"Sir, actually it'd be in three weeks, dark of the moon."
"Three weeks! Impossible."
"You might make an exception for the game I've got in mind."
"And that would be?"
"Two-legged. Heavily armed. Mean as a skunk. Shoot first, ask questions later. "Bout fifty of ', some with machine guns."
Elmer leaned forward, his heavy eyebrows narrowed up in what looked like the beginning of formidable anger.
"Say, I don't think I like where this is going, friend. I'm not some gunman for hire. I am a friend of law enforcement, and have never committed a crime in my life, nor even thought for a second about doing so. You must have me figured for some other kind of fellow, and I don't care to hear more of it."
"I know how upstanding you are. That's why I thought you'd be interested. And I thought to get you to listen to me from here on in, I'd show you something they gave me after the war."
He reached into his pocket, removed the Medal of Honor and pushed it across to the old man.
"Where?"
"Iwo. Close-in work. Killed a mess of Japs in very short order.
Wasn't happy about it, but they's killing people in my platoon."
"You are formidable. Then why on earth―?"
"These boys I'm gunning for need gunning, believe you me, Mr. Kaye.
They live on death and pain. They hurt for fun. They run roughshod over all other forms of life, and laugh about it. They are as pure killers as any who walked the earth. And they think nobody can touch them. They are beyond the reach of the law, so isolated they will see all corners a-coming days in advance, and be ready for them. I want to touch them hard in three weeks. I want you and a few others like you to come a-hunting with me. I've got a fellow who'll even pay expenses.
And although I can't guarantee what happens in the fight, I can guarantee that it's easy in and then easy out, and no law will ever track you down and hold you accountable. You'll get no credit and no profit from it, but you'll have a night of gunplay like no other on earth. If this sort of thing matters to you, you'll never have another chance like this one. Chances like this one are leaving the world as it gets more and more modern. I'm giving you a night in Dodge City, where I bet in your heart of hearts you've always wished to be. And you can see what that super.44 you're working up can do. Now what do you say?"
The old man fixed him square with his intense eyes.
"Okay, son. You've piqued my interest. Now tell me all about it."
An hour later, Elmer Kaye said yes. How could he say anything else?
You don't get but one offer like Earl's in a lifetime.
He had a professorial when, with rimless glasses, a fedora, a tweed sports coat, the tie tied perfect and tight. He was about fifty himself, with the worn face of a man who's been a lot of places and seen a lot of things. Earl watched as he assumed the classic kneeling position and fired.
It was a Winchester Model 70, scoped, and far down-range, a small part of Idaho lit up behind a target. He cocked the rifle effortlessly and fired again, then three more times, in about thirty seconds.
Then he consulted the spotting scope.
"A nice group, Mr. O'Brian?"
The old man looked up, startled. He was used to coming out here by himself, and his eyes examined Earl quickly, reached a judgment, and he decided to answer.
"Not bad," he said. "Everybody insists you can't get tight groups with a.270, but that's because they don't make bullets carefully enough for it. Fellow in town makes these one at a time for me, weighs ' out and throws out the ones that are off-weight by just a tenth grain or so. It looks to me like I'm within an inch downrange."
"Great shooting from the kneeling."
"You're a position shooter, are you, sir? A rifleman?"
"I did some shooting in the service, sir. Never worked at it, never was no champion. But in the war, when I shot at someone who was or was planning to shoot at me or my fellows, he usually stayed shot."
"God bless you for your service."
"You want me to spot for you, sir?"
"Well, you're not here to spot for me. You've got some kind of proposition, else you wouldn't have driven all the way out from Lewiston. Are you starting a new magazine? I get fellows trying to get me to write for this new book or that one all the time. But I am staying at Outdoor Life and that's all there is to it. I have a nice arrangement with them, and the gun companies and the ammunition factories are supportive of my efforts."
"Well, sir, actually, I don't think there's no writing in what I'm here to talk about. You wouldn't want to write about it. What I'm looking for is a rifleman. He's got to hit six one-hundred-yard shots in about five seconds, as I've figured it out, and it'll be dark of the moon."
"Impossible."
"The targets will be well designated."
"Well, in that case, any competent marksman could do that. If you were in the service you would be able to come up with dozens of fellows capable of that."
"It helps that he's an older fellow."
"Now why would that be?"
"He's had his children or decided not to. He's lain with a few women."
"Sir, I have lain with only one, and she is to this day my wife and I am a lucky man for it."
"Yes, sir. But the man I'm looking for has also seen enough things to know there's not much to miss if he passes on. He won't fall apart when things get tight. He's got discipline, talent, solidity, and a sense of values. He ain't in it for the money. He's in it for the shooting and the Tightness of it. And if he gets killed, he died doing something he was born to do, and that'll hold him together in the tough moments. And there's one other thing: I've seen enough young men die in the war. I hope to never see it again. Old fellows have some living behind them, so they won't be bitter if it happens."
"Then it's dangerous. I'm sure you're offering a great deal of money."
"Expenses. But the fee in other ways is high."
"And what would those other ways be?"
"Experience. You won't get a chance to do this one again, and you're lucky as hell that you're getting it at all."
"It sounds illegal."
"It may be. However, it is righteous."
"All right, you tell me what it is you're offering. In plain language."
"Kills. You'll get a passel of kills out of it. I'm gambling that an old rifleman like you has it in him to wonder, deep down, how he'd do if the animal on the other end of the scope could shoot back at him.
Your kind of rugged fellow must wonder about that all the time." Jack O'Brian's lack of an answer told Earl he'd hit the right note.
"I have no desire to kill men," he said. "Except that the ultimate usage of the gun is in the hands of a warrior. Not a hunter, but a warrior, defending his tribe. I'm wise enough to know that, and maybe it's something I hold against myself."
"I can't guarantee you you won't catch a cold from a bullet. It sometimes happens to the best of us. But I can guarantee you the following: easy in, easy out. One night, this would be in three weeks, the total involvement of time being about a week. No police interest.
You go home free and clear, and your odds are good, with surprise on our side."
"Who are you?" O'Brian then asked.
Earl told him, and got out the medal, and told him some more. Then he handed him a sheet of paper with some names and numbers on them.
"You might know a few of these men. They are old shooters."
"I know at least three of them. I shot against them at the Nationals.
This fellow was squadded two down from me, I believe."
"I served with each in the war. If you'd like to call them and ask them any question you have about me, that would be fine."
"I may just do that. Now tell me what this is." Earl told him.
Jack O'Brian said yes, with only one proviso.
"I would only ask that the one man who not be requested to join us is a knotty, stubborn, senile, cantankerous bastard named Elmer Kaye. I can
not be in the same room as Elmer Kaye." "Can you be in the same house?" said Earl, then gave him the bad news.
The world's oldest gunman slept in his rocker on the porch, in a blanket wrapped up against the cold, except of course there was no cold, only a memory of it.
Outside it was Montana everywhere you looked. Beyond the far meadows some blue mountains rose out of mist, but so many miles off no details could be tracked. In his chair the old man slept as soundly as the dead.
In repose his features softened some. He had an eggshaped face like a dream granddad and not much hair left. He was pink, as so many men in their seventies become. Though swaddled in the wool, he clearly had stumpy arms and a stumpy body, and short legs. And, like many men of his generation, he was dressed formally, for to face the world, even in sleep, without a tie was to admit that one was a no '. But without a hat was even worse, and though he dozed, his round head was crowned in ten gallons' worth of imposing black Stetson.
Earl wondered if he were indeed dead, but every few minutes or so he'd let out with some low, growly sound from who knew where? He'd stir, shiver, twitch, but only for a second; then it was back to dreamland.
"Mr. Swagger," his granddaughter said, as she brought him another cup of coffee, "I'm sure grand pap wouldn't mind if you nudged him awake."
"Thank you, young lady, but I feel Mr. Ed has earned his sleep, and I'll not be taking any of it from him."
She was a pretty girl, possibly twenty, with the kind of pugnacious jaw that suggested that under her sugar lay considerable spice. Earl marked her down as a firecracker, even as she twinkled at him.
"I swear, he sleeps the day away most of the time. He needs an eight-hour nap so he'll be fresh for his twelve-hour-night sleep."
"He's running down some."
"Just a bit. If he comes to in a good mood, he'll still be a one-man fire station."
"That's what I'm betting on."
"I'm sure he will. He so likes his visitors."
Earl waited an hour, then two. He smoked three or four Luckies, but mostly he just sat patiently.
Finally, well past the noon hour, the old man stirred with more gumption than ever before, seemed to spit and cough and struggle a bit with his breathing, and came out of his sleep as a man comes out of the water that's just tried to kill him.
"Huh? Wha? Umph, er, ah, whoa, what the―?"
He blinked, spluttered, shook his head, and looked about.
"Sally? Sally, honey?"
"Yes, Grandpap," came the cry from within.
"I must have dozed."
"Just a bit. Are you ready for some lunch?"
"Yes, please."
"Say hello to your visitor."
The old man looked over at Earl.
"Howdy," he said. "Care for some lunch? The girl makes a fine tomato soup."
"It's only Campbell's out of a can," Sally called from inside.
"That would be fine, sir." That said, the old man sat back and quietly contemplated the meadows for a while. Earl did nothing to hurry him along, figuring that Ed Mcgriffin would take his own sweet time about things.
The girl, Sally, brought a tray, with a bowl of tomato soup, a few saltines and a glass of Coca-Cola with ice. The old man crunched up the crackers into the soup―Earl saw that his fingers were still clever and firm―and commenced to eat with considerable gusto. Earl had a bowl of soup too, though he passed on the crackers.
When the eating was done, Mr. Ed belched, and Sally came to take the trays away. Then he said, "I now have to pee. You can wait another few minutes, can't you, sir?"
"I sure can."
"Well, I have to say, you're a patient fellow. You don't believe in speeding things along, do you?"
"Things will happen or not, and whether you speed them up don't matter much, I've noticed," Earl said.
"True enough," said the old man. Earl helped him rise and watched as he found his legs, and then stomped inside. A few minutes later he returned.
"Now I won't have to pee for at least another seven, or maybe even eight, minutes. Well, go ahead, then. Speak your piece. I get fellows up here all the time, want to hear about the old days or want me to dictate stories to some magazine or other. That what you want, young fellow? I do have to levy a small fee, you understand. Milk money." "No, sir," said Earl. "I think I'm up on what you've done. I do have an offer, however." And he told him who he was, who he knew, and what he wanted.
When he was done, the old man sighed. Then he said, "You say it's up a river. Now, how the hell is an old coot like me going to get up a river?
I can't sit still in a boat, I have to pee every three seconds, I can't run, much less climb stairs or dig a hole. I can't even paint a house no more, and I made my living painting houses."
"But you can still shoot, I'd bet. As good as ever." "Probably," the old man said. "I'd say it's like riding a bicycle.
Once you learn, you don't never forget."
"Can you still throw five glass balls in the air, draw and hit all five double-action before they hit the ground?"
"Before they hit the ground? Hell, boy, I can hit them before they reach apogee. Maybe now the fifth ball would be in descent when I pinged it, but none of them would touch the planet whole again."
"That's what I thought. And five shots in a two-inch group at twenty-five feet in less than four-fifths a second?"
"I reckon. If not that exact, close enough so's no one would note the difference without electric timing gear. Say, seven-eighths a second.
I always could shoot a Smith.38 right dandy."
"I'd imagine practice had a bit to do with it."
"It's better to be talented than to be a hard worker. But to be a talented hard worker, that's the best combo, son." "Many a man has said you are the best revolver shooter who ever lived, bar none."
"That may be so. I try not to dwell on it now that the end of the journey has been glimpsed."
"Do you wish you'd been around in the days when the Earps and the Clantons ruled, when Billy and Bat and Wild Bill were the fancy Dans?
You'd have been better than them all."
"And then I'd be famous? Someone might have made a movie about me and gotten it all wrong, and then cheated me out of my money. So I've done all right, I suppose. But yes, now and then, a little part of me wishes that just once I'd gone up against a bad man for all the stakes.
Now you offer me a chance, but it's too late. Maybe five years ago.
Three even. But as you can see, I'm not vigorous no more."
"Well, here's the funny part. Everything I told you was true, and we are going to go in come dark of moon and set it right. And you will be able to go along if you so choose."
"Son, I―"
"Mr. Mcgriffin, I have a way. It's a new way, ain't nobody hardly never thought of before. I'll get you into that town no more tuckered than if you'd taken a Sunday walk in the park. High and dry, too. And I'll match you against some bad boys who think that their guns are the loudest. You will prevail. You may not survive, but you will prevail.
And if you do survive, I'll get you back just as high and dry as I got you in. And you'll be on your way, and you'll be able to consider your life as complete. You will have done all the things a man of the gun can do, including the most important: using that gun in service to justice."
"Mr. Swagger, I'd never call a man who won the Medal of Honor a liar, but unless they build a railroad track into that swamp in less than three weeks, I'm stuck here." I So Earl told him.
"Well, you've figured it out right pretty."
"You've figured it out right pretty but for one thing," came the voice of the girl. She walked into the porch from the living room, where she'd evidently been sitting, and listening. "That one thing is me."
"Ma'am?" said Earl.
"Now Sally," said old Ed, "don't get your back up." "Sir," Sally said to Earl, her features bunched and her eyes forceful, "if you think I'm going to let this fine old fellow travel all that way by himself, you must
have left your head in Buffalo Bend, or wherever it is you come from. He only has me in this world, and I only have him, and if he's going on some fool trip of adventure, you'd best believe I'm coming too, and I won't hear another word or there'll be trouble. I may look frail but I pack a punch." "Sweetie," said Earl, "you'd be stuck down in a farmhouse with a bunch of old fellows, none of whom has a tenth the grace and manners of your grand pap here. I can't think it would be pleasant."
"And who'll cook for this geezer crusade?"
"Ma'am, it'll mostly be beans and franks."
"Well, I know ten ways to cook beans and ten ways to cook franks, and someone has to mulch grand pap food and make sure he don't wander off.
I will go with grand pap or grand pap will go nowhere, and that is the truth. And you had better adjust to that now, or you will be an unhappy fellow for some time to come."
"When Sally speaks, what she declares is usually what happens," said Mcgriffin.
Earl shook his head.
"You won't have a fun time. It ain't a party."
"I can handle myself," she said, and as she was Ed Mcgriffin's granddaughter, Earl knew she spoke the truth.
IT was a snitch who told Bigboy first, and he just laughed. But then another snitch told him, and this time it wasn't so much fun. The third time he heard, it began to sound ominous. So naturally he went to see the warden, who had the keenest insights into Negro psychology of anyone in the world, to have a chat.
"Warden, it's the niggers. You know how you've always said they let us rule them because they have no hope of anything else, and so in the end they come to think such an arrangement is necessary and even right, to save them from themselves."
"Yes, Bigboy, I believe I do. Our enemy is hope and belief. We must crush them because that is our duty. But if they grow, they can grow in wild ways, and bring down the most intricate and stable of edifices."
"There's a disease spreading."
"Yes?"
The two men were in the warden's office on the first floor of the ghastly old house just inside the prison walls. Bigboy actually hated this place, for its smell of rot and corruption, of damask crackling toward dust and wood turning to mush, was faintly sickening. He never understood why a brilliant man like the warden took such pleasure in it.
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