The Gunfighter

by Robert J Conley

  “Somebody’s kilt him,” Bud said. “Who done it?”

  “We might not never know,” Orren said.

  “Let’s get him buried,” said Orvel.

  I helped them with that unpleasant task, and I really got to feeling sorry for the poor bastards having to bury their own brother like that, and him not in the best condition neither. You might think I’m lying, but I really did feel for them. I had me some brothers once myself, but whenever I run off from New York City when I was just a kid, I left them behind and never seen nor heard from any of them since then. I always figgered they never missed me, ‘cause there was way too many of us back then anyhow, but I did sort of know what kinda feelings brothers has for each other.

  Well, we put the stiff in a hole we dug, and then we covered it back up, and we all of us stood around the fresh grave with our hats in our hands and our chins on our chests. Bud sniffled some, and Orvel sudden looked up into the sky. “Oliver never deserved this what he got,” he said. “I hope you let us come to know just who done it to him so we can get even. But right now, we’re just going to go ahead with the plans he made for us. Wherever you got him up there, take keer of him for us, will you?” He put his hat back on then, so I figgered that the service was all did.

  “I’m sure awful sorry about this, fellas,” I said whenever we was walking back toward the horses. “What you said back there, Orvel, does that mean that we’re going on ahead with the stagecoach job tomorry?”

  “Hell, yes,” said Orvel. “Oliver scouted it all out, and we’re going through with it. He’d want it that way. He’d expect it of us.”

  “It’s just only tomorrow afternoon,” Orren said. “That don’t hardly give us proper mourning time.”

  “We’re going to be right here tomorrow afternoon,” said Orvel. “I figger this here is the place that he picked out. I don’t know who the hell come across him and kilt him here, but he meant for us to take that stagecoach right here, and we’re going to do it. I don’t want to hear no more talk about it.”

  Well, for sure that was the end of the discussion. I guess them boys was used to taking orders from the oldest, and with that Oliver gone, Orvel was it. He had inherited the boss’s role, and the others just went and accepted it thataway. So I knowed then that me and Sly was going to get our chance that next day. I also knowed that some way, I was going to have to let Sly know about the details. I didn’t think that would be too hard to do. I figgered we’d all just go back into town here in a bit and get to drinking again, and I’d just wait for them to pass out again, and then I’d go and see Sly. Thinking about drinldng made me remember them two bottles I had brung along. I went and fetched one outa my saddlebags.

  I took me a slug and offered it to Orvel. He took it without saying a word and had him a long drink. Then he passed it on to Orren, and Orren passed it on to Bud. Bud took his drink and handed it back to me, and we kept it going thataway till the damn thing was empty. “I got another one over here,” I said. Pretty soon we was all drunk as skunks, and Orvel said that we was going to spend the night right there and wait for that damn stagecoach to show up tomorrow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Well, I couldn’t have that, and I reckon you know how come. Hell, I wouldn’t have no way of getting my ass on back to ole Sly and letting him know just what the hell was fixing to happen or just where at. And if ole Sly never made it out there where we was at on time, why, I’d have me just only two choices to choose from. One was that I’d have to try to drop back and shoot all three of them bastards from behind, and I’d have to shoot them fast and accurate so that number three wouldn’t have the time to turn on me. That didn’t seem like such a good plan to me. I didn’t like the odds a damn bit.

  But if I was to choose not to try it, that only left me just one other thing to do, and that was that I’d have to go on ahead and really help the son’s of bitches rob the goddamn stagecoach. Then what if they was to go and kill the driver or something like that? Which thing I figgered was a genuine and distinct possibility. Why, hell, I’d be a damned ax-sessory to the whole thing. Worse yet. What if the stage had it a shotgun rider what was ever’ bit as good as ole Ash Face? Hell, he might blow some one of the outlaws away, and it might could just wind up to be me. Well, I didn’t like neither one of the possibilities what seemed to be a-shaping up there. So I thought real hard about the situation.

  “We’re going to get awful hungry,” I said, “before that stage comes around tomorry afternoon.”

  “I’m hungry already,” Bud said.

  I pulled out my ole Merwin and Hulbert Company self-extracting revolver and acted like as if I was a-checking it over to get it ready, and I said, “I ain’t none too good with this thing here. If I’d knowed we was a-going to be staying out here all this time, hell, I’d a brung my shotgun along with me. I feel a lot better if I got my shotgun along. You know, I heard about a shotgun rider up north what blowed a bandit clean offa his horse and nearly blowed him in half with his shotgun. A damn six-gun ain’t hardly no match for a shotgun. No, sir. But I reckon I’ll just have to make do with what I got here. Hell, maybe they won’t even put up no kind of argument when they see that there’s four of us against them.”

  “My stomach’s growling,” Bud said.

  I went over to my ole horse and pulled the last bottle we had drank out of back outa the saddlebag, and I took myself a good long drink. I already knowed there weren’t enough in there to go around and give ever’one a decent suck on it, and I never let on that I had a couple of extries stashed away. When I lowered that bottle I smacked my lips real loud, and then I offered the bottle over to ole Orvel. He took it and had hisself a drink. He handed it to Orren, and Orren took a drink, and then there weren’t nothing left. Bud said, “Hey.” I had them other bottles in my other saddlebag, but I never let on. Orvel licked his lips like as if they was parched, and he was dying of thirst.

  “Hell,” he said, “let’s go on back to town.”

  “Well now, Orvel,” I said, “I guess I don’t really need that damned ole shotgun.”

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  So we all mounted up and headed back the way we had come out. Nobody said nothing much on the ride back, and whenever we got into town, we all tied up there in front of the place where me and ole Sly was holed up at. We went on in there and ordered us up some steaks and stuff, and, of course, a bottle of whiskey. We got the whiskey and our glasses first, and ole Orvel poured us each a drink. I turned mine down right fast and got another one. I drunk it all down, and then I said, “I got to go out back.”

  I walked out the back door and right up the outside stairs what led up to the second floor. I found ole Sly in the room with a meal and a pot of coffee. He looked up and said, “I saw you riding in, so I got myself right back up here as fast as I could.”

  “Listen here,” I said. “I got to get my ass on back down there and join back up with them assholes. We’re a-fixing to rob the stage tomorry afternoon almost just right there where you kilt that other Jasper at. By the way, his first name was Oliver, if you keer about that sort of thing.”

  “What time will you be headed out in the morning?” he asked me.

  “Orvel ain’t said,” I told him. “I’ll try to let you know tonight.”

  “All right,” he said. “Good luck to you.”

  I went back the way I had come, so that them Jaspers never seen me come down the stairs, and when I set back down with them, here come our steaks. We all et like we hadn’t et in a week, and then we went to drinking more whiskey. I had to go to pretending again, ‘cause I wasn’t hardly feeling nothing but just good, and them other three boys was all starting in to getting woozy. Orvel poured another round of drinks, and the bottle was way down low. Ole Bud lurched up from his chair. “I’ll get another one,” he said, talking slurry-like.

  He staggered on over to the bar, and he run into a cowboy what was standing there. The cowboy had been just about ready to tip up a be
er glass for a drink, and whenever ole Bud knocked into him, he spilt that beer all down his shirtfront. “Goddamn it,” he said. “Whyn’t you watch where the hell you’re going?”

  Bud looked up at the other man, but the way he looked, I ain’t at all sure he could see much of anything. “Well,” he said, “why don’t you just watch out for where I’m going, mister?” The cowboy took ahold of Bud’s shirtfront and give him a hell of a shove, and ole Bud went flying back and fell over on his ass and scooted along the floor for a few feet. Orvel was up right-quick, looking mean as hell and facing that cowboy. I could see right away that Orvel was ready to draw on the man and shoot him dead. I had to act fast. I picked up our nearly empty whiskey bottle by its neck and stood up.

  “Hey, cow’s ass, ‘’ Orvel said, “that’s my little brother you throwed down on the floor.”

  “So what?” the cowhand said.

  “I mean to kill you,” said Orvel.

  Just then I stepped up behind the cowboy and swung that bottle and bashed him in the back of the head. He dropped like a rock, and Orvel give me a mean look. “What the hell you do that for?” he said. “I was going to kill the son of a bitch.”

  “I was afraid you’d do just that,” I said, “or else he’d kill you. I didn’t want neither one of them things to happen.”

  “You didn’t have no business interfering, Napoleon,” Orvel said, and he turned on me, and he still had that same meanness in his eyes. He looked like as if he was a-fixing to draw down on me. I had spoilt his game with the cowboy, so he meant to just put me in that cowboy’s place. You know damned well by now just how I feel about a face-to-face gunfight. I had to come up with something right-quick.

  “Listen to me,” I said, and I walked right on over close to him, “s’pose you’d killed the bastard. The law woulda come around to find out what happened here, and you mighta had to fight a lawman or two or else go set in the jailhouse for a spell. Or s’pose instead you went and got your own self kilt. Either way, it woulda really finished off our plans for tomorry afternoon, now wouldn’t it? And what would ole Oliver think about all that? Let’s get this little job all did, and then you can go on and get yourself in all the gunfights you want to. It won’t make a damn to me then.”

  Well, he thought about that for a spell, at least that’s what he looked like he was a-doing, and then I guess, drunk as he was, he seen the wisdom of my words. He walked back over to the table and set back down with me. I heaved a big sigh of relief. Orvel stayed kinda sulky, though, and he hollered out for a fresh bottle. Bud got hisself up offa the floor, and the barkeep put a bottle on the bar. Bud grabbed it and weaved his way back over to the table. Orvel jerked the bottle away from Bud and poured hisself a drink. He didn’t bother pouring none for the rest of us.

  I picked up the bottle then and poured the rest of the round. Bud finished that one off too fast, and he went and passed on out with his head down on the table. In two more rounds, Orren looked like as if he was about to go under. Orvel was still sulking, but he looked pretty close to gone too. Then he kinda brung hisself up out of it, and he give me a look.

  “Let’s get these two sissy brothers of mine on to bed,” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. “Whenever we get that all did, I reckon I’ll come back here and turn in myself. We going to get a early start in the morning, ain’t we?”

  “We’ll get an early start, all right,” Orvel said, giving me a real sly kinda look, “but you’re staying over at our room. We’re sticking together real close till this job’s done tomorrow.”

  I started in to say I needed to go get my shotgun then, but it come to me that if he was meaning for us to stick together, he might just follow my ass up to the room, and there would be ole Sly a-setting there playing cards with hisself. I didn’t want that to happen, so I kept quiet. Like we done the time before, I helped him to lug his damn sloppy-ass drunk brothers across the street and on up to their room, but first I stuck that nearly fresh bottle in my jacket pocket. Over in their room, there was them two beds, and we throwed them two on top of one of them. Orvel pointed to the other’n.

  “You and me’ll sleep there,” he said. Damn, but I wanted to see ole Sly and tell him what was happening. He did know, though, that the robbery was planned for the next day in the afternoon, so maybe he’d figger something out. I sure did hope so. I didn’t want to be out there alone with them three whenever that stage come rolling along. But there didn’t seem to be nothing for it but for me to lay on down there alongside of ole Orvel and try to get me some shut-eye. So I did.

  Them other two boys commenced to snoring and snorting something awful just about then, and I thought that I’d never get me no sleep. I kept a-trying, but it just didn’t work out. Final, though, ole Orvel went on to sleep, and he snored louder’n them other two put together. I come up real easy outa that bed, and then I stood there for a bit to see if I had disturbed Orvel, but he never moved. He just kept on a-snoring. I slipped on my boots and my jacket and strapped my revolver back on. I hadn’t took nothing else off. I put the hat on my head and tippy-toed outa the room, shutting the door behind me real easy-like.

  The town was deader’n hell, and the night was cold. I crossed the street, went into the saloon and on upstairs to the hotel part of the place. Sly was still up and awake.

  He was standing there at the winder, so I guessed he had saw me a-coming when I was crossing the street.

  “Bastards final all went to sleep,” I said. “Or passed out. Orvel said we had to all stick together till after the job tomorrow.”

  “Did you find out anything more?” Sly asked me.

  “Just only that we’re heading out early,” I said. “I never got no specific time outa that son of a bitch.”

  “They all get pretty drunk then?” he said.

  “I reckon,” I said.

  “So it might not be quite as early as they meant for it to be,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “likely you’re right about that. And once they do all come around in the morning, if one of them don’t say nothing first, I’m going to suggest that we have us a good breakfast before we take off to do meanness.”

  “That will give me plenty of time,” said Sly. “I’ll be up and out before sunup. I’ll ride out there and find me a place to wait for them.”

  “Whenever you show yourself,” I said, “I’ll fall back some. We’ll have them from both sides.”

  I thought that ole Sly might argue with me on that, ‘cause that would put me where I could shoot them in the back, and he didn’t care for that sort a thing, if you recall, but he never. He just said, “I’d better turn in then if I mean to be out before daylight. And you need to get back over there so they don’t know you slipped out on them.”

  “If anyone notices and says anything,” I told him, “I’ll just say I had to go take a piss.”

  I found my shotgun and took it up, and then I left the room. I went on back over to where the Jaspers was staying at and slipped back in. I propped my shotgun in a comer, took off my hat, my gunbelt, my jacket and my boots, and then I stepped over to the bed real quiet-like. I listened for a bit to them bastards all a-snoring, and then I laid my ass down there again beside ole Orvel. He snorted and rolled over, but that was all. I had made it all right.

  But their damn snoring was making me crazy. I had images swimming in my head of the sun a-coming out and shining in through the winder and me still a-laying there wide awake and listening to that shit. That seemed like a downright dreary prospect. I slipped my ass up and outa the bed one more time and went to get that bottle outa my jacket pocket. I took it back to bed with me. After a few good pulls on that thing, I got myself drowsy enough to drop on off to sleep. That’s just one more reason to give thanks to heaven for good whiskey.

  Well, I had been up the longest and had drunk the most and the latest, but I was still the first one awake in the morning. I got my ass on up and got myself all pulled together, and I walked over to the winder to look o
ut. I could see just a tiny bit of color on the far east horizon. I stood there for a minute or so, and then I seen ole Sly a-headed for the stable. I figgered I’d give him a good head start, and then I’d wake them damn Jaspers up. I went on ahead and checked my Merwin and Hulbert and my shotgun, making sure they was both good and ready for action. I found the bottle and had myself a wake-up snort of whiskey, and then I went and lit me up a good ceegar.

  I set down and smoked that ceegar down a ways, and then about half of that ole sun ball was a-showing out there, and the day was starting in to light up. I looked out the winder down onto the street again, and there was a few folks starting in to walk around out there. I went back over to the bed and give ole Orvel a shake. He come awake like as if he was ready for a fight.

  “It’s damn near daylight out there,” I said. “You said you wanted us to get a early start.”

  He set up on the edge of the bed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands. Then he give a kick to the other bed. “Hey,” he hollered. “Get your lazy asses up.” Well, them other two didn’t have to do nothing to get dressed, ‘cause they hadn’t never undressed. And all ole Orvel had to do was to just pull on his boots and strap on his six-gun. We headed out the door, but on the way, I picked up my shotgun. Orvel reached out a hand and took hold of my shoulder to stop me.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “When did you get that damn thing?”

  “What?” I said, real innocent-like.

  “That damn shotgun,” he said. “When did you get it?”

  “Hell,” I said, “I don’t know what time it was. I had to get up and go out to the outhouse. So long as I was out anyhow, I stopped by my room for it.”

  “I told you,” Orvel said, “we was sticking together till this job is done.”

  “I didn’t figger you meant I was to piss in the bed,” I said.

  “Come on,” he said, and he led the way out the door. Ole Orvel, he had really developed hisself a grouchy attitude for some reason. I told myself then that I was going to be double glad to see him deader’n a flat toad.