by Len Levinson
“Onc’t in the mornin’, and onc’t in the afternoon.”
“All right, time for recess.”
The room filled with a hurricane of little feet and hands. Down the stairs they went like a herd of wild young colts. She heard their excited voices like bright happy music.
They ran and jumped wildly in the backyard, screaming at the tops of their lungs. Horses in the corral behind the stable gazed at them and tried to imagine what it was like to be free. Leticia monitored her students from the front porch, and Sheriff Barnes turned the corner of the building. “How’s the schoolmarm today?” He smiled suspiciously.
“Everything’s fine, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”
“If you ever git into trouble, need somebody to turn to, you can come to me. The man you call your husband might be the fastest gun alive, but I ain’t afraid of him.”
“If you weren’t afraid of him, you wouldn’t be talking about him. But I appreciate your offer of help. You can be sure I’ll take you up on it, now that my husband’s living at the Mulgrave ranch most of the week.”
“He said he was leavin’ town if the mayor gives him a hundred dollars. You goin’ with him?”
She was taken by surprise, but recovered quickly. “My personal decisions are none of your business, Sheriff.”
“No man gits a reputation like that unless he’s in blood up to his eyeballs. You’re too good fer him.”
“I think I’m a better judge of that than you.”
A fight broke out on the playground, attracting their attention. Two boys pummeled each other, and the others cheered them on. Leticia excused herself and ran toward them, hollering. The children scattered in all directions, terrified of their schoolmarm. Sheriff Barnes watched in silent admiration. What a woman.
~*~
Stone spotted four riders making their way toward him through an ocean of longhorns. He stopped Warpaint, pulled the spyglass out of his saddlebags, and focused on the strangers. Cowboys. He decided to proceed, one hand near a gun at all times.
The four riders drew closer, and Stone guessed they were from the Mulgrave ranch. The man in front wore a short black beard. “Who might you be?”
“John Stone.”
“I’m Boyd Carsons, the segundo.” He held out his hand. “Glad to have you on our side.”
“I’ve been hired as a cowboy. Hope you all understand that.”
Carsons winked. “Sure thing. Clancy said report to Mulgrave when you arrive. Want us to escort you back to the ranch?”
“Can make it on my own.”
Stone separated himself from the gunfighters and rode toward the ranch buildings. The gunfighters watched his wide shoulders recede. Gribbs, one of the gunfighters, spat at the ground. “Big men generally ain’t fast. Their muscles git in the way.”
“Hope you aint’ fixin’ on testin’ that theory out,” Carsons replied.
“Ain’t never been a horse what couldn’t be rode. Ain’t never been a cowboy what couldn’t be throwed.”
“You sound ready to take ‘im on.”
“By the time he gets that arm goin’, somebody could plug ‘im between the eyes.”
~*~
The Mulgrave ranch buildings had a makeshift appearance, as though maintenance weren’t a high priority. Stone tied Warpaint to the rail in front of the house, loosened the cinch, then knelt before Muggs. “Stay out of trouble, all right?”
With a bark, the dog ran to join a group of his brethren in front of the barn. They sniffed each other and exchanged information as Stone climbed the steps to the porch. The front door opened, a maid in a calico dress appeared.
“I’m John Stone.”
“Come in, sir. I’ll tell Mr. Mulgrave you’re here.”
Stone entered the large living room, furnished with upholstered chairs and sofas imported from the East. His eyes fell on an ancient war helmet resting on a cabinet. Moving closer, he saw an iron band to protect the warrior’s nose. A rare antique inlaid with gold, probably worth a fortune.
“Know where it’s from?” asked a booming voice behind him.
Stone spun around. Mulgrave, with thinning black hair, wore knee-length boots and tan riding britches.
“Looks Greek,” Stone replied.
“Chaldean. Not many of ’em left in the world. Intended for a certain museum in New York, but the shipment got lost somehow and ended up here.”
Mulgrave chuckled over his cleverness, and Stone disliked him instantly. Then Mulgrave placed his arm familiarly on Stone’s shoulders and led him into an office with a roll top desk. Mulgrave sat behind it and folded his hands. “I’ve heard a lot about you. What brings you to our area?”
“Just passing through.”
“It’s my understanding that your gun isn’t for hire, but every man has his price. What’s yours?”
“Haven’t figured it out.”
“When you do, let me know. With you on my side, we could roll over the opposition easily. That your hat?”
Stone didn’t reply. Mulgrave got the feeling he shouldn’t’ve asked, but too late now. He didn’t like Stone’s reserved manner, or was it arrogance? Is he insulting me in my own house? The smile on Mulgrave’s face flickered in doubt for a moment, then resumed its artificial curve.
“You were a cavalry officer. I could put you in charge of the men. You’d attack Reynolds like a military operation. Burn him to the ground, blame it on the injuns.”
Stone detested Mulgrave more with every passing moment. “I just want a day’s work for a day’s pay.”
“Reynolds’s on his last legs. Wouldn’t take much to break him now. He was a Yankee officer.” Mulgrave winked. “You could settle a few scores.”
Stone heard a rustle of skirts. A handsome woman in her forties entered the office, carrying a silver tray with a pot of coffee and slices of cake.
“My wife, Eunice.”
She poured coffee, passed a cup to Stone. The exotic Brazilian aroma rose to his nostrils, unlike the sludge he brewed on the trail. He accepted it, and she was surprised by what she saw. Most gunfighters looked hard-bitten, but John Stone had refinement and a certain charm. She passed him a slice of cake and watched him eat. Not a bad-looking man, except for his dented nose and scars.
“What’s this about scores to settle?” she asked.
Her husband cleared his throat nervously. Her interest in John Stone disturbed him. “Mr. Stone isn’t a professional gunfighter. He’ll be working as a cowboy.”
She turned toward Stone. “Didn’t you shoot all those famous people?”
“Don’t know what you’ve heard, ma’am, but I’m not a hired gun.”
What a strange man, Eunice thought. A dreamer with two guns. Mulgrave held out a box of cigars. Stone shook his head, returned the empty plate and cup of coffee. “Like to find a bunk and get settled in. Very nice meeting you, Mrs. Mulgrave.”
His footsteps receded down the hall. Mulgrave turned toward his wife. “I saw the way you looked at him. Do you find him attractive?”
“My only interest in John Stone is whether or not he can help us.”
“At least he can’t hurt us, now that he’s on payroll.” Mulgrave chuckled. “I’m sure he’ll name his price in a few days. He’s a sly devil, that John Stone.”
Empty whiskey bottles lay on the floor of the bunkhouse, with dust balls in the comers, drawings of naked women tacked to the walls. All its denizens at work, it carried a powerful charge of masculine energy. Stone found an empty lower bunk and tossed his bedroll and saddlebags upon it. Footstep behind him, he spun around and went for his guns.
A man with a bald head cleaned off the table. “Name’s Fitzgerald. I’m the biscuit shooter. You must be John Stone.”
“How long you been working here?”
“Few years.”
“Ever meet Reynolds?”
“Seen him a few times. He ain’t got no legs. Lost ’em at Gettysburg, they say.”
Stone sat at the table and thoughtfully r
olled a cigarette. Fitzgerald continued to ramble. “Sure’s got a pretty wife, though. Too bad they ain’t gonna last much longer.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Mulgrave’s got ’im outmanned and outgunned. The scuttlebutt is we’ll wipe ’em out pretty soon. Mulgrave don’t take no shit. Git you a cup of coffee?”
“I should look for Clancy, to find out what he wants me to do.”
“They don’t care what you do, long as you don’t join up with Reynolds. You can sleep all day, if’n you want to.”
“How many men’s Reynolds got?”
“Maybe six or seven. I was him, I’d pull stakes. But he’s the stubborn type.”
Leticia sat at lunch with Mayor Blodgett and his wife. The maid carried in a tureen of chicken soup and a fresh loaf of bread on a wooden carving board.
“How long have you been married, dear?” Mrs. Blodgett asked Leticia.
“Not long.”
“How’d you meet your husband?”
“My father brought him home to supper.”
“Did he know Stone was a gunfighter?”
“John Stone saved my father’s life.”
Mayor Blodgett looked Leticia up and down. “He certainly received a magnificent reward for his efforts.”
“Nothing my husband can’t do, if he puts his mind to it.”
“Too bad he’s mixed up in the range war.”
“He’s not in it at all. If people want to shoot each other, that’s their business. He took a cowboy job at the Mulgrave ranch, but nobody believes it.”
She loves him, thought Mrs. Blodgett.
~*~
Stone opened his eyes and tightened his finger around the trigger of the Colt. Somebody entered the bunkhouse and walked across the creaking floorboards. More cowboys and gunfighters piled through the door. The fragrance of frying steaks smothered in onions joined other bunkhouse odors.
Stone’s head felt filled with lead, for he’d slept most of the day. He put on his boots and joined the others outside at the line in front of the washbasin. The sun dropped toward the western mountains, and he became aware of gunfighters measuring him cautiously, assessing his capabilities, figuring the chances, wondering if they could take him.
He splashed water onto his face, trying to appear unconcerned, but if he heard the snick of a hammer being cocked, he’d draw. He dried his face with the communal towel as smoke rose from the chimney of the bunkhouse, slanting across the sky. A raven flew over the adjacent field, searching for carrion.
Spruance sauntered closer, hat slanted low over his eyes. “Bunkhouse’s a real hole, isn’t it? We’ll clean it up one of these days. Anybody introduce you to the boys?”
Spruance told Stone the names of gunfighters, and he shook hands with them. Watch your back at all times, Stone warned himself. This is a bad crew.
“John Stone and I met in the war,” Spruance explained.
Spruance slapped Stone on the back, as if blessing him, but Stone could see threats in the eyes of the gunfighters. Clancy came into view, and attention shifted to him. Bowlegged, he reminded Stone of Muggs. “So you showed up after all. Talk to Mulgrave yet?”
“When I arrived this morning.”
“I’ll tell you yer job later, soon as I rigger out what it is.”
Clancy guffawed as he entered the bunkhouse, followed by cowboys and gunfighters. Stone remained outside with Spruance near the washbasin. The molten sun, truncated by mountains, looked like an upside-down blossom.
Stone said, “Never saw so many desperadoes since last time I was in jail. Did you know that Reynolds lost both legs at Gettysburg?”
“He’ll lose more if he doesn’t get out of this territory.”
“How can you fight a man who lost both legs at Gettysburg?”
“Don’t give me Sunday school lectures.” Spruance spat into the dirt. “Let’s tie on the feedbag.”
Stone followed him inside the bunkhouse. Gunfighters and cowboys sat on both sides of the long table, with Clancy at the head and the segundo at the other end. The cook and one of the cowboys placed platters of steaks on the table.
Stone wondered if his conversation with Spruance had been overheard. Knives and forks scraped against tin plates, somebody made an obscene remark. Spruance detected a strange new tension at the table, the result of John Stone’s presence, like a celebrity in a remote corner of the world.
Food disappeared quickly, and the men pushed their plates away. The cook placed three apple pies on the table. Wind rattled the windows of the bunkhouse as night came to the ranch.
Stone cut himself a piece of pie. The bunkhouse was different from other ranches, where cowboys were a big family. This bunch has more edges that a barrel of razors.
Olmstead, who’d shot a bank teller in Oregon, said, “Winter’s a-comin’ on. How long a-fore we burn out Reynolds?”
His question, addressed to the ramrod, caught that gentleman as he was helping himself to a second wedge of pie. “Mulgrave ain’t finished his plans.”
“What’s to plan?” asked the gunfighter known as Sledge, but whose real name was anybody’s guess. “Mulgrave can’t pay us to do nothin’ all winter. He’s got to end this thing and start makin’ money again hisself.”
“Git ready fer the fight,” Clancy replied. “Won’t be long now.”
“Won’t be much of a fight,” Gribbs said. “All he’s got is a few moth-eaten cowboys and no legs. I bet he can’t even screw.”
A few men chuckled, and Stone pushed his half-eaten pie away. Spruance noted the flicker of emotion on the ex-captain’s face. Stone arose from the table, walked out the door.
“What’s a-gnawin’ on him?” Gribbs asked.
Stone sat on a log behind the bunkhouse, stars flickered in the sky, and a waning moon flew through wispy clouds. Stone remembered the night after Gettysburg, near the medical tent, his stomach bandaged. Pain was his world.
They loaded him onto a wagon with other wounded officers and retreated south. It was the beginning of the end of the war, and probably, that very night, Reynolds lay legless with a wagonload of wounded Union officers, heading north.
The door to the bunkhouse opened, and Spruance joined him outside. “The men wonder why you don’t want to fight alongside them. They think you don’t like them, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think you like me either.”
“You took a wrong turn, but that’s your business.”
Spruance spat into the dirt. “Reynolds’s a Yankee, so fuck him.”
“If Reynolds were a Confederate officer, would it stop you?”
“Is that what you think of me?”
“A hired gun kills anybody if the price is right.”
“What about all the people you killed. I’m a tenderfoot compared to you.”
“I never did it for money.”
The door opened, and the other gunfighters came outside, then milled nearby like bulls in a corral. “John Stone’s downin’ us,” Gribbs said. “Who the fuck does he think he is?”
Stone heard challenge, and turned toward the slim gun-fighter. Clancy strolled onto the scene. “Let’s settle down, boys. We’re all on the same side.” He placed his arm around Stone’s shoulder. “I got a bottle in my cabin. Care fer a drink?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
The ramrod lived in a small shack near the bunkhouse, and a squat iron stove provided heat. Clancy opened a drawer and took out a bottle. He unscrewed the lid, took a swig, then passed the bottle to Stone.
“You don’t want to rile that bunch,” Clancy said. “They know you don’t like ’em, and they’re dangerous.”
“Were you in the war, Clancy?”
“The war’s over. If’n you don’t like it here, you’d better leave. But let me give you a warning, as one old soldier to another. Don’t go over to Reynolds’s side. Stay the hell outta the range war.”
“What if I don’t?”
“You might be a fast draw, but it won’t help when we att
ack Reynolds. We’ll roll right over ’em, and if you’re there, you’ll git it too. Consider it a friendly warnin’. I’d better go back to the bunkhouse with you. You got on the wrong side of the boys.”
Stone followed Clancy out of the shack, and a lamp gleamed in the window of the bunkhouse. Stone loosened his shoulders and checked the positions of his guns. Clancy opened the door, sauntered to the table, and poured a cup of coffee from the pot. Stone knelt beside his bunk and rolled up his blanket.
“Leavin’ so soon?” asked Gribbs, on the other side of the bunkhouse.
Stone hoisted his saddlebags and bedroll to his shoulder, then passed gunfighters standing alongside their bunks.
One of them was Spruance. Stone held out his hand and smiled thinly. “Maybe we’ll see each other again someday.”
“Maybe we won’t.”
They shook. Spruance didn’t know whether to follow Stone out the door. A voice came from the far side of the bunkhouse.
“Looks like the fastest gun alive is ’fraid of his own shadow,” said Gribbs.
Stone backed out of the bunkhouse and headed for the barn to get Warpaint. And where the hell was Muggs? He spoke the dog’s name, and the breeze carried it away.
Gribbs and the other gunfighters followed Stone into the yard. Spruance stood near the washbasin, not sure of which way to go. Stone’ heard them and turned around. Gribbs spread his legs and went into his gunfighter’s crouch. “You’re a bag of wind, an’ a Yankee lover. The only reason you ain’t no hired gun is you ain’t got the guts. I can see it in yer eyes.”
They heard the voice of the ramrod. “What the hell’s goin’ on?”
“Step back,” warned Gribbs. “This son of a bitch downed me and the other boys, and I don’t like it.”
Stone decided discretion was the better part of valor, especially against so many gunfighters. “I know you’re a rough bunch, but I got no beef with you.”
“You ain’t gittin’ away that easy,” Gribbs replied.
“You wouldn’t dare fight me alone, man to man, without the others backing you up.”
“No?” Gribbs turned to the gunfighters. “Stay the fuck out of this.”