The Big Gundown

by Bill Brooks

  He went and sat on the cot and drew the blanket that was there up around his shoulders. It had the woman’s perfumed scent on it. It was the same scent as was on the China Doll and it caused him to feel even sorrier still.

  “Hell,” he said. “Hell…”

  Later Gus came in rubbing his hands and not bothering to light a lamp, drunk and singing something low under his breath.

  Then Gus said, “Sue, I decided to take you up on that offer.” Tig replied, “Let me out of this damn cage.”

  Gus went back there, peered in, and said, “You ain’t Sue.”

  Tig said, “You’re damn right I ain’t.”

  Gus was confused.

  “How the hell!”

  “Let me out,” Tig demanded.

  Gus found the key tossed in the corner and unlocked the door and Tig went out in a hurry and Gus stood there, still trying to figure out how things got so switched around. Nothing made sense anymore. I better just stop drinking and get right and go on home to my old woman and see will she take me in or will she won’t. Then he lay down on the bunk and fell asleep.

  26

  THEY REINED IN at the Three Aces and dismounted stiffly. The cold had climbed down into their clothes and skin and settled into their bones and they tied off with stiff fingers and stepped up onto the walk, snow clinging to them like they were fence posts, and went in through the double doors. There were already puddles on the floor from others who’d come and gone that morning.

  Presently there was just the barkeep leaning against the oak, reading a Police Gazette, sipping coffee. He had a gut and black handlebar moustaches and looked up with a tired expression when they came in.

  “You boys sure are around early enough,” the barkeep said.

  “We could stand some hot grub,” Dallas said, pulling off his gloves. Lon and Harvey and Taylor all drifted toward the big potbelly in the corner of the room. They rubbed their palms together and held them forth toward the hot metal. Perk stood alongside Dallas at the bar and said, “I’ll take a whiskey to get started.”

  The barkeep pulled a bottle down and poured a shot into a glass and looked at Dallas and said, “You want a shot, too?”

  “Hell, this is a bar, right?”

  “You got any grub in the back—maybe some leftover luncheon meat from yesterday?” Perk said.

  “Ain’t got nothing left over, waiting for the butcher to come around with something,” the barkeep said. “Try the Fat Duck Café up the street. That’s where you’ll find grub.”

  The boys by the stove looked around when they heard Perk and Dallas ordering whiskey and Taylor came over to the bar and said, “I’ll have one of those, too,” so the barkeep poured him out one and said to Perk and Dallas, “You all want another?” Perk pushed his glass toward the bottle and said, “Bears shit in the woods?” and the barkeep poured him another and poured Dallas one as well. “How about you boys?” the barkeep said, looking at Lon and Harvey, who were still standing in front of the stove.

  “No,” Lon said, “my stomach’s a little sour this morning.”

  Harvey didn’t say anything. He wasn’t much of a talker.

  “You seen the marshal around this morning?” Dallas said.

  The barkeep shook his head. “No, just some old boys come in and had themselves a eye-opener.”

  “He keep a place around here?”

  “Hotel, far as I know.”

  “You know which room?”

  The barkeep shook his head and Taylor pushed his empty glass toward the bottle and said, “Pour me another.” The barkeep did and he and Perk and Dallas took their time with the second round because whiskey was dear to a man with near-empty pockets.

  “You all drink up,” Dallas said, tossing back his, then took his gloves and pulled them back on again and slapped his palms together. “Let’s go get some grub.” Perk and Taylor threw back their drinks and followed Dallas back out again, along with Lon and Harvey falling in behind.

  The sun was risen high enough now that it fractured off the crystalline snow the wind had kicked up and it caused them to duck their heads low as they walked up the street to the café. They entered and there were but a few customers still there—most having eaten already and gone—the early risers and those who could afford to pay for a meal instead of eating something at home.

  “Let’s sit by that window, so we can keep an eye on the street,” Dallas said. There was only one table directly in front of the window and it was occupied by an old man dipping slices of bread in his coffee and thinking about something in his long ago past because he didn’t seem to pay any attention to them when they approached his table.

  “Why don’t you move to another table,” Dallas said.

  The old man looked up at them with eyes gray as flannel.

  “To hell you say.”

  “Go on, dad.”

  He looked at all five of them, then slowly stood and took his plate and cup and wandered off to another table farther back because when you’re in the shape he was in, you didn’t pitch into a bunch of young hands looking for a fight. He had had so many fights in his lifetime he couldn’t remember them all. But what he did remember was how much getting into a fight hurt and how nothing good ever came out of a fight whether you won or lost, except maybe your reputation if you won.

  Dallas sat down first, then Perk took up the seat next to him. Then Lon, Harvey, and Taylor all settled into chairs.

  “You figured it out yet?” Lon said. “What we’re gone do and how and when?”

  Dallas looked at him like he couldn’t believe the third man down on the string would ask such a question.

  The waitress came with a tray of coffee cups and a pot and set them down and they all watched her while she did and she felt her skin burning from the way they were staring at her. She knew Dallas and that ugly Perk by reputation, but the others she only knew slightly from seeing them in town on occasion. They wore rough clothes and old stained hats and long kerchiefs around their necks and heavy coats. She didn’t like the way they stared at her, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

  “What can I get you gents to eat?” she said.

  They ordered eggs and hash, biscuits and honey, and she walked back to the kitchen knowing they were still watching her and it wouldn’t take any sort of genius to figure out what they were thinking.

  “We’re gone get some grub in us and drink a little and if that son of a bitch happens to come walking in while we’re doing it, we’ll settle his hash here and now,” Dallas said, answering Lon’s question.

  “And if he don’t come in?” Taylor said, undoing the buttons of his coat.

  “If he don’t, we’ll go pay him a visit over to the hotel where that barkeep said he stays.”

  “Then what? After we take care of this business?”

  Dallas leaned in close to speak to them and they all leaned in close to listen.

  “Perk and me has come up with a plan.”

  “What’s that?” Taylor said. He had drops of coffee dew in his moustaches.

  “We’re gone rob that bank they got here, the one that the boss says he keeps all his money in.”

  He waited to see their reaction. None of them said anything. He looked at Perk, who said, “You boys ain’t weak sisters, are you?”

  Taylor straightened and said, “No, we sure as hell ain’t, are you?”

  Perk looked at him with those funny eyes and Taylor chose one to stare back at.

  “You-all keep a watch on the street, in case you see that lawman,” Dallas said. He could see they were thinking it over, about robbing the bank. He didn’t know if any one of them, except Perk maybe, had ever broken the law or not. Well, they’d soon enough find out.

  “Make me a shuck, Perk.”

  Perk took out his makings and rolled a cigarette and handed it to Dallas, then rolled himself one while they waited for their grub to arrive. And when it did, they set to eating like a pack of dogs because their feelings were running
high from burning down the boss’s bunkhouse and quitting on him and all the uncertainty about their futures and whatever it was they were set to do they were set to do it in a hurry, eating included. Winter is a tough time to quit a job unless you got another waiting for you, Harvey, the silent one, thought as he ate his eggs and hash. I don’t know about robbing no damn bank. But he didn’t say anything. He guessed whatever the others were up for doing, he’d go along with because he didn’t know what else there was to do. Was it spring or summer when a man might catch on with another cow outfit, I might just tell ’em all to go to hell and get on my own way, but things are tight and a man has to stick with his own kind in times of trouble.

  They ate, scraping their forks off their plates and watching the street in between, then sopping up the leavings with warm biscuits covered in honey. Taylor licked his fingers when he finished what was on his plate and looked around like maybe something else was coming, then rubbed the tip of his nose with the back of his wrist.

  The waitress came over and set their bill on the table and nobody reached for it until finally Dallas picked it up and said, “This one’s on me, boys.”

  He’d taken the trouble to peel off a few dollars from what he’d stolen back at Bob Parker’s place and put it in a separate pocket on the trip to town without any of them seeing and he reached in and took out the spare money now and held up the bill, looking at it, then laid several dollars there on the table.

  Perk said, “You gone leave that gal a tip?”

  Dallas looked at him.

  “Tip for what, she’d just doing her job, is all.”

  Lon dug around in his pocket and found a liberty-head dime and set it beside his plate and said, “I’ll leave her a little something.”

  Then they sipped what was left in their coffee cups and set them down again and buttoned their coats and Dallas said, “Well, let’s go get this done.”

  Gus Boone had seen them when they came out of the saloon and crossed the street to go into the café. He’d been talking to Will Bird in front of the barbershop. Will was telling him how he helped Tall John dig a grave and bury Ellis Kansas the day before.

  “Clear into the evening we dug,” Will was saying. “We was still digging when it got dark, that damn ground hard as iron, so’s we had to use picks and I broke the handle on mine and had to go get another and finally we got it dug and here it is dark and beyond and my hands about so sore I can’t hardly unbutton my fly to take a leak—”

  “Lord, look what the cat’s gone and dragged in,” Gus said when he saw the boys crossing the street to the café.

  Will looked around and saw them, too, and said, “You gone go tell the marshal?”

  “Damn right. They dint just come in to eat, not on a Monday morning when they should be working. You better go let others know there’s gone be a fight this morning and to keep the women and kids off the streets.”

  Will stood there, squinting against the sun and blowing snow. Seemed an awful day for a fight, cold and wintry as it was. But then blood only knew blood and death didn’t know when to quit and all he could think was he didn’t want to dig any more graves soon, his hands sore as they were and maybe he ought to go and get the waitress and make sure she was safe. He was pretty sure by now he was in love for the first time and he’d hate for anything to happen that would get in the way of all that. Should he go and make sure she was safe then tell the others, or tell the others then find Fannie? He was a little bit confused about what he should do exactly, and just stood there watching as those Double Bar boys came marching out of the café again.

  Finally he turned and went up the street in a hurry and began telling everyone he encountered about what was happening and they should get off the streets unless they wanted to get shot, his voice becoming more high-pitched as he went.

  Clara sat in stony silence as the girls watched her without speaking. Then she heard the tiny bell ringing from the other room and rose and went back to the infirmary.

  “Wonder if you could tell me what you did with my clothes,” Willy said.

  “I cleaned them and they are hanging in the closet.”

  He looked around, then said, “Ma’am, I need to thank you for your kindness.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said.

  “I had me some bad nightmares,” Willy said. “Some things come to me and made me realize some things.”

  She didn’t know what he was talking about and he didn’t seem to want to explain it any further than that. She could only think about Jake as it was, and not about what this boy’s problems were or were not.

  “I just mean to say, I probably didn’t show any gratitude toward you for helping me out here is all,” Willy said. “I got to get on now, though.”

  “I don’t believe you should try and go very far just yet,” she said. “Jake…”

  “You mean that feller who took care of me?”

  “He saved your life,” she said.

  “I don’t know why the hell he did. It sure ain’t worth saving, far as I can see.”

  “It’s his nature,” she said, “even if it isn’t yours.”

  He looked at her quizzically, then said, “Ma’am, you don’t mind, I’d just like to get dressed now.”

  She nodded and turned and went out of the room and back into the parlor, where the girls still sat stiffly upon the divan.

  “Mama,” they said when she entered.

  “Come here to me,” she said.

  They came to her and she wrapped her arms around them and drew them close and wept and in a little while they heard the back door open and then close again and they could see through the window the man limping through the snow.

  27

  JAKE ANSWERED THE KNOCK. He half-expected it.

  Gus stood there, his nose red, dripping snot.

  “They’re here,” he said.

  “Where are they?”

  “Over to the café.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “What you gone do, Marshal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You still got time to get the hell out. I could go and get you a horse and tie it up around back. Wouldn’t nobody blame you.”

  “No.”

  “You know the day old Toussaint Trueblood found you and brought you here, you were all shot to pieces. You remember what it was like? You sure you want to go through all that again, only this time worse?”

  “I’m not sure of anything, Gus. You want to walk over to the café with me and confront those men?”

  Gus licked his lips.

  “You know if I could shoot worth a damn, I’d be right there with you, don’t you?”

  “I know you would. Go on, Gus, get off the streets before things get started.”

  “Jesus, Marshal, you don’t know how bad I feel about all this.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Gus continued to stand there until Jake said again, “Go on, Gus. Things will work out the way they’re meant to.”

  Gus turned and hurried off down the hall and Jake saw him turn and go down the stairs, then he closed the door and went to the closet and opened it and saw the new suit hanging there—the one he’d bought a month before, before all the trouble began with the Double Bar boys. He wasn’t sure at the time why he bought it, other than his past dictated that a man should always have at least one good suit of clothes for special occasions. He used to have a wardrobe full of good suits in his former life. So he ordered it from Otis, who took his measurements and a down payment and said, “I’ll send the order off today and the suit should be here in two weeks.”

  And when the suit arrived Otis said, “Aren’t you going to try it on to make sure it fits?” Jake said he would wait until a special occasion arose for him to wear it, that he was confident in Otis’s ability to measure. It was cut from a fine black broadcloth and he’d ordered two white shirts with it. He now took the suit and laid it on the bed and looked at it, then changed out of his work clothes into it, putting on
one of the white shirts and then the trousers then the jacket. He buttoned the shirt up all the way to the throat and stood before the mirror to have a look at himself. He looked just like a corpse.

  He set his hat on his head, then took the pistols and stuck them down inside the wide leather belt he had fastened around his waist.

  “Time to go to the party,” he said, then went on out and closed the door behind him. He wouldn’t make it easy for them. He’d take as many with him as would go. They might not get whipped, but they’d least know they’d been in a fight. He went out the back door. Stepping out onto the landing, he could see over the roofs of the other buildings in town. The back stairs were snow-covered, had not been cleaned nor the snow melted off. A brisk wind, sharp as a knife, blew in off the grasslands, cutting down the street and whipping up the loose powdery snow as it went. Little fine gusts of snow like blown sand stung his face as he made his way down the stairs, careful not to slip and fall. Be a hell of a thing if I fell and broke my leg and they just came up and shot me like a horse, he thought.

  The stair emptied out into an alley that ran between the but cher shop and the hotel. It came to a dead end at the back of the buildings, where a tall wood fence ran. The other way led to the street. He went up it and paused at the corner, looking around quickly to check the street. He saw them coming out of the café, two and two, with one trailing behind. Dallas and Perk in front, the others, whose names he did not know, falling in behind. They were coming up toward the hotel, their heads down because of the sting of wind-whipped snow. He ducked back, drew one of the pistols, and waited.

  They reached the front of the hotel.

  “One of you wait out here case he ain’t inside. Lon, why don’t you go around back case he tries coming out that way. Perk, you and me and Taylor will go in and see can’t we just finish this business inside.”

  Lon said, “Why don’t you send one of the others around back?”

  “’Cause I’m sending you, goddamn it.”

  “Okay then, but don’t expect me to stand out there all day freezing my ass off.”