the plank walks, and we had a clear road to travel out of Abilene.

  “Make for the dust!” Pappy yelled, pointing toward the low-hanging red clouds rising up from a herd coming in for shipment. I crowded Langly on my side, turning him to the west. I looked back once as we went into the dust, but nobody was coming after us yet.

  I didn't like the idea of making a getaway along the trail of incoming herds. Too many people could see us. But pretty soon night came on and we didn't have to depend on the dust for concealment. Then we swung to the west, Langly still in the middle.

  At last we came to a creek, and we stopped there to let our horses blow. Pappy seemed to be in good spirits again. He kept looking at the marshal with that half-grin of his.

  “Jim,” he said, “it looks like your friends in Abilene are going to take our advice and look after your health.” Then he added with mock soberness, “They sure must love you, Jim. But you always did have a way with people, I remember.”

  The marshal had got over his scare. I guess he already saw himself as good as dead, and there wasn't anything to be afraid of after that.

  He said, “You'll never get away with it, Pappy. They'll get you. No matter where you go, they'll get you.”

  “Maybe,” Pappy said mildly, “but I doubt it. I hear law dogs don't go snooping around much in No Man's Land, down in the Oklahoma country.”

  Langly spat. “No Man's Land is a long way off.”

  I could almost see Pappy grinning in the darkness. I caught a glimpse of steel as he drew his right-hand pistol, and I thought, without any emotion at all, This will be one more to add to Pappy's score.

  But he didn't shoot. There was a blue blur in the night, and then a sodden thud as the pistol barrel crashed the marshal's skull. Langly dropped leadenly out of the saddle and hit the ground. Casually, Pappy bolstered his .44.

  “Now why the hell did you do that?” I said. “You're not going to leave him alive, are you?”

  Pappy said, “Jim will do us more good alive than dead. When he gets back to Abilene, maybe he'll send a posse down to No Man's Land. But he'll have a hell of a time finding us there.” He looked over to the east. “The Osage country,” he said, “down in Indian Territory. That's where we'll make for. The Osages like the cavalry about as well as we do, and white man's law even less.” He nodded. “That's the place to make for.”

  It was a long ride—half the width of Kansas—from Abilene to the northeastern border of the Oklahoma country. But P
appy had traveled it before and he knew every foot of the trail, even at night. We left Langly on the creek bank with a knot on his head and without any pants. Taking the marshal's pants had been something that Pappy had thought of on the spur of the moment, and he still grinned as he thought about it. “Losing his pants,” Pappy chuckled, “will be almost as bad on Jim as getting killed. Besides, he won't get back to Abilene in such a hurry if he has to scout around for a horse and another pair of pants.”

  By this time, doing the impossible, crossing half of Kansas when every law officer in the territory was out to get us, didn't surprise me. I had come to expect the impossible from Pappy. I began to suspect that he would live forever, even with the net drawing tighter and tighter around him all the time, because he knew instinctively what to do at exactly the right time. While Langly, and maybe the army, were cutting tracks all over southeastern Kansas and No Man's Land, we were heading for Indian Territory.