Gunpoint
Page 31
* * *
There was one more matter that had to be resolved. Early one morning Wilson and I got up and rode over to the fairgrounds, to the race track. There wasn’t a soul around. I was on Bank Money and Wilson was riding the black. Wilson had borrowed another light parade saddle for me so, except for the difference in our weight, we were pretty evenly matched. But to compensate for the weight difference Wilson gave me the inside lane on the start. We warmed the horses up a little more, came up to the line, and then Wilson said, “Go!”
It was a hell of a race. Bank Money jumped out to a little lead at the first, but the black caught him down the backstretch. We came around the last curve and into the homestretch with the black on the outside and just slightly ahead. But then the breeding began to tell, and the black started moving away and won by at least a length and a half.
When we’d cooled out Wilson said, “This is one hell of a horse.”
I said, “Flood would have lost either way.”
Wilson looked at me. “Flood was going to lose no matter what happened.”
I kind of thought I knew what he meant, but I didn’t question him about it.
Going back through town I stopped off at the telegraph office and wired Norris that I would be home in two days and to notify Nora so she could be there waiting for me. While I was there I went into the depot office and booked a stock car for me and two horses all the way to Blessing.
We had a kind of going-away party for me that night, but it wasn’t as good as it would have been if the guitar player had shown up and the girls could have danced. Wilson swore he was going to fire the man if he didn’t start being a little more regular about his duties. He said, “That’s a guitar player for you. Ain’t got no sense of responsibility.”
My train was leaving at eight the next morning. Wilson got up early to go in with me. In his little barn I saddled the roan and put Bank Money on a lead. Wilson glanced at the black. He said, “You think that horse is just going to follow us like a pet dog? I’ll get a lead rope.”
“Never mind. I’d like to leave him here for a time.”
“What for?”
“Just because I would,” I said. “I’d like to put you to the trouble and expense of his upkeep. Besides, I can’t afford the extra carfare for him.”
Wilson mounted his quarter horse. “You are plumb loco. Did you know that? What are you going to do, come back down here and try and race that horse? Won’t a soul touch him. You couldn’t get a bet if you give a hunnert-to-one odds.”
“Let’s go,” I said. I had already kissed the girls good-bye, and they were standing on the porch waving as we rode off in the early dawn. What Wilson didn’t know was that I had a paper in my pocket transferring ownership of the black to him. But I wasn’t going to give it to him until I was on the train and it was damn near moving because I knew he’d just want to argue.
The train was already at the depot when we got there, the engine sitting there puffing out steam and clanging its bell to let latecomers know it was fixing to get on down the tracks.
A couple of railroad hired hands loaded my two horses into a stock car and then took the loading ramp away. I glanced inside to see that there was plenty of water and hay. I’d ride in the stock car with them. As far as I was concerned it was a good deal more comfortable than sitting in the chair cars for two days.
I got down and put out my hand and said, “Well, all I can say is I’m much obliged.”
Wilson said, “I reckon you ought to be.”
I smiled. “Now tell me the truth for once. What do you really do?”
“Mister Williams, the next time you visit this paradise I am going to be the owner of the most extravagant gambling casino and whorehouse in this part of the world. A man will have to show me five hundred dollars in cash just to get in the front door.”
I laughed. “So the girls really ain’t dancers.”
He scratched his chin. “Weeell, that’s a matter might be open to interpretation.”
“But you didn’t win them in a poker game.”
“I damn sure did. Man wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
The train was blowing its whistle, indicating it was just before leaving. I heaved myself up in the open door of the stock car and sat there with my feet dangling outside. I said, “Going to have a guitar player?”
“Going to have several,” he said. “Make damn sure one of them shows up.”
I took the paper out of my pocket. I held it out. “Here.”
He took it. “What’s this?”
The train was starting to move. He was reading the transfer of title. I said, “Come see me if you’re ever down my way.”
He said, “Hey! You can’t just give me that horse! Dammit, that’s a valuable racehorse!”
The train was starting to move a little faster. He took a couple of trotting steps after me, holding out the paper. “You crazy bastard, you can’t just give me that horse!”
“It’s a bribe. Don’t rob our bank no more.”
“I ain’t a bank robber no more.”
“I’ll come back and take it out in trade at your whore house.”
He said something back, but the train was making too much noise and he was too far away to hear. I waved, and he stopped and waved back.
After a time the train got out into open country and I moved back in the car and leaned my back against the opposite wall. I looked at my horses, which were tethered at the end. They were a little nervous, especially the roan, getting used to this business of taking a train ride. I reached into my saddlebags and got out a bottle of whiskey and had a drink. I’d been gone from home for the better part of a month. It seemed more like a year. I hadn’t been scared away from my home, but I’d been willing to be scared because I was so tired of work and the ranch and being the boss. Now all I wanted was to get back to the ranch, get back to work, get back to being the boss.
And get back to Nora.
Lord, how I was missing her. There wasn’t a train ever made could get me back to her fast enough.
Through the open door I looked at the terrain rolling by. It was starting to turn rough, hard brown dirt cut by gulleys and draws and ravines and studded with craggy faced cliffs and buttes. It was the same terrain that me and the roan and first one packhorse and then another had made our way over so slowly and painfully.
I was glad to be going home where the prairie was flat and the grass was green and rain wasn’t just something you’d heard about.
Now that I was actually on the way back I could let myself think about home a little. Norris was going to be glad to see me because I’d got that thirty-two thousand dollars back in our bank and had turned a little profit on the trip with the money I’d won racing and with Bank Money. And Ben would be glad about the bay racehorse. That very same proclivity that had caused him to rush for the scent of that filly during the race would get put to good use adding a little speed to our horse herd. I imagined Ben would see that Bank Money got his fill of mares and fillies in the time to come. And the colts they throwed would be just that much faster, which would be the last laugh on Flood.
But then there was Nora. If she was to even get a hint of what had really taken me away for such a long time there would be hell to pay. For years, even while we’d been courting, I’d been promising her that our part of the country was finally going to get civilized and that there’d be no more wild danger or unseemly behavior by folks and that the range would be as safe and pleasant as the East or the North. But if she heard about the threats and the slaughtered livestock and the gunshots over my head, or about what I’d been up to on the trail, then I was in for a very dismal time at a time when I didn’t want anything separating us. I’d never been gone on a business trip for a month before, and I calculated I’d better come up with a pretty good story. But what the hell, I had two days to think up some lies. And they wouldn’t even have to be very good lies. Knowing Nora, I figured she ought to be just about as anxious to see me
as I was her. At least for a little while she’d believe anything I told her.
I lay back and let the train roll.
When it comes to Western fiction, acclaimed writer GILES TIPPETTE hits the bull’s-eye every time . . .
DEAD MAN’S POKER
Saloon owner Wilson Young doesn’t need the law to take care of business. But when he takes a train down to Galveston to look up a gambler who owes him a fat debt, he gets paid with a bullet in his chest. After getting out of the scrape alive—barely—Young heads back to San Antone to mend up. And plan his revenge. And draw on his outlaw past to settle a score—one bullet at a time.
Praise for Giles Tippette
“Tippette can plot away with the best of them.”
—Dallas Morning News
“Like True Grit . . . a small masterpiece . . . brilliantly written.”—Newark News
“Spine-jarring, bullet-biting intensity.”—Houston Post
“Tough, gutsy, and fascinating.”—NY Newsday
“Impressive authenticity.”—Booklist
“His fiction is taught and gripping.”
—Houston Spectator
“Tippette can write rough and tumble action superbly.”—Chattanooga Times
Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com
Acclaimed western storyteller GILES TIPPETTE brings his unique brand of justice and revenge to the Arizona territories . . .
THE SUNSHINE KILLERS
When a man of few words rides into town, his shirt soaked with blood from the bullet still lodged in his side, the people of Sunshine, Arizona, don’t exactly open their doors to the stranger. Saulter’s not looking for trouble, just a place to rest up and heal. But Sunshine’s not as warm as the name suggests, and neither are the locals—they intend to kill the U.S. President. And Saulter’s presence is very much in the way ...
PRAISE FOR GILES TIPPETTE
and The Bank Robber
“Like True Grit . . . a small masterpiece . . . brilliantly written.”—Newark News
“Spine-jarring, bullet-biting intensity.”
—Houston Post
“Tough, gutsy, and fascinating.”—NY Newsday
“Impressive authenticity.”—Booklist
Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com
DON’T MISS THESE GILES TIPPETTE WESTERN CLASSICS!