Then I seen them. All four of them. I had only saw the bastards that one time, and not for very long neither, ‘cause they started into blasting me just as I got my look at them. But I knowed them nonetheless. It was the Jaspers, all right. I tell you, I swallered hard. I was ready for them all four to start in to shooting again, but they never. They never even hardly looked at me, so I fin’ly figgered that they had been so intent on blasting ole Sly’s ass away, they hadn’t even took theirselves a good look at me. I finished my drink and left that saloon and went straight up to our room. Sly was sleeping, but I woke his ass up, and he come awake with his gun in his hand. When he seen it was just only me, he lowered it on down.
“What is it, Baijack?” he said.
“They’re right down there in the saloon,” I said. “All four of them. I seen them just bigger’n life. I guess they never recognized me, but I knowed them, all right.”
“The Jaspers?” he said. “They’re here?”
“Like you said,” I went on, “they must feel safe. They musta stopped to rest and play right here. We’ve done caught up with the bastards, Sly. Now, what the hell’re we going to do?”
Well, he was wide awake then, and he was a-setting up on the bed. He didn’t answer me right away. He set there a-thinking real hard. Then he said, “We’re going to kill them, but we have to decide how and where and when.”
Chapter Sixteen
Well, ole Sly, he said we couldn’t just go out there a-blasting away at them bastards on account of someone innocent down there might get in the way of some bullets, and we sure as hell didn’t want that a-happening. We’d have to catch them out in the open somehow, like out in the street whenever there wasn’t no one else in the way, or else outside of town. I reckoned as how I could get my rifle and just start in to picking them off right then and there from up at the top of the stairs before any of them knowed what the hell was going on, but he nixed that idee, good as it was. They might start in to shooting back before I was to get all four of them, he said, and the law would most for sure get involved, too. We didn’t want that. Besides all that, he said, he just didn’t work thataway. He always give the other feller a chance.
“Hell, I don’t,” I said. “Matter a fact, I try my damndest not to give him no chance at all.”
“We’re not doing it that way, Baijack,” he said. “Well, what the hell do we do, then?” I said. “Just wait around here for all four of them to take a Sunday ride outa town? If we do that, hell, they just might hang around here for a good long spell, and you can’t leave the damn room for fear they see you. They know you, all right. It was you they was a-trying to kill whenever they shot us up the way they done. If you go down outa this room, and one of them Jaspers is to get a look at you, why hell, he’ll start in a-shooting all right, and they won’t be worrying about no innocent get-in-the-ways.”
“That’s true enough,” he said. “Even so, let’s wait awhile and see what we can find out about their plans.” I reckoned he meant for me to see what I could find out, on account of him having to stay hid out in the room, but I didn’t make no argument with him. Goddamn, I wanted to start in blasting their asses. We had been out on a long trail after the sons of bitches, and damn it, they was right there. I jammed my hat down on my head and stalked toward the door.
“Baijack,” Sly said, “where are you going?”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I ain’t going to start nothing.” I went back downstairs and got me a bottle and a glass and set my ass down right near them Jaspers where I could hear most ever’ word they said, and then I commenced to drinking whiskey like as if there weren’t never going to be no more of the stuff. Now you know enough about me by now that you know I can drink a hell of a lot of whiskey and still know pretty well what’s going on around me, but I figgered if I was to drink enough and be obvious about my drinking, why, any stranger would think that I was drunker’n a skunk. So that there was my plan. After a while, I just dropped my ole head down on the table with a good loud thunk like as if I had done passed out. It worked. I heard one of them bastard Jaspers laugh at me.
“Son of a bitch can’t hold his liquor,” he said.
“Look at that bottle,” another’n said. “He drank a hell of a lot in a short time. No wonder he’s passed out already.”
“A real drunk,” said another’n.
Then I guess they just kinda forgot about me, and they went on a-talking about this and that. But my playacting and the little bump I give myself on the noggin paid off eventual. I heard one of them four say in a low voice, “What are we going to do about that stagecoach?” Then another’n said, “Just keep quiet about it. We know it’s coming, and we know what it’s carrying. What we don’t know, ‘cause we ain’t familiar with this country down here, we don’t know where will be a good place to stop it. First thing in the morning, I’m going out and ride that road and figger that one out.”
“We’ll go with you,” one of them said.
“No you won’t,” said the first’n. “If you three stick here in town and make sure folks sees you around, they might not even notice that I’m gone. In fact, I’d say that you’d oughta split up at least once or twice and let someone see just one of you somewheres around town. They might think they’re still seeing all of us if they see you one at a time here and there around town. When I got it all figgered out, I’ll come back. Then we’ll ride out in time to get the job done.”
“Well, all right,” one of them said.
“Drink up,” said the bossy one. “Let’s get the hell outa here. I mean to be up and outa here early.”
I listened while they scooted their chairs back and then tromped on outa the place, and then I rolled my head real slow just in case, and I opened one eye, and when I seen that they was really and for sure gone, I got up and went over to the door to take a look, and I seen the four of them walk into a hotel across the way. Then I went on back upstairs to tell ole Sly what all I had learnt.
“We can get one of them out all by his lonesome,” I said.
“That’s good, Baijack,” he said. “What we don’t know is just how early he means to ride out in the morning.”
“I s’pose we could spell each other setting at the winder and watching the hotel over yonder,” I said.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll do that.”
*
It musta been around five in the morning whenever I seen that Jasper come out the front door of the hotel across the street. He pulled down his hat and ducked his head against the cold night air and headed for the stable. I shuck Sly awake, and he come over to the winder to look.
“Let’s get ready to go,” he said.
I was already dressed, but I pulled on my heavy coat and strapped on my six-gun. Then I got my hat and my Winchester and my shotgun. Sly had to get hisself all the way dressed, so’stead of waiting on him there in the room, I went on out. I kinda lurked in the dark out there on the main street, and I watched to see which way outa town ole Jasper took out whenever he come outa that there stable. He rid out going west. Pretty quick after that, here come Sly. We hustled on down to the stable and saddled our own horses, and I told him the direction Jasper had rid. We went after him. I got in kinda a hurry, but Sly slowed me down.
“We can’t see him up there in the dark,” he said. “We don’t want to ride up on him until we’re ready.”
“But what if he turns off somewheres?” I said.
“You said he’s checking a stage route,” Sly said. “He’ll have to stay on the main road.”
I reckoned ole Sly had to be right about that one, so I slowed my ass on down and kept my mouth shut. It was nippy cold, though, and I was anxious to get the job did and get on back to town. Well, we moseyed along like that till the sun showed itself, and I was sure glad to see that. It would take it a little while, but it would give us some light, and it would warm the air up at least some little bit. I weren’t paying too much attention, I guess, ‘cause Sly surprised me whenever he r
eached over and put a hand on my chest to stop me. I whoaed my horse, and me and Sly stopped side by side there in the road. He pointed up ahead, and I squinnied up my eyes some to get me a good look. There was that Jasper, all right. He was still a fair distance ahead of us and just riding along easy-like.
“He don’t know we’re on his trail,” I said.
“No,” said Sly. “You see where the road starts to drop down up there?”
I told him I did. The ground on either side of the road, just about where ole Jasper was a-riding, begun to rise, and the road went down like as if it was going down into a valley or something.
“Let’s get off the road,” Sly said, “and try to ride up above him and around ahead of him.”
So we done that. We rid a good ways offa the road on the left or south side, and we got far enough off that we felt like we could ride a little harder and faster, and he wouldn’t hear our horses pounding by him whenever we got on up that far. We moved out at a pretty good clip then, and on down the trail, we slowed down again. Both of us figgered that we was likely well out ahead of Jasper. We stopped, and Sly dismounted and walked on over to the road. Pretty soon he come back.
“We’re ahead of him, all right,” he said, “but not far. He’s still moving slow. Let’s get a little farther ahead and then prepare to meet him.”
We rid on some more, and then we turned and rid on down to the road. Sly spotted a place where the road curved, and we went down there. He rid right out in the middle of the road where ole Jasper would come a-riding around the curve and all of a sudden see him there. Then he picked out me a spot offa the road.
“Go right over there, Barjack,” he said. “He won’t be able to see you, but I will. When you see him about to come around this curve, wave your hat at me. But don’t do anything else. If he kills me, then you can take it your way from there.”
What he meant by that was that if Jasper was to out-shoot him, then I could go on ahead and shoot Jasper in the back with my Winchester if I was a mind to. I never thought there was much chance of things working out thataway, but I went on and got myself ready just the same. I went on over to my spot, and I took out my Winchester and made sure it was ready to fire, and then I watched for that Jasper. Whenever you’re a-waiting like that, it seems like as if a thing takes forever, but really it couldn’ta been but only a few minutes. Here he come. I waited till he was just ready to make that there curve, and I pulled off my hat and waved it. Then I watched.
Jasper rid around that curve, and he was sure surprised, all right. He jerked his horse to a stop, and then he set there and didn’t move.
“Hello, Jasper,” Sly said.
“I thought we killed you,” Jasper said.
“You failed,” said Sly, “but I mean to kill you right here and now.”
“Well, now, wait a minute, Sly,” Jasper said. “Can’t we talk this over?”
“No,” Sly said. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Ain’t it true what they say about you, then?” Jasper said. “About you never going for your gun first?”
“I guess you’ll go for your gun, all right,” said Sly. “If you don’t go first, you have no chance of beating me.”
“But if you won’t go first,” Jasper said, “and I don’t go, then you can’t shoot me.”
Sly pulled out his Colt and pointed it at Jasper. Then he climbed down outa the saddle. He told Jasper to do the same, and he done it.
“I still ain’t going to draw on you,” Jasper said. Sly holstered his Colt and walked right up close to Jasper. Then he slapped him across the face. Jasper staggered back, and Sly stepped after him and slapped him again.
“Damn you,” Jasper yowled, and Sly slapped him real hard. Ole Jasper, he turned his back on Sly to keep Sly from slapping his face, and Sly just grabbed the hat right offa Jasper’s head and commenced to beating him across the head and back and shoulders with it. “Stop it,” Jasper hollered. He had his face huddled in his arms. “Stop it, damn you.” Of a sudden, ole Sly lifted up his right foot and put the sole of his boot right on ole Jasper’s ass, and then he pushed good and hard, and Jasper, he went flying forward and fell on his face.
Well, sure enough, he rolled over and come up with a six-gun in his hand, but it weren’t even up and leveled before the blast from Sly’s Colt roared out and echoed through that valley. Jasper’s hand just went limp. His shooter dangled there on his trigger finger for a couple of seconds, and his head slumped forward. Then he laid on back, and he never moved no more. God a’mighty damn. I ain’t never saw such a fast shot as what I had saw just then. I realized that I was a-holding my breath, and I let it out and then sucked in some new air.
“Goddamn, Sly,” I said, walking on down into the road to join him there. “I ain’t never saw nothing like that.”
He was a-reloading that Colt’s empty chamber what he had just emptied right into that ole Jasper’s heart. I come on up beside him. “I’ve been practicing,” he said.
“What’re we a-going to do about this one here?” I said.
“I’ll drag him off the road,” Sly said, “and roll him in the ditch. Someone might notice him one of these days.”
“I’ll just go and fetch my horse,” I said.
Whenever I come back all mounted up, ole Sly had done rolled Jasper into the ditch beside the road. He was climbing on board his own mount. I rid up beside him there. I had damn near forgot all about feeling tired and cold. I was all excited, and I wanted to go get them others. “Just three left,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said.
I reached down into my saddlebag and come out with a bottle. I uncorked that son of a bitch and had me a long pull on it. Damn but it was good out there in the early-morning cold like that. I offered it over to ole Sly, but he waved it away.
“No, thanks,” he said.
I took me a good look at ole Sly just then, and he sure did look to be serious and somber. Me, I was feeling good. Hell, if I’da been the one what had just shot and kilt me one of them Jasper bastards, I’da been dancing me a jig. He sure was a funny one, that Widdermaking son of a bitch. I took another drink and put my bottle away.
“All right, then,” I said. “What now?”
“We go back to town,” he said, “and wait. Sooner or later, the others will wonder why this one hasn’t come back. They’ll make some kind of move then. We’ll take it from there.”
“How we going to get your ass back into the hotel without them a-seeing you in the daylight?” I asked him.
“We’ll ride in easy,” he said. “As long as they’re not out in the street, I ought to be able to ride around to the back of the hotel and slip in.”
Well, the ride back was slow and cold, what with the excitement all behind us for the time being, but eventually we made it on back to town, and we done it the way he had said. We went in slow, and we didn’t see them Jaspers. We went around behind the hotel, and Sly got offa his horse and went into the back door. I got offa mine and went to stand just inside the door to make sure no Jaspers was in there a-looking. They wasn’t, and he made it to the stairs all right.
I went back out then and took both horses back down to the stable and unsaddled and unpacked them and put them away. I told that liveryman there to give them a good rub and to feed them some oats, and he promised me he’d do that. Then I walked on back to the hotel and went on up to the room. Up in the room I found Sly a-standing at the winder looking out over the main street. “See anything?” I asked him.
“No Jaspers,” he said.
“I didn’t see none of them either,” I said. “Say, you hungry? You need me to fetch you anything up here?” “I hate to treat you like a manservant, Baijack,” he said, “but I could use a breakfast and some coffee.”
“It ain’t no trouble,” I said. I left the room and went downstairs and ordered up double what ole Sly wanted, and while I was a-waiting for it, I had myself a drink. Before the food was ready, I had to have another. Final, the barkeep b
rung me out a platter. He looked at all them eggs and steak and bread and the pot of coffee there, and he told me how much, and I paid him. Then he said, “You must be awful hungry.”
“I always eat me a good breakfast,” I said. “It starts the day out right.”
Back up in the room, I put down the tray and went into my trail stuff what I had packed along and fetched me out a fork and a tin cup. I couldn’ta asked for double that stuff without making someone suspicious that I was a-feeding two of us up there. Me and ole Sly both et like we was nigh about to starve, and we finished off that whole pot of coffee, too. He thanked me like the gentleman he was, and I put the dirty dishes, all except my own personal ones, back onto the tray and stuck the tray on the floor outside of the room.
“You reckon that’ll hold you till lunchtime?” I asked him.
“I think so,” he said. “Thanks, Baijack.”
“Ah, hell,” I said. “Nothing to it. Listen here, I think I’ll go on back down and nose around some.”
I found the three remaining Jaspers in another bar, and they was already drinking that early in the day. I weren’t the only one. The bar weren’t none too crowded, so I didn’t see no way to plant myself too close to them without causing them to suspicion me, so I just bellied up to the bar and ordered me a whiskey. They didn’t have my favorite brand, and it weren’t none too good, but it was whiskey all right, so I drank it on down. I made a face and a noise and shoved that glass away from myself. “Rotgut mule piss,” I said. I heard someone laugh behind me, and I turned around to look. It was them Jaspers.
“You’re right about that, pard,” one of them said. “I was just thinking the same thing.” Then he turned to his brothers and added, “Let’s go on back over to that other place. They got better booze.” They all got up and throwed some money on the table and started out, but then the one what had spoke to me looked back at me. “Come on along with us,” he said. Well, by God, I did.
The Gunfighter Page 16