Martha’d also remarked about girls who had to drive two front names in harness as if one wasn’t good enough, and I’d told her it surely wasn’t if it was a name like Martha, and she’d kicked me on the shin. But that was a long time ago when we were all kids.
Junellen’s mother broke the silence, in her nervous way: “Dear, hadn’t you better tell Jim the news?” She turned to Mr. Carmichael. “Howard, perhaps you should—”
Mr. Carmichael came forward and took Junellen’s hand. “Miss Barr has done me the honor to promise to be my wife,” he said.
I said, “But she can’t. She’s engaged to me.”
Junellen’s mother said quickly, “It was just a childish thing, not to be taken seriously.”
I said, “Well, I took it seriously!”
Junellen looked up at me. “Did you, Jim? In Dodge City, did you?” I didn’t say anything. She said breathlessly, “It doesn’t matter. I suppose I could forgive … But you have killed a man. I could never love a man who has taken a human life.”
Anyway, she said something like that. I had a funny feeling in my stomach and a roaring sound in my ears. They talk about your heart breaking, but that’s where it hit me, the stomach and the ears. So I can’t tell you exactly what she said, but it was something like that.
I heard myself say, “Mr. Carmichael spent the war peppering Yanks with a peashooter, I take it.”
“That’s different—”
Mr. Carmichael spoke quickly. “What Miss Barr means is that there’s a difference between a battle and a drunken brawl, Jim. I am glad your father did not live to see his son wearing two big guns and shooting men down in the street. He was a fine man and a good sheriff for this county. It was only for his memory’s sake that I agreed to let Miss Barr break the news to you in person. From what we hear of your exploits up north, you have certainly forfeited all right to consideration from her.”
There was something in what he said, but I couldn’t see that it was his place to say it. “You agreed?” I said. “That was mighty kind of you, sir, I’m sure.” I looked away from him. “Junellen—”
Mr. Carmichael interrupted. “I do not wish my fiancée to be distressed by a continuation of this painful scene. I must ask you to leave, Jim.”
I ignored him. “Junellen,” I said, “is this what you really—”
Mr. Carmichael took me by the arm. I turned my head to look at him again. I looked at the hand with which he was holding me. I waited. He didn’t let go. I hit him and he went back across the room and kind of fell into a chair. The chair broke under him. Junellen’s father ran over to help him up. Mr. Carmichael’s mouth was bloody. He wiped it with a handkerchief.
I said, “You shouldn’t have put your hand on me, sir.”
“Note the pride,” Mr. Carmichael said, dabbing at his cut lip. “Note the vicious, twisted pride. They all have it, all these young toughs. You are too big for me to box, Jim, and it is an undignified thing anyway. I have worn a sidearm in my time. I will go to the bank and get it, while you arm yourself.”
“I will meet you in front of the hotel, sir,” I said, “if that is agreeable to you.”
“It is agreeable,” he said, and went out.
I followed him without looking back. I think Junellen was crying, and I know her parents were saying one thing and another in high, indignant voices, but the funny roaring was in my ears and I didn’t pay too much attention. The sun was very bright outside. As I started for the hotel, somebody ran up to me.
“Here you are, Jim.” It was Waco, holding out the Longley guns in their carved holsters. “I heard what happened. Don’t take any chances with the old fool.”
I looked down at him and asked, “How did Junellen and her folks learn about what happened in Dodge?”
He said, “It’s a small town, Jim, and all the boys have been drinking and talking, glad to get home.”
“Sure,” I said, buckling on the guns. “Sure.”
It didn’t matter. It would have got around sooner or later, and I wouldn’t have lied about it if asked. We walked slowly toward the hotel.
“Dutch LeBaron is hiding out back in the hills with a dozen men,” Waco said. “I heard it from a man in a bar.”
“Who’s Dutch LeBaron?” I asked. I didn’t care, but it was something to talk about as we walked.
“Dutch?” Waco said. “Why, Dutch is wanted in five states and a couple of territories. Hell, the price on his head is so high now even Fenn is after him.”
“Fenn?” I said. He sure knew a lot of names. “Who’s Fenn?”
“You’ve heard of Old Joe Fenn, the bounty hunter. Well, if he comes after Dutch, he’s asking for it. Dutch can take care of himself.”
“Is that a fact?” I said, and then I saw Mr. Carmichael coming, but he was a ways off yet and I said, “You sound like this Dutch fellow was a friend of yours—”
But Waco wasn’t there anymore. I had the street to myself, except for Mr. Carmichael, who had a gun strapped on outside his fine coat. It was an army gun in a black army holster with a flap, worn cavalry style on the right side, butt forward. They wear them like that to make room for the saber on the left, but it makes a clumsy rig.
I walked forward to meet Mr. Carmichael, and I knew I would have to let him shoot once. He was a popular man and a rich man and he would have to draw first and shoot first or I would be in serious trouble. I figured it all out very coldly, as if I had been killing men all my life. We stopped, and Mr. Carmichael undid the flap of the army holster and pulled out the big cavalry pistol awkwardly and fired and missed, as I had known, somehow, that he would.
Then I drew the right-hand gun, and as I did so I realized that I didn’t particularly want to kill Mr. Carmichael. I mean, he was a brave man coming here with his old cap-and-ball pistol, knowing all the time that I could outdraw and outshoot him with my eyes closed. But I didn’t want to be killed, either, and he had the piece cocked and was about to fire again. I tried to aim for a place that wouldn’t kill him, or cripple him too badly, and the gun wouldn’t do it.
I mean, it was a frightening thing. It was like I was fighting the Longley gun for Mr. Carmichael’s life. The old army revolver fired once more and something rapped my left arm lightly. The Longley gun went off at last, and Mr. Carmichael spun around and fell on his face in the street. There was a cry, and Junellen came running and went to her knees beside him.
“You murderer!” she screamed at me. “You hateful murderer!”
It showed how she felt about him, that she would kneel in the dust like that in her blue-flowered dress. Junellen was always very careful of her pretty clothes. I punched out the empty and replaced it. Dr. Sims came up and examined Mr. Carmichael and said he was shot in the leg, which I already knew, being the one who had shot him there. Dr. Sims said he was going to be all right, God willing.
Having heard this, I went over to another part of town and tried to get drunk. I didn’t have much luck at it, so I went into the place next to the hotel for a cup of coffee. There wasn’t anybody in the place but a skinny girl with an apron on.
I said, “I’d like a cup of coffee, ma’am,” and sat down.
She said, coming over, “Jim Anderson, you’re drunk. At least you smell like it.”
I looked up and saw that it was Martha Butcher. She set a cup down in front of me. I asked, “What are you doing here waiting tables?”
She said, “I had a fight with Dad about … well, never mind what it was about. Anyway, I told him I was old enough to run my own life and if he didn’t stop trying to boss me around like I was one of the hands, I’d pack up and leave. And he laughed and asked what I’d do for money, away from home, and I said I’d earn it, so here I am.”
It was just like Martha Butcher, and I saw no reason to make a fuss over it like she probably wanted me to.
“Seems like you are,” I agreed. “Do I get sugar, too, or does that cost extra?”
She laughed and set a bowl in front of me. “Did you have
a good time in Dodge?” she asked.
“Fine,” I said. “Good liquor. Fast games. Pretty girls. Real pretty girls.”
“Fiddlesticks,” she said. “I know what you think is pretty. Blond and simpering. You big fool. If you’d killed him over her they’d have put you in jail, at the very least. And just what are you planning to use for an arm when that one gets rotten and falls off? Sit still.”
She got some water and cloth and fixed up my arm where Mr. Carmichael’s bullet had nicked it.
“Have you been out to your place yet?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Figure there can’t be much out there by now. I’ll get after it one of these days.”
“One of these days!” she said. “You mean when you get tired of strutting around with those big guns and acting dangerous—” She stopped abruptly.
I looked around, and got to my feet. Waco was there in the doorway, and with him was a big man, not as tall as I was, but wider. He was a real whiskery gent, with a mat of black beard you could have used for stuffing a mattress. He wore two gunbelts, crossed, kind of sagging low at the hips.
Waco said, “You’re a fool to sit with your back to the door, Jim. That’s the mistake Hickok made, remember? If instead of us it had been somebody like Jack McCall—”
“Who’s Jack McCall?” I asked innocently.
“Why, he’s the fellow shot Wild Bill in the back …” Waco’s face reddened. “All right, all right. Always kidding me. Dutch, this big joker is my partner, Jim Anderson. Jim, Dutch LeBaron. He’s got a proposition for us.”
I tried to think back to where Waco and I had decided to become partners, and couldn’t remember the occasion. Well, maybe it happens like that, but it seemed like I should have had some say in it.
“Your partner tells me you’re pretty handy with those guns,” LeBaron said, after Martha’d moved across the room. “I can use a man like that.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For making some quick money over in New Mexico Territory,” he said.
I didn’t ask any fool questions, like whether the money was to be made legally or illegally. “I’ll think about it,” I said.
Waco caught my arm. “What’s to think about? We’ll be rich, Jim!”
I said, “I’ll think about it, Waco.”
LeBaron said, “What’s the matter, sonny, are you scared?”
I turned to look at him. He was grinning at me, but his eyes weren’t grinning, and his hands weren’t too far from those low-slung guns.
I said, “Try me and see.”
I waited a little. Nothing happened. I walked out of there and got my pony and rode to the ranch, reaching the place about dawn. I opened the door and stood there, surprised. It looked just about the way it had when the folks were alive, and I half expected to hear Ma yelling at me to beat the dust off outside and not bring it into the house. Somebody had cleaned the place up for me, and I thought I knew who. Well, it certainly was neighborly of her, I told myself. It was nice to have somebody show a sign they were glad to have me home, even if it was only Martha Butcher.
I spent a couple of days out there, resting up and riding around. I didn’t find much stock. It was going to take money to make a going ranch of it again, and I didn’t figure my credit at Mr. Carmichael’s bank was anything to count on. I couldn’t help giving some thought to Waco and LeBaron and the proposition they’d put before me. It was funny, I’d think about it most when I had the guns on. I was out back practicing with them one day when the stranger rode up.
He was a little, dry, elderly man on a sad-looking white horse he must have hired at the livery stable for not very much, and he wore his gun in front of his left hip with the butt to the right for a cross draw. He didn’t make any noise coming up. I’d fired a couple of times before I realized he was there.
“Not bad,” he said when he saw me looking at him. “Do you know a man named LeBaron, son?”
“I’ve met him,” I said.
“Is he here?”
“Why should he be here?”
“A bartender in town told me he’d heard you and your sidekick, Smith, had joined up with LeBaron, so I thought you might have given him the use of your place. It would be more comfortable for him than hiding out in the hills.”
“He isn’t here,” I said. The stranger glanced toward the house. I started to get mad, but shrugged instead. “Look around if you want to.”
“In that case,” he said, “I don’t figure I want to.” He glanced toward the target I’d been shooting at, and back to me. “Killed a man in Dodge, didn’t you, son? And then stood real calm and let a fellow here in town fire three shots at you, after which you laughed and pinked him neatly in the leg.”
“I don’t recall laughing,” I said. “And it was two shots, not three.”
“It makes a good story, however,” he said. “And it is spreading. You have a reputation already, did you know that, Anderson? I didn’t come here just to look for LeBaron. I figured I’d like to have a look at you, too. I always like to look up fellows I might have business with later.”
“Business?” I said, and then I saw that he’d taken a tarnished old badge out of his pocket and was pinning it on his shirt. “Have you a warrant, sir?” I asked.
“Not for you,” he said. “Not yet.”
He swung the old white horse around and rode off. When he was out of sight, I got my pony out of the corral. It was time I had a talk with Waco. Maybe I was going to join LeBaron and maybe I wasn’t, but I didn’t much like his spreading it around before it was true.
I didn’t have to look for him in town. He came riding to meet me with three companions, all hard ones if I ever saw any.
“Did you see Fenn?” he shouted as he came up. “Did he come this way?”
“A little old fellow with some kind of a badge?” I said. “Was that Fenn? He headed back to town, about ten minutes ahead of me. He didn’t look like much.”
“Neither does the devil when he’s on business,” Waco said. “Come on, we’d better warn Dutch before he rides into town.”
I rode along with them, and we tried to catch LeBaron on the trail, but he’d already passed with a couple of men. We saw their dust ahead and chased it, but they made it before us, and Fenn was waiting in front of the cantina that was LeBaron’s hangout when he was in town.
We saw it all as we came pounding after LeBaron, who dismounted and started into the place, but Fenn came forward, looking small and inoffensive. He was saying something and holding out his hand. LeBaron stopped and shook hands with him, and the little man held on to LeBaron’s hand, took a step to the side, and pulled his gun out of that cross-draw holster left-handed, with a kind of twisting motion.
Before LeBaron could do anything with his free hand, the little old man had brought the pistol barrel down across his head. It was as neat and coldblooded a thing as you’d care to see. In an instant, LeBaron was unconscious on the ground, and Old Joe Fenn was covering the two men who’d been riding with him.
Waco Smith, riding beside me, made a sort of moaning sound as if he’d been clubbed himself. “Get him!” he shouted, drawing his gun. “Get the dirty sneaking bounty hunter!”
I saw the little man throw a look over his shoulder, but there wasn’t much he could do about us with those other two to handle. I guess he hadn’t figured us for reinforcements riding in. Waco fired and missed. He never could shoot much, particularly from horseback. I reached out with one of the guns and hit him over the head before he could shoot again. He spilled from the saddle.
I didn’t have it all figured out. Certainly it wasn’t a very nice thing Mr. Fenn had done, first taking a man’s hand in friendship and then knocking him unconscious. Still, I didn’t figure LeBaron had ever been one for giving anybody a break; and there was something about the old fellow standing there with his tarnished old badge that reminded me of Pa, who’d died wearing a similar piece of tin on his chest. Anyway, there comes a time in a man’s life when he
’s got to make a choice, and that’s the way I made mine.
Waco and I had been riding ahead of the others. I turned my pony fast and covered them with the guns as they came charging up—as well as you can cover anybody from a plunging horse. One of them had his pistol aimed to shoot. The left-handed Longley gun went off, and he fell to the ground. I was kind of surprised. I’d never been much at shooting left-handed. The other two riders veered off and headed out of town.
By the time I got my pony quieted down from having that gun go off in his ear, everything was pretty much under control. Waco had disappeared, so I figured he couldn’t be hurt much; and the new sheriff was there, old drunken Billy Bates, who’d been elected after Pa’s death by the gambling element in town, who hadn’t liked the strict way Pa ran things.
“I suppose it’s legal,” Old Billy was saying grudgingly. “But I don’t take it kindly, Marshal, your coming here to serve a warrant without letting me know.”
“My apologies, Sheriff,” Fenn said smoothly. “An oversight, I assure you. Now, I’d like a wagon. He’s worth seven hundred and fifty dollars over in New Mexico Territory.”
“No decent person would want that kind of money,” Old Billy said sourly, swaying on his feet.
“There’s only one kind of money,” Fenn said. “Just as there’s only one kind of law, even though there’s different kinds of men enforcing it.” He looked at me a I came up. “Much obliged, son.”
“Por nada,” I said. “You get in certain habits when you’ve had a badge in the family. My daddy was sheriff here once.”
“So? I didn’t know that.” Fenn looked at me sharply. “Don’t look like you’re making any plans to follow in his footsteps. That’s hardly a lawman’s rig you’re wearing.”
I said, “Maybe, but I never yet beat a man over the head while I was shaking his hand, Marshal.”
A Century of Great Western Stories Page 64