“Boy, you need to learn not to get involved in other people’s fights unless you’re getting paid for it,” Harper said.
“Like you were paid to kill my pa?”
“I’m sure I must have been paid for it,” Harper said. “I don’t kill for free.”
“You son of a bitch! You don’t even remember him, do you?” Toomey said, shouting so loud that spittle was flying from his mouth.
“I’m not sure that I do.”
“Have you killed so many men that you can’t even keep track of it?”
“Something like that,” Harper said.
“Well, it ends today,” Toomey said.
Until this moment, Harper had been sitting down, but now he stood up and stepped away from the table. Because he was so thin, the gun hanging low from his right side seemed almost big enough to tip him off balance.
“So now you are planning to kill me?”
“I’m not just planning on doin’ it, I’m goin’ to do it,” Toomey said.
“Go away, Toomey. I don’t kill boys, not even for money. And I especially don’t want to kill one for free.”
“You think I’m not good enough for you, don’t you? You think I don’t know how to handle a gun? Well, watch this, you son of a bitch!”
Toomey stepped up to the bar, empty now because the patrons who had been standing at the bar, like the others who had been sitting at the tables, had all moved to the sides of the saloon to be out of the line of fire, should the gun battle actually break out.
Toomey picked up a shot glass.
“I’m going to throw this glass into the air, and shoot it before it falls,” he said.
The expression on Harper’s face was unchanged.
“I know what you are thinking,” Toomey said. “Lots of people can toss a glass into the air and shoot it. But how about this?”
Toomey picked up a second glass. “It’s more than one glass,” he said.
He picked up a third glass, and smiled, broadly. “It’s three glasses.”
“Nobody can shoot three glasses before they come down,” said one of the saloon patrons who had moved up against the wall.
Toomey tossed all three glasses into the air, then drew his pistol and fired three times, fanning the pistol so rapidly that they sounded as if they were one, sustained shot.
All three glasses were shattered before they came down, and the feat was greeted by several gasps of surprise, and exclamations of admiration.
Toomey put his pistol back in the holster, then looked at Harper with a triumphant smile. “What do you think about that?” he asked.
“I noticed none of the glasses were shooting back,” Harper said.
“Still think I’m no more than a boy, Harper? Still think I’m not good enough for you?”
“Well now, you see, son, that’s the problem,” Harper said. “Goodness has nothing to do with it. In fact, it is that very goodness that is going to get you killed today.”
“What are you talking about?” Toomey asked.
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“Not yet, but I’m about to.”
“Now me, I’ve killed so many men that, like you said, I can’t even remember all of them. I can kill a man like stepping on a bug. It means absolutely nothing to me,” Harper said. “But now, take someone like you, a good man who has never killed anyone, when the time comes you are going to have just a slight hesitation. You see, it’s an awesome thing to take another man’s life. And it isn’t always the fastest on the draw that wins. People like me, boy, we aren’t good because we are fast. We are good because it doesn’t bother us to kill, and we don’t really care if we get killed. Now, do you still want to do this?”
“Yeah, I want to do it. I told you, I’ve waited six years to . . .”
That was as far as Toomey got before Harper drew his pistol and fired. His bullet hit Toomey in the chest and knocked him back against the bar. He got a surprised look on his face.
“You—you didn’t even—that wasn’t . . .” Toomey slid down to the floor, then sat there for a moment with his arms hanging limp and useless by his side.
“What were you going to say?” Harper asked. “That I didn’t play fair? Killin’s not a game, boy. Killin’ is killin’. And it don’t matter how fast you are if you never get around to pulling your gun.”
Toomey fell to one side, then gave a last, life-surrendering sigh.
“Is there anyone here who didn’t hear this boy threaten me?”
“We heard it, Mr. Harper,” someone said. “We all heard it.”
“We sure did,” another patron said. “What you done was self-defense, pure and simple.”
Harper leaned down and pulled the pistol out of Toomey’s holster. Turning the cylinder, he ejected one bullet, then put it in his pocket. He stood there for a moment, then walked back over to his table to resume his card game. He started to take a sip of his coffee, then made a face and held the cup up.
“I need a fresh cup,” he said.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Harper. Comin’ right up,” the bartender said.
Two city policemen came into the saloon then, both with guns drawn.
“What happened here?” one of them asked.
“This boy here challenged Harper,” one of the patrons asked.
“That right, Harper?”
Harper studied his board, then put a red jack on a black queen before he answered.
“That’s right,” he said.
“This is the second killing you’ve been in this month,” the other policeman pointed out.
“A man has a right to defend himself,” Harper said.
“You seem to have an unusual number of people that you have to defend yourself against.”
“I’ve made a few enemies in my day,” Harper said.
“A few enemies? Mister, I’ve never known anyone with as many enemies as you have. If I were you, I’d go somewhere and change my name. One of these days the other man is going to win.”
“That’s the chance you take in our line of work,” Harper replied.
“Our line of work?” the policeman challenged. “What do you mean, our line of work?”
“We’re alike, you and I,” Harper said. “You put people away that society has found undesirable. I do the same thing, but when I put someone away, it’s permanent.”
“All right,” one of the two policemen said. “We’re goin’ to need some statements. We’ll be sitting over there at that table, and would appreciate it if anyone who actually saw what happened would come talk to us.”
As the rest of the patrons of the saloon rushed over to the table to be certain that their stories got told, one man came over to speak with Harper.
“I saw you take a bullet from the boy’s pistol,” he said. “Why did you do that?”
“Because that bullet was meant for me,” Harper said. “I collect bullets that were meant for me.”
The man who asked the question was Johnny Taylor. His arrival at the saloon, no more than three minutes before it had all begun, had been most fortuitous, because it answered both questions Johnny had about Harper. Was he good? Well, he had proven that. And could he be hired? In his own words, he had stated that he would kill for money.
Johnny dropped a stack of money on the table in front of Harper.
Harper looked at the pile of money, but he didn’t look up at Johnny.
“What is this?”
“It is two hundred and fifty dollars,” Johnny said.
“Two hundred and fifty dollars for what?”
“Two hundred fifty dollars for a job I want you to do for me. And there will be another two hundred and fifty dollars when the job is done.”
“What is the job?”
“It’s the kind of job you specialize in,” Johnny said.
Out at Sky Meadow, Duff was standing on the porch of his house, talking with Elmer Gleason.
“I’m sending some of the boys out tomorrow to bring in the unbranded calves,” Elme
r said. “We pulled two of them out of a bog today.” He laughed. “They had mud from tailbone to nose hole. Took a while to clean ’em up.”
“And ’tis betting, I am, that when they were finished, the calves were clean and the cowboys had mud from tailbone to nose hole,” Duff said.
Elmer laughed again. “You got that right,” he said. “Tell me, Duff, is it true that the bank robbers got more ’n forty thousand dollars?”
“Aye, including the three thousand I had just transferred.”
“I had more’n a thousand dollars in there my ownself.” He chuckled. “But I got me near ten thousand hid out in a sock. I’m glad I ain’t never trusted banks all that much. I always figured out they was too easy to rob. ’Course, ever’ now ’n’ then it don’t work out quite like you planned. I mind the time that Jesse James decided to hold up the bank up in Northfield, Minnesota.
“It was Bill Chadwell who suggested the idea, seein’ as he was from Minnesota. He convinced Jesse that we could get in and out of the state real easy. Me ’n’ Cole Younger and Frank James tried to talk Jesse out of it, but he was convinced we could pull it off.
“On the day of the robbery, we met outside of town to make our plans. We was supposed to break up into three groups, one to go inside the bank, one to stand guard outside of the bank, and one to cover the bridge, which was the way we was goin’ to get out of town. Frank, Jesse, and Bob Younger went inside. Cole Younger and Clell Miller stayed just outside the bank, while me, Jim Younger, Charlie Pitts, and Bill Chadwell was to guard the bridge. We also decided that no citizen was to be killed, no matter what. If we was shot at by anyone, we was supposed to just shoot back to keep their heads down. We wasn’t supposed to kill nobody.”
Elmer was quiet for a moment.
“I’ve read about the Northfield bank robbery,” Duff said. “It dinnae work out that way, did it?”
“No. The whole damn town got guns and started shootin’ at us. We was butchered like hogs, Charlie Pitts, Clell Miller, and Bill Chadwell was all killed. Frank and the Younger brothers was bad shot up. Only ones not hit a’tall was me ’n’ Jesse.”
“And if what I read is correct, ’twas nae successful, for they dinnae get away with any money at all.”
“Twenty-seven dollars,” Elmer said. “The bank teller and one of the townspeople was kilt, and we lost three kilt, and all for twenty-seven dollars.”
Elmer saw a grasshopper clinging to a weed and he spit, the wad of tobacco taking the grasshopper off. “That was the last time I ever done anythin’ against the law,” he said. “I never was much of a God-fearin’ man until then, but I figured that was a message, and I’d better listen to it.”
Duff smiled, and put his hand on his foreman’s shoulder. “ ’Tis glad I am that you’ve reformed,” he said.
Chapter Seventeen
Harper dismounted in front of Fiddler’s Green, tied his horse off, then automatically lifted his pistol from the holster about an inch before dropping it back down. That kept the gun loose in the holster, making for a quicker, smoother draw.
Harper had been born in New York City. He had no idea who his father was, his mother was a prostitute who had died of puerperal fever three days after giving birth to her second illegitimate child. The child had died as well, and Harper, who was twelve years old at the time, had been on his own.
He’d earned a living by running errands for the criminal element of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and he’d killed his first man when he was fourteen, taking the job for one hundred dollars. It had been exceptionally easy. Because he’d been only fourteen his target, Guido Costaconti, who had been himself an assassin, had taken no notice of the young towheaded and barefoot boy who’d been coming toward him, carrying a bag.
“What you got in that sack, boy?” Costaconti had asked. “It wouldn’t be a piece of pie, would it? Yeah, I’ll bet that’s it. It’s a piece of pie that your mama made for you, ain’t it? I tell you what. You just give that pie to me, and that way I won’t have to box your ears.” Costaconti had laughed out loud.
Harper had walked up to within two feet of him, then reached his hand down into the bag.
“That’s a good boy,” Costaconti had said, holding his hand out. “Give it to me.”
Harper had pulled a pistol from the bag, pointed it at Costaconti, and pulled the trigger. Costaconti had been dead before he’d even realized he was in danger.
Harper had gotten such a thrill from that killing that he would have done it for nothing, and over the next four years he’d become one of the most successful assassins in the city. He’d had to leave when the city got too hot for him.
He’d gone west and learned the art of the fast draw. Now he was very skilled at it, but, as he’d told young Toomey, being fast isn’t the most important thing about being a gunfighter. The most important thing was to have a willingness, almost an eagerness, to kill. And that, Harper did have.
Now he was in Chugwater to kill Duff MacCallister. He had never seen Duff MacCallister, so he wouldn’t be able to recognize him on sight. But he was told that MacCallister was a good friend to the owner of Fiddler’s Green, so his plan was a simple one. He would wait here until MacCallister showed up.
His strange, brooding appearance was off-putting to all the bar girls except for one. He had bought drinks for Cindy Boyce at least three times during the day, though he’d had drunk nothing but coffee. Now he was sitting with Francis Schumacher.
“So, you know who I am,” Harper said.
“I know. I used to be a lawman.”
“That don’t mean anything. I don’t have any dodgers out on me.”
Schumacher chuckled. “No, you don’t,” he said. “And I’ve always wondered how someone like you could avoid it.”
“Someone like me?” Harper replied with a challenge to his voice.
“Yeah,” Schumacher said, not backing down. “Someone like you. Someone who has the reputation you have, but has managed to stay off wanted posters.”
“Because I’ve been careful,” Harper said. “Very careful.”
Schumacher glanced up at the clock, and saw that it was nearly two.
“I’ve got to go,” he said. “I have a friend in jail, and the only time I can visit with him is between two and three in the afternoon.”
“You used to be a lawman, and you have friend in jail?”
“Yeah,” Schumacher answered. “Funny, ain’t it?”
“How can you stand to sit at the same table with him?” Nell asked.
“He’s no bother,” Cindy said. “All he does is drink coffee and talk.”
“There is something about him that frightens me,” Nell said.
“And I don’t trust a man who doesn’t drink anything but coffee,” Mattie said. “There’s something mighty strange about that.”
“Well, at least you don’t have to worry about him getting drunk and angry,” Cindy suggested with a smile.
“I don’t know,” Nell said. “I agree with Mattie. I’m not sure I trust someone who doesn’t drink either.”
“What does he talk about?” Mattie asked.
“He doesn’t talk much at all,” Cindy said. “I think he must be a friend of Mr. MacCallister’s.”
“Wait a minute,” Nell said. “Are you saying he is a friend of Duff MacCallister?”
“I guess he is. He has asked about him a few times.”
“I can’t see someone like that being a friend of Duff MacCallister,” Nell said.
“Me either,” Mattie added.
“Well, all I know is he is looking for Duff MacCallister,” Cindy said.
Out at Sky Meadow, the day’s work was done, supper was over, and while several of the cowboys had ridden into town, there were three who stayed behind. One was lying on his bunk, while the other two were sitting across a small table playing cards. Dale and Ben were playing poker with Poke and Vaughan, two of the other cowboys who worked at the ranch. They were playing for pebbles, not for money, but that didn
’t lessen the intensity of their game. When one of them took the pot with a pair of aces, the other one complained.
“What the hell, Poke? How did you come up with that ace?” Dale asked.
“That was easy,” Poke answered. “I just took it from Meacham’s boot when he wasn’t lookin’.” Meacham was the one lying in the bunk.
“What do you mean? Are you saying Meacham keeps an ace in his boot?”
“Oh yeah,” Poke said. “Meacham always has an ace in his boot. I ain’t never know’d him to do anythin’ honest when he could cheat. Ain’t that right, Meacham?”
“That’s right,” Meacham answered without protest or embarrassment. “But don’t let Poke fool you none, Dale. He’s just as bad.”
“Hell, Dale cheats as much as I do,” Poke said.
Dale laughed. “I reckon we all cheat,” he admitted. “It don’t matter much if I get caught cheatin’ for pebbles. But if I ever get real good at it, I’m goin’ to go into one of them big gamblin’ tables down in Cheyenne ’n’ win my fortune.”
“I wouldn’t advise that,” Poke replied. “Cheatin’ among us, when we ain’t playin’ for nothing more ’n pebbles, is one thing. But cheatin’ in a real game is liable to get a fella killed.”
The cards were raked in, the deck shuffled, then dealt again.
“You think Mr. MacCallister will be able to make our payroll this month?” Dale asked as he was dealing.
“Sure, why not?” Poke asked.
“Well, from what I heard, he had a lot of money in the bank that got stoled.”
“Mr. MacCallister is a smart man,” Meacham said. “It wouldn’t surprise me none if he didn’t have money in half a dozen banks.”
“Lord, wouldn’t it be good to have that much money?” Dale asked.
“No. When you got money, you got responsibility,” Meacham said.
“What does that mean?” Dale asked.
“It means you got more ’n yourself to look out for. Now you take us. Only worry we got is where are we goin’ to get our next meal. Well, that ain’t no worry. Come mealtime we just walk over to the cook shack and eat. Where are we goin’ to sleep? Well, this bunkhouse is here. We’ve each got a bunk, blankets, a pillow. We don’t even have to furnish our own horse. And we get forty dollars ever’ month.
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