Not sure of himself, or how he should handle the situation, Mason sat down opposite him. Jimmy McGee walked over to the table. “You want anything, Sheriff?”
Mason said no, so Jimmy turned around and went back to the bar, leaving the sheriff looking at the sleazy, taunting smile on Curly’s face for several long moments before he made himself speak. “What are you doin’ back here in town, Curly? Does Ned know you’re here? We had a deal, and you’re supposed to stay outta town.”
“Hold on there, Sheriff, don’t get all lathered up. Sure, Ned knows I’m in town. I’ve got a job to do. Perley Gates, I’m lookin’ for him. He gunned down one of our men, and Ned ain’t gonna stand for that. And he picked me to take care of him, ’cause Quirt Taylor was a friend of mine. You want me outta town? The quickest way to do that is to tell me where I can find Perley Gates.”
“I don’t need another killin’ in this town right now,” Mason protested. “Damn it, Ned knows that. We had a deal.”
“Well, the deal changed when that dirty dog shot Quirt. When I get Perley Gates, the deal can go back on.” He paused, waiting for Mason’s reply to that, but Mason still hesitated. “Let me put it to ya straight, Sheriff, I’m gonna settle with Perley Gates, no matter who I have to go through to do it.” He dropped his hand into his lap. “And that’s the reason I’ve got this .44 under the table, lookin’ straight at you.”
“Hold on!” Mason blurted. “He’s at the blacksmith right now. You mighta passed him when you rode in, ’cause he was in my office just a few minutes ago.” The words came out of his mouth like vomit from a drunk.
Curly flashed that cynical smile. “Good boy, Sheriff, now that wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, I reckon I’ve gotta go see the blacksmith.” He got up from the chair. There was no pistol in his lap and Mason immediately despised himself for his moment of cowardice. He stood up as well, watching Curly as he swaggered by the bar, tossing some money on the bar as he passed. Suddenly, Mason felt the weight of his firearm in his holster, and as Curly approached the door, the sheriff’s hand quivered as he stared at the outlaw’s broad back. At that moment, it seemed that Curly knew what he was thinking, for he suddenly spun around to face Mason, his pistol drawn and leveled at the startled sheriff. Curly grinned, eased the hammer back down, and holstered the weapon. “See you later, Sheriff,” he said and was out the door.
Mason felt the need to hold on to the back of the chair, his knees having been drained of all their strength. “That son of a bitch is crazy,” Jimmy said. “Whaddaya gonna do about what he said about Perley? He’s talkin’ like he’s just gonna shoot him down.”
Mason was trying to think fast to keep from looking like he didn’t know what to do. “I’m gonna go after him,” he said, “to make sure nothin’ like that happens. He’s lookin’ to call Perley Gates out. If Perley accepts his challenge, then it’s just between the two of ’em. But if Perley won’t fight him, then I’ll have to arrest Curly if he tries to kill him.”
“Arrest him, hell,” Jimmy blurted. “Shoot the varmint!”
“Maybe I’ll do that,” Mason said as he ran out the door. When he got outside, however, he stopped to think again when he could still see Curly riding down toward the blacksmith. “I might need my rifle,” he muttered. “I’d best get it.” He turned and ran to his office. Inside, he took the Henry rifle out of the rack on the wall and checked to see if the magazine was loaded. He cranked a cartridge into the chamber, then stopped to think again. It’s gonna be too late by the time I get down there, he thought. I’m not gonna be in time to stop it. The best thing to do is wait here till I find out what happened, and then I can do whatever has to be done. He sat down at his desk and fumbled with a cabbage-size rock that he used for a paperweight, waiting for someone to come to alert him.
CHAPTER 6
Perley sat on a nail keg, watching Payne work on Buck’s hooves, and the blacksmith was commenting on the condition of them and the fact that there was not any abnormal growth around the old shoes. “Looks like you take pretty good care of him,” Payne said.
“He takes pretty good care of me,” Perley replied.
“He’s a fine-lookin’ gelding,” Payne commented. “Why’d you name him Buck?”
“’Cause he does,” Perley said. When Payne laughed, Perley shrugged and explained. “Buck’s got it in his head that nobody ain’t supposed to ride him but me. I don’t know why. I never told him that.”
Payne smiled. “So, if I hopped on his back when I’m done, and just rode him around the shop a couple of times to see how his new shoes feel, he’d buck me off?”
“Well, you’re welcome to try it and see. I would expect he might test your flyin’ ability, to tell you the truth.”
Payne cocked his head and grinned. “I’ve broke more’n a few horses in my time.”
“That so?” Perley responded. “That’s right, I remember Rooster tellin’ me you used to work on a cattle ranch.” He started to say more but hesitated when it appeared something had attracted Payne’s attention. Judging by the frown on his face, Perley guessed it was something serious. So he turned around to see what had caught the blacksmith’s eye. There was a rider approaching them, and Perley realized it was the same man who rode past him when he was leading Buck to the shop. “Curly?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Payne answered, “and it looks like he’s comin’ here. What did Sheriff Mason say when you told him Curly was in town?”
“He just said to tell you he was much obliged for the information,” Perley answered. “That was it—didn’t say anything about what he was gonna do—just much obliged.” While they waited, Perley studied the approaching killer as best he could, for he had never seen Curly before, except for the brief few seconds when he rode past him. Payne was obviously concerned to see him coming to his shop. He wanted nothing to do with him or any of the others who rode for Stark. Perley felt obliged to free Payne of any worry about trouble from the gunman. “I’m pretty sure he’s come lookin’ for me,” Perley said. “I was the unlucky son of a gun who had to shoot Quirt Taylor, so I reckon he’s come to complain about it.”
“Complain about it?” Payne exclaimed. “He ain’t the kind to come talk to you about somethin’. Unless you want the same thing Tom Parker got, you’d do well to run out the back before he gets any closer.”
“That is one option,” Perley said, then turned to look behind Payne’s forge at over two hundred yards of open prairie with not a tree in sight. “That doesn’t seem like a good option, though, with me on foot and him on a horse. So I might as well sit right here and wait for him. He might not want to start too much trouble, since the sheriff’s office is right across the creek.”
“It’s too late now, anyway,” Payne said. “Where the hell’s the sheriff?”
Curly rode the flea-bitten gray right up in the middle of Payne’s shop area before pulling it to a stop. “Mornin’, boys,” he greeted them, seeming to be greatly pleased to be there. “You’d be the blacksmith,” he said, looking at Payne and having seen him in town before. “But you, settin’ on that nail keg, I ain’t never seen you before.”
“You saw me just a little while ago,” Perley said, “when I was leadin’ my horse up here from the stable. I reckon you forgot.”
Perley’s answer seemed to amuse Curly. He threw his right leg over the gray’s neck and slid from the saddle to land facing Perley. “So, what might your name be?”
“My name’s Perley Gates.”
Curly’s grin grew wider, as if he had just hit the jackpot. “Perley Gates,” he echoed, “just like them Pearly Gates in Heaven, right?”
“That’s right,” Perley said. “Only it ain’t spelled the same.”
“Well, Perley, you need to get your ass off of that nail keg. Me and you have got some business to take care of.”
“Is that a fact? What kinda business?”
“Oh, it won’t take long,” Curly went on, savoring every second of it and wishing it would take longer. “You se
e, Perley, Quirt Taylor was a close friend of mine, and folks tell me that you were the one who shot him.”
“That is a fact,” Perley allowed. “That was too bad about Quirt. He just wouldn’t listen to reason. But I am sorry that you lost a friend, so I apologize for that and I hope that will satisfy you.”
“Are you just plumb loco?” Curly wondered. “You’re gonna have to pay for shootin’ Quirt. And this time, there ain’t gonna be no tricks or anything—just you and me face-to-face. Then we’ll see if you was fast enough to beat Quirt in a fair fight.”
“That’s all you’re really interested in, ain’t it? Whether you’re better with a gun than I am? Ain’t that about it?” His questions brought the sarcastic grin back to Curly’s face. “That’s what I thought,” Perley continued. “There’s a better way to find out which one of us is the best shot.” He turned to Payne and asked, “John, have you got any matchsticks you could let us borrow?”
Trapped in a stupor of fascination of this insane preamble to a gunfight, Payne was jerked out of it for a moment. “Matchsticks? Yeah, I’ve got matches.”
“Good. All right, Curly, here’s what we’ll do, we’ll stick some matches up on that board layin’ over against the fence and see which one of us can light the most matches with six shots out of our pistols. Whoever hits the most of ’em wins, and he’ll be the best shot.”
Finally feeling that he was being played for a fool, Curly suddenly had enough of what he saw as complete nonsense and obvious cowardice on Perley’s part. “I’m tired of your games, you yellow belly. Stand up and get ready to use that weapon you’re wearin’, or I’ll shoot you down settin’ on that damn keg.”
Getting serious, Perley warned, “You’re gettin’ ready to make the same mistake your friend did. Even though you are guilty for the outright murder of Tom Parker, I’m willin’ to let you go, if you turn around and get on that horse, leave this town, and don’t ever come back.”
“Why, you mouthy piece of dirt,” Curly raged and drew his pistol. Perley dropped off the nail keg, onto one knee, pulling his .44 as he did, putting one round into Curly’s chest, and a second round in his head. Curly had gotten his pistol cocked, but that was as far as he got before being struck dead.
Payne was stricken speechless by what he had just witnessed, hardly believing it possible that Perley was still alive. He stared at the body of the feared gunman, then back at Perley, then back at the body again. “I saw it, but I don’t believe it,” he muttered to himself. “How in the world did you . . . ?” He started but trailed off, still caught in disbelief.
Perley didn’t try to explain, for he didn’t understand, himself. He had always been fast with a six-gun ever since he was a kid, for no reason he could explain. He never practiced. When the moment demanded it, he never consciously thought about what he was doing, it just happened. His brother John compared Perley’s lightning-fast reactions to a magician’s sleight of hand and advised him not to try to figure it out. “You got a gift,” John told him, “just be glad you’ve got it.” It was hard for Perley to be thankful for a gift that usually ended up with him shooting somebody.
The two shots were enough to bring the sheriff out of his office to stand on his front steps and listen for more shots. Since the shots were so close together, he pictured both men managing to get off a shot. The question was, who was the unlucky one who got off the last shot? After a few minutes and no more shots, he figured that whatever happened was now over and he could safely investigate it. Still holding his rifle, he strode forcefully toward the bridge and the blacksmith shop beyond. The first thing he noticed as he approached was Curly’s flea-bitten gray, walking unattended away from the forge. He stopped the horse and dropped the reins to the ground as Payne walked out to meet him. “I heard shots,” Mason declared.
Payne shook his head and repeated what he had said to himself before. “I saw it, but I don’t believe it.”
The sheriff looked beyond Payne to see Perley standing over the body. “Curly?” He asked in total disbelief.
“Yep,” Payne answered. “Perley shot him twice.”
“Face on?” Mason asked.
“Face on,” Payne confirmed, then added, “settin’ on a nail keg.”
The sheriff considered the consequences that could likely follow this unexpected outcome of the gunfight. He feared Ned Stark’s reaction was going to be violent. Stark had already reneged on his agreement to control his men’s behavior in town with the shooting of Tom Parker. After that, it was bad enough for Stark to personally invade the hotel dining room. But then to permit Curly to come into town to kill Perley Gates, Mason was afraid he was going to have to stand up to Stark. He was not sure that he could and damn sure he didn’t want to. His thoughts were distracted then when the town people felt it safe to investigate the shots heard.
The first to arrive on the scene was Horace Brooks. Seeing the sheriff standing motionless, Horace asked, “What happened, Sheriff?” He looked near the forge then, relieved to see Perley standing beside his horse. “He got him, didn’t he?” Horace asked before Mason had time to answer his first question. “Perley got him! I saw that sidewinder when he rode by the stable. I knew then he’d come to town lookin’ for Perley. I was hopin’ he wouldn’t look for him at the blacksmith. Now, I’m tickled that he did.” He walked back to the forge. “Perley, you all right?”
Aware that he should be investigating the shooting, Mason came to join them. “I’m glad to see you’re all right. John Payne told me his version of the shooting, although some of what he said didn’t make sense. Why don’t you give me your version of what happened?”
“Not much to tell,” Perley said. “He came in here and said he was here to settle with me for shootin’ Quirt Taylor. I told him Quirt didn’t give me any choice, but I was willin’ to give him a choice. He didn’t want anything short of a duel, so we shot it out, and he lost. That about sums it up.”
Out of curiosity, Mason had to ask, “What was Payne talkin’ about with the nail kegs?”
Perley shrugged and replied, “I don’t know. I was sittin’ on that nail keg there when Curly came back here. I reckon that’s what he meant.”
Hearing Perley’s answer to the question, Payne insisted, “He was still settin’ on that nail keg when Curly drew his gun and he beat Curly to the draw. Put two shots in him before he knew what happened.”
“Still settin’ on the nail keg?” Mason repeated, doubting Payne knew what he had actually seen.
“I don’t know,” Payne said. “He was on it, then he was off of it. It don’t make any difference, Curly drew first and Perley cut him down. Dead is dead.”
Horace spoke up then. “Seems to me, there ain’t much doubt that Perley did what he had to, to keep from gettin’ killed. Right, Sheriff?”
“I reckon so,” Mason decided, his mind already occupied with what Ned Stark’s reaction was going to be when he found out about it. With no way of knowing about Stark’s proposition to his men, the sheriff was worried about what was going to happen if any of the other members of his gang came into town today. He feared that he could definitely see the writing on the wall. His guarantee from Stark that there would be no killings in his town was definitely null and void. After this incident this morning, he was sure there would be a meeting with the mayor. For the present, there was nothing to do but assume the posture of a sheriff, so he said, “Payne, I’ll tell Floyd to pick up the body. Horace, take his horse down to the stable with you and we’ll see if somebody comes to claim it.” He looked around him as if checking to see if there was anything else that required his attention. Then he relieved Curly of his gun belt, returned the pistol to the holster, and drew his rifle from his saddle. “Let’s see what he’s got in his pockets.” He went through Curly’s pockets until he found a small roll of bills. “Looks like he’s got enough to pay Floyd’s bill. The rest will go in the city fund. Reckon that about wraps it up.”
“Reckon you can finish up with Buck now?” Pe
rley asked John Payne.
* * *
Like the sheriff, Perley had a valid interest in the reaction of the Ned Stark gang to the latest reduction in their number. He accepted the fact that he was the cause of the flare-up in the Ned Stark problem in Bison Gap. But he knew that Bison Gap had the problem before he got there. Trouble was going to happen sooner or later, or as his brothers would call it, Bison Gap was a cow pie waiting to be stepped in. He and Possum had ridden down there to help. He was sorry that he seemed to have made matters worse. The only thing he could do now was to stick around and see if there was anything helpful he could do. With that in mind, he decided to stay in town to be handy if any more of Stark’s men showed up. So, he led Buck back to the stable and threw his saddle on him. Buck hadn’t had much exercise in the last couple of days, so he would take a little ride, staying close to town and see how comfortable Buck was in his new shoes. Then he would go to the hotel dining room for the noontime meal.
The morning went rapidly, and as far as he could tell, the town was as peaceful as he remembered it when he and Possum left to return to the Triple-G. Would that it could remain that way, he thought as he walked Buck back up the street to the hotel, aware of the stares he was attracting from some of the people outside the stores. There was no doubt that the word had spread about the early morning shooting at the blacksmith. Consequently, he was not surprised by the guarded reception he received in the dining room, with the exception of his welcome by Rachael’s daughters. They ran to greet him when he came in the outside door. “Perley,” Alice announced, “Bess made apple pie!”
“She did?” Perley responded, pretending to be excited. “I reckon we have to eat our dinner before we get any.” He let them lead him to the table, aware of the serious concern on the faces of their mother, Bess, and Kitty as they all watched him closely. “I reckon everybody heard,” he said, breaking the ice.
Shot to Hell Page 7