Where the Bullets Fly

by Terrence McCauley

  Mackey adjusted his belly holster so the handle of his Colt was closer to the saddle horn. Easier to grip without much effort.

  He edged Adair forward and stopped in the middle of Front Street. He didn’t have to rein her in to bring her to a halt. The mare liked a good fight as much as her rider did. She stood stock still as the eleven men and their mounts rumbled toward them.

  Like Billy and Mackey, she had been through this kind of thing before.

  With a great flourish of mud and commotion, Jeb Taylor threw up a gloved hand and brought his men to a halt a few yards shy of Mackey and Adair.

  Mackey knew the rancher may be a braggart and a bastard, but he never took him lightly. The rancher had carved a thriving cattle and horse ranch out of the Montana wilderness at a time when there had been nothing in that part of the territory but Blackfoot Indians, disease, harsh winters, and broiling summers. He had given more than blood and sweat to building his JT brand. He had given a wife and a son.

  The same grit and perseverance that had cost him his family had served to make him one of the wealthiest men in the Montana Territory. His struggles hadn’t made him humble. Mackey knew Taylor was every bit as tough and mean as the land he had tamed.

  Mackey grazed his Colt’s handle with his thumb. It was close if he needed it. He could feel the bulk of his Winchester in the saddle scabbard under his left leg. Billy must have put it there. He could get to it quick enough after emptying his pistol, if it came to that.

  He hoped it wouldn’t.

  He hoped this was just Taylor saber rattling in front of his men and the town he believed he owned. He’d ridden into town for answers about his missing men, not blood.

  Blood could always come later, if it had to come at all.

  Mackey sat easy, hands crossed on his saddle horn as the line of men and horses slowed in front of him. Just a man on his horse in the middle of Front Street. With the handle of his Colt only an inch or so away.

  Against eleven armed men.

  “Afternoon, Jeb. What brings you boys into town? Hope it’s not for the big dance. If it is, I’m afraid you’re a day early.”

  Taylor was a big, dark-eyed man well over six feet tall and over two hundred pounds. He had a thick brown mustache that bore no hint of gray, though it should have. He looked Mackey up and down with a glare that would’ve given most men pause. Mackey simply looked back.

  “Didn’t expect to see you up and around quite so soon, sheriff. Heard you were laid up with an illness.”

  “You heard right. I was.”

  “Looks like you still are. You look like hell.”

  Subdued laughter rippled through the Taylor men.

  Mackey laughed, too. “Guess I’ve got a knack for rallying myself when I need to, Jeb.” He looked over Taylor’s men. Mostly familiar faces. A few strangers. All of them armed. “What brings you boys into town on such a beautiful day?”

  The rancher wasn’t smiling anymore. “Heard you gunned down five men today. Just so happens that I lost a few men off my ranch this morning. I’m wondering if your dead men might be mine.”

  “They’re not yours. Billy and I shot five drunks who pulled on us as they came out of the Horn. No one ever saw them before and none of the witnesses said they were yours.”

  “So you say.”

  “I do, but you’re welcome to look for yourself if you want. They’re over at the undertaker’s right now. Bet Cy Wallach is already practicing some of his new mortician techniques on them. If they’re yours, you’ll probably get them back in better condition than they left.”

  A few of Taylor’s men laughed. He moved his head a fraction of an inch to his left. The laughter stopped.

  “I planned on going to Wallach’s anyway,” the rancher said. “I don’t need your permission.”

  “Sure you do, especially armed like you are. But I’m willing to let that go for now until you have a chance to look at the bodies. I figure you should be able to do that and be on your way in about half an hour.”

  Taylor sat a little taller in the saddle. “You don’t seem to care if those dead men are mine or not.”

  “That’s because I don’t. Whoever they were, they broke the law by raising hell and wearing guns into town and refusing to submit to arrest. They died because they drew on Billy and me when we tried to arrest them for it. The shooting was as legal as it gets.”

  Taylor looked at the men on his right, then on his left. “All the men I brought with me are armed. You gonna try to arrest them, too?”

  Mackey made a show of looking over Taylor’s men. “Only if they try something stupid. Or if you do.”

  The rancher sat taller in the saddle. “They won’t do anything stupid, Mackey. They’re all trained men. You know I don’t hire greenhorns.”

  Mackey looked at the men. “No you don’t. But their mounts are green, aren’t they?”

  Jeb Tyler had been accused of a lot of things since coming to Dover Station, but being a fool had never been one of them. He knew what Mackey meant.

  For the benefit of the men, Mackey said, “They’re all fine mounts. Fast and strong and well fed, unlike the mounts the dead men dragged into town with them. They’ve also most likely never heard a gunshot before. Now, Adair here was damned near weaned on gun smoke. Hardly anything spooks her anymore. But, those grazing horses you boys are riding? Hell, they’ll buck if a bee comes too close.” He looked at Tyler. “You’ve been in battle, Jeb. You know good men aren’t much good when they’re getting thrown by their horses.”

  Tyler knew it, but he didn’t seem to like it. “Damn you, Aaron. I . . .”

  Mackey decided to give the rancher a way out of it. “Given your aggrieved state over the possible death of your men, I’m willing to overlook the infraction, so long as they stay mounted and they all leave with you after you’ve had a look at the dead bodies for yourself.”

  Mackey looked up at the clock tower over the bank. It was already four-thirty. It felt a hell of a lot later than that. “The firearm ordinance gets enforced at five o’clock. Any of your men still in town wearing a gun when the clock strikes five will get arrested and fined. That includes you, Jeb.”

  Taylor gripped the reins of his horse tighter. “I’d like to see you try.”

  Taylor’s horse sensed the tension and snuffed and shifted. Some of the other mounts did, too.

  Adair didn’t move.

  Neither did Mackey. “No, Jeb. No you wouldn’t.”

  Taylor looked the sheriff over while he weighed his options. Mackey saw Taylor taking in his gaunt appearance and sickly pallor. He might seem like he was alone, but he knew Billy was probably covering the area from somewhere he couldn’t see.

  After he’d seemed to think about it enough, Taylor asked, “You have an official report of what happened?”

  “If they’re your men, I’ll show it to you now,” Mackey said. “If not, you can read about it tomorrow.”

  “I want to read it now.”

  “I don’t care. And I don’t repeat myself.”

  “I’m not sure I like that.”

  “You don’t have to like it.” He glanced up at the clock. “Twenty-five minutes, Jeb. Best put each second to good use.”

  The rancher brought his horse close to Mackey. Adair didn’t move. “I don’t respond well to threats, boy.”

  Mackey leaned closer to him. “Neither do I.”

  Mackey refused to move out of their way and Adair wouldn’t move without prompting. Jeb Taylor and his men had to ride around them. None of them touched Mackey or Adair as they rode by.

  Sometimes, he thought his horse loved this work as much as he did.

  * * *

  At five minutes to five, Mackey was back in his rocking chair on the boardwalk in front of the jailhouse. Billy was leaning against the porch post building another cigarette. They had both leaned their rifles against the wall. Close enough to reach, but not close enough to be threatening.

  They heard Taylor and his men riding
up Lincoln Street, which ran behind the jailhouse. Streaks of bright yellows and pinks were beginning to appear in the sky as the day drew closer to sunset. A sharp breeze had just begun to blow up Front Street as Taylor’s men rounded the corner.

  Mackey could tell that afternoon had all the makings of becoming a damned nice evening. Too nice to ruin with gunplay if Taylor forced it. But if Taylor forced it, gunplay was fine with Mackey.

  The sheriff and the deputy watched as all of the rancher’s men took the road leading back to the JT Ranch. The only rider who came back into town was Jeb Taylor himself.

  Mackey stopped rocking. His hand was flat on his stomach, close to the Colt’s handle by his buckle. Billy stopped building his cigarette, but kept leaning against the porch post. He held the half-built smoke in his left hand while his right moved flat against the holster on his leg.

  Taylor reined his mount to a stop in front of the jailhouse. “You were right, Mackey. None of them were mine.”

  Billy went back to building his cigarette. Mackey’s hand stayed where it was. “Glad you saw it for yourself, Jeb. Helped put your mind at rest.”

  But Taylor didn’t seem satisfied by that. “You could’ve saved us both a lot of time and trouble if you’d just told me that in the first place.”

  “I did, but you decided to try showing me up in front of your men instead of listening to reason. That’s the last time. Next time you run your mouth at me in front of anyone, I’ll kill you, Jeb. I won’t care who you have with you or how many. I’ll put a bullet in your belly. Whatever happens to me after that won’t matter, but you’ve talked down to me for the last time.”

  Mackey followed Taylor’s eyes. He could tell he was thinking about going for his gun. He saw the rancher look at the rifles leaning against the wall, then at the pistols on each man’s belt. He’d be lucky to get one of them if he pulled, but not both of them. Not men like Aaron Mackey and Billy Sunday.

  The rancher grabbed the reins with both hands instead. “You’ve got to be one of the most miserable, disagreeable sons of bitches I have ever met.”

  Mackey looked up Front Street as he resumed his rocking. “Get home safe, Mr. Taylor.”

  Taylor swung his horse around and headed up the road toward his ranch and his men. The bell in the clock tower rang five times just as Taylor cleared Front Street.

  Billy kept building his cigarette. “Bastard sure cut it close, didn’t he?”

  Mackey went back to rocking. “Jeb Taylor is not an easy man.”

  Billy licked the paper and rolled his smoke. “Kind of like someone else I know.”

  Mackey set his head back against the cool wood of the rocking chair and closed his eyes. Billy never let anything rest. Just like Pappy.

  He decided to change the subject. “You file the statements you and Sim took down at the Horn earlier?”

  “On your desk awaiting your perusal.”

  Now that Taylor and his men were gone, Mackey wanted to settle in and enjoy the sunset from the jailhouse porch. The town had drifted back into its usual rhythm after that afternoon’s shoot-out. He was sure it’d pick up again once the train carrying the mayor’s dignitaries arrived at the station, but it wouldn’t last. Dover Station responded to new things at first, but quickly absorbed them as it moved about its daily routine. “At least the conversation at tomorrow night’s gala won’t be boring,” Mackey said. “Between the shooting and Jeb Taylor’s ride and those wealthy New Yorkers being in town, the rumor mill’s well stocked with grist.”

  Billy thumbed a match alive and lit his cigarette. “As long as all they do is talk, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  Mackey wanted to keep rocking in his chair, but there was another bit of business he needed to settle. He’d done his best to put it off for as long as he could, but he couldn’t put it off any longer. He waited until a wagon rolled past before he spoke of it. “I know you and I usually dig the graves of the men we kill together, but . . .”

  “Our grave digging is a custom, Aaron. Not a law. You can barely dig into a bowl of porridge right now; much less dig earth for a grave. I’ve already got a crew lined up to do the digging. Petty cash ought to cover the expense.”

  “I appreciate that,” Mackey allowed. “Asking people to do my job for me isn’t my way.”

  “Paying men to dig a grave don’t count as a favor. It counts as a job. No shame in it on either side of the agreement.”

  But although the matter was already settled, Mackey figured it still required explanation. “I’ve always thought that killing ought to cost a man something. Burying the men we kill always seems like a fair trade for us getting to live. Without the effort of the result, the killing might get too easy. I never want that to happen.”

  Billy kept building his new cigarette, carefully laying the tobacco onto the paper. “Just because killing’s never been hard for you and me, don’t mean it’s ever been easy. It’s not likely to get easy for us, either. We’re simply not the type.”

  Maybe it was the fever. Maybe it was other things preying on Mackey’s mind. “What type are we?”

  “Whatever we need to be right now. That’s the best anyone can hope for.”

  The two men watched the softening colors of the coming sunset deepen as the day began the slow change into night. The wind up Front Street had calmed down to a breeze, carrying with it the smell of flowers blooming on the surrounding hillsides. The scent made a pleasant scene even more so.

  “You know how to get around me, don’t you?” Mackey asked.

  “I’d never do that, Aaron. But I know how you think. After all this time, I’d be a damned fool not to. You’re not a complicated man.”

  “Just a stubborn son of a bitch.”

  Billy flicked his dying cigarette into the middle of Front Street. “Stubborn just about covers it.”

  Since that matter seemed to be settled, too, Mackey pushed himself out of the rocker. Weakness and dizziness settled over him again, but he managed to steady himself on the porch post without help. He felt weak, but not as weak as before. “Think it’s time I go sleep in my own bed for a change.”

  Both men looked up when they heard the train whistle echo through the valley, followed by a loud chorus of cheers from the railroad station.

  Mackey shut his eyes. Just when I was about to go to bed. “Sounds like the mayor’s guests have arrived.”

  “You’re not going down there, are you?” Billy asked. “You can’t hardly stand as it is, much less walk over to the station.”

  But Mackey felt a second wind coming on as his weakness subsided. Maybe it was the arrival of new people to town that did it. Maybe he just wanted the pleasure of seeing Mason make a damned fool of himself in front of the bankers he’d brought all the way from New York City.

  Or maybe he was just looking for a reason to delay going home and seeing his wife.

  Mackey wasn’t sure why he stepped off the boardwalk and headed toward the station, but he did. “Might as well see what all the fuss is about. Take the Sharps with you. A show of force will impress our guests.”

  Billy didn’t look pleased, but went with him anyway.

  Chapter 7

  Billy and Mackey got there just as the train bringing the dignitaries to Dover pulled into the station. The engines stopped with a great hiss, and the engineer let out a long blast from the whistle, bringing the crowd that Mayor Mason had assembled to a fever pitch.

  A sudden wind from the north blew the thick smoke from the engine’s great smoke stack away from the platform and all of the Doverians who had gathered there. Mackey knew the mayor would see it as divine providence, a sign that the Almighty Himself had blessed the arrival of these saviors from back east.

  Mackey had been sick for the past few days, so he hadn’t seen the station since Mason’s volunteers had begun to work on it. He hardly recognized the place. Normally a plain building with minimal signage and decoration, the station bore a fresh coat of new brown paint. The busted handrails an
d stairs had been fixed, and the brickwork of the chimney had been re-pointed. Every straight edge on the station was covered in red, white, and blue bunting. Lace curtains had been hung in the freshly cleaned windows, and the loading area had been cleared of all freight.

  Several of the fifty or so people Mason had either convinced or cajoled into attending thrust signs in the air, reading WELCOME TO DOVER STATION and GOD BLESS MR. RICE and GOD BLESS MR. VAN DORN. Men threw hats aloft while women clutched baskets filled with home-baked pies and other treats for the visitors. Mackey was surprised to see the tinny piano from Hill House had been brought all the way down the hill on the back of a flatbed wagon, most likely because it was more presentable than its battered counterpart at the Tin Horn. Doc Ridley stood before a brass band, which Mackey could see had been cobbled together from the various musicians from every whorehouse and hotel in the territory, as it began playing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” A mixture of muted curses and boos rose from the old confederates in the crowd, and the band drifted into a rendition of “Dixie,” which served to quell all objections.

  All of this bother, Mackey thought, and neither Rice nor Van Dorn had even stepped off the train yet.

  Mackey looked for his father in the crowd and wasn’t surprised to see he wasn’t there. Public meetings weren’t his style. He’d meet with the potential investors while they were in town, but in his own time and in his own way, at the gala tomorrow night in full uniform with the Medal of Honor pinned to his tunic. He’d make more of an impression that way.

  But Mackey did see Mary in the crowd, exactly where he had expected her to be, at the bottom of the rail-car steps, waiting for Mr. Rice and Mr. Van Dorn to appear. If either of the men failed to hear her brogue or see her blue eyes, her blond hair would be impossible to miss among the plump gray women with baskets in hand. She always liked to stand out from the crowd. It was why she had married the Hero of Adobe Flats in the first place.