We follered him on out and over to the place across the street, where we ordered up coffee and breakfasts. None of them Jaspers said much of anything the whole time we was in there, and I was just as glad. They was all three some groggy from the night before, and they each groaned a bit now and then, so I think their heads was a-hurting them. That all seemed like good signs to me.
Well, we drunk us up about three pots a coffee and et our breakfasts, and I figgered ole Sly had a hell of a good head start on us by then, so I decided to try to get the day a-going. “It’s getting late,” I said. “Hadn’t we ought to be getting a move on?”
“Shut up, Napoleon,” Orvel said. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to go.”
For someone what had started out telling me how much he liked me, Orvel had turned some surly, and I ain’t sure just what turned him that away. ‘Course, he had just buried his one brother, and I had talked us into coming back into town after he had said we’d stay out there on the damn prairie for the night. Maybe he just didn’t like having his orders questioned, ‘special if the one what was doing the questioning won out in the end. Anyhow, all I done was I just give a shrug, and I poured myself another cup of coffee. Well, that done it. Orvel shoved his chair back and stood up.
“Let’s go,” he said.
As we walked outa that place and down the street toward the stable, I seen that ole Bud was still a — staggering some. Hell, I thought, the little bastard is still drunk, and I believe he was, too. His two older brothers wasn’t in much better shape, but I figgered they’d likely all be sober by the time we had made it all the way out to that sticking-up spot. ‘Course, it’d be too late for them by that time, ‘cause the by God Widdermaker would be there a-waiting for them, and I’d be dropping back behind them with my shotgun. Let them sober up, I said to myself, for all the good it’ll do their asses.
We got our horses and got them saddled up and ready to go. I still had them two unopened bottles of whiskey in my saddlebag, but I never said nothing about it nor let on in no way, ‘cause by then I was figgering that it would be my celebrating whiskey after them Jaspers was all dead. We rid outa town together, moving kinda slow and staying real quiet. No one had nothing to say, and there ain’t no more for me to say about it till we got near all the way out there.
We was getting close to the spot whenever Orren pulled a watch outa his pocket. I wondered just what poor son of a bitch he had kilt in order to steal that thing offa the corpus. Anyhow, he looked at it real squinty eyed for a few seconds, and then he said, “We’re getting here early, ain’t we?”
“‘Course we are,” Orvel said. “I meant for us to. We got to find ourself a good hidey hole to wait for that there stage coach. What I figger is, we’ll put two of us, one on each side of the road, and then we’ll do the same thing a little farther on back. Whenever that stage comes along, we’ll let it get past the first two. Then the other two’ll step out into the road and stop it. If the driver and the shotgun rider act like they mean to put up a fight, why then the other two’ll step on out and holler at them from behind. That way, they’ll be surrounded. You see?”
“That ought to work,” I said.
“You damn right it’ll work,” Orvel snapped back at me.
I figgered then that it was a good thing this was a onetime deal, and them Jaspers was all fixing to get killed, ‘cause I couldn’t see no way that I’d be able to get along with ole Orvel for even just one more day if I’da had to. I was ready to kill that bastard right then and there, but of course, I knowed that I’d better wait it out a little longer. It give me some pleasure thinking about what they had coming, too, I can tell you that, and what’s more, I ain’t ashamed to admit it neither.
We rid on down the road a little more farther, with Orvel a-studying the sides and a-looking for suitable hidey-holes. I looked over at Bud, and he still looked like what he really wanted was he really wanted to be laying down somewhere rather than be laying in for a stagecoach. Orren was in a little better shape than what Bud was, but I sure didn’t figger this bunch was going to give me and ole Sly no trouble. Then I got to thinking about the actual killing what was a-coming up.
The way I woulda liked to have done it woulda been if ole Sly would show hisself the way he done to Oliver, and while the bastards was startled from the sight of the man they thought they had done kilt, I would drop back just a bit and blast at least one ass with my shotgun. I might even be able to get two of them. It would be a real easy thing for ole Sly, good as he was, to gun the other one or two from the front the way he liked to do it. I thought about that awhile, but only there was just one thing I didn’t really like about it. Something in me wanted each one of the sons of bitches to know who I was and how come I was killing them.
Chapter Nineteen
Orvel, he stopped of a sudden, and he got him a look on his face like as if he had just come up with the most brilliantest idee anyone in the whole entire history of the world had ever come up with. He didn’t say nothing at all for a spell, nary a word, just set there a-studying on the road and the sides of the road, squinnying his eyeballs around and looking real proud of hisself. Final, ole Bud, who had the least patience of the whole bunch of us gethered there, just couldn’t take it no more. He spoke up and said, “What is it, Orvel?”
“Shut up,” Orvel said. “I’m thinking. Can’t you see that?” Then, “Napoleon,” he said, “you see that big rock up yonder on the ridge?”
“I see it,” I said, and of course, there weren’t no way I coulda not saw it’cept only if I’d been a blind man, but I didn’t tell Orvel that. You see, we was on the road where it dropped way on down, and the ground on each side of the road riz up high, and so there was a high ridge on each side of the road there. We was also at a place where the road took a sharp curve. So the stage, what would already be a-climbing up the hill, would have to slow down even more to make that curve, and the driver and the guard wouldn’t be able to see who or what might be a-waiting around the curve there for them. I could see all that right away. It didn’t take no brilliant brain to figger all that out.
“I want you to get your ass up there,” Orvel said, “and hide yourself on back behind that there rock.”
“All right,” I said. I started to turn my horse around to go and find me a way up to the top, but he stopped me.
“Wait up,” he said. Then he looked over at his little brother Bud. “Bud,” he said, “I want you to go on the other side of the road and get up there just direct across from ole Napoleon. You got that?”
“But I ain’t got me no rock over there,” Bud said with a kinda whimper in his little sissy voice.
“Never mind that,” Orvel said. “Just get up there like I said and lay low. Now, listen here, both of you. Put your horses back outa sight, and whenever that stage comes a-rolling in here, don’t let them see you up there. Keep hid. Just let it roll right on past you. You hear me?”
“I got you,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Bud. “Let it go by. Okay.”
“Me and Orren,” Orvel said, “we’ll be just down here on the road, and just when the stage comes around the curve moving real slow like it’ll be doing, we’ll step out into the road and stop them. That’s when you two stand up and show yourselfs. They’ll see the two of us right in front of them down on the ground there, and the two of you behind them up on the hillsides. Understand?”
“Seems easy enough to me,” I said. “That oughta buffalo them real good. We might not even have to shoot no one.”
I hoped that there last little remark of mine might soak into ole Orvel’s head and let him know that there weren’t no need to do no killing. A course, that was all just in case ole Sly didn’t show up there before the stagecoach, and I was to have to go and help them bastards in the robbing of it.
“All right,” Orvel said. “Go on.”
Me and ole Bud rid down the road together for a ways till we come on a place where we could each of us get off the road on our own op
posite sides, then double back and get our ass up onto diem ridges where Orvel had told us to be. All this time I was a-wondering just where in hell ole Sly could be hid out at. I wondered how far off he had hid his horse so we wouldn’t see it. It come on me then that the son of a bitch might not even be nowhere near, and I had me just a mite of panic set in just then. Them two choices I had run over in my mind earlier come back to me, and I knowed that if it come to that, I wouldn’t know which way I was going to go till I’d done went.
I turned my horse to go off on the south side of the road, and Bud, he went the other direction. “I’ll wave at you when I get up there,” he said. I told him okay and rid on. I kept on a-looking for any sign that Sly was anywhere close by, but I never seen none. I was getting some nervous about the whole thing, I can tell you. Well, pretty damn soon, I found myself back at that boulder what Orvel called a big rock, and so I took my horse back away from the road a ways so no one would see him up on the ridge, and I left him there. I took my rifle and my shotgun with me, and of course I had my Merwin and Hulbert revolver strapped on, and I walked on over to that boulder. I had me a hell of a view from up there of the road in both directions.
Whenever I got myself over there in place, I stood up real clear and waved down to ole Orvel so he’d know I was where I was s’posed to be at. Just then Bud showed his ass over on the opposite ridge, and he give me a wave, and I waved back at him. Then I ducked back behind that boulder and found me a way I could snuggle down where I could watch the road but not be saw by anyone down there. I hadn’t saw nor heard nothing of the stage, and I figgered we’d have us a pretty good wait, so I wanted to get my ass real comfortable.
I took me out a ceegar and lit it, knowing full well that it might piss off ole Orvel if he was to catch sight of my smoke a-billowing up from behind that big rock, but I figgered there was plenty of time. I could see way down the road, and so I’d see the stagecoach a-coming way before they’d notice my ceegar smoke. Then I could put it out and wait for them. I figgered if Orvel was to yell at me, I’d tell him that, but Orvel never said nothing. Likely he never even noticed nothing.
Then I heard the slow and easy clopping of a horse riding in casual-like from the west. That was the same direction the stage would be coming in from later. I scooted around for a good look, and by God, it was the ole Widdermaker hisself a-coming on in for the kill. My heart commenced to pounding real hard in my chest. Bud raised up his head and looked over at me, and I waved him back down. He was stupid enough to mind me. Sly come riding on in. I wondered if he knowed where we all was at or was he riding right smack into the ambush what had been set up for the stagecoach. I decided I couldn’t take no chance. I stood up.
“Sly,” I yelled out, and he looked up and seen me and stopped his horse. “There’s one direct across from me,” I called out, “and there’s two more just around the curve a-hiding out.”
He stepped down offa his horse, turned it around, and give it a slap on the ass. It trotted back west a ways and stopped. Then he just stood there right smack in the middle of the road alone. “Jaspers,” he called out. “Show yourselves.” I looked back east and down on the road, and I seen ole Orvel starting in to kinda sneak outa his hidey-hole off the side of the road. “Who’s that?” he hollered. The Widdermaker answered, “Herman Sly.”
Orvel stepped on out, still somewhat tentative-like, though. “You ain’t no Herman Sly,” he yelled. “Sly’s dead. We killed him deader’n hell. Who are you? What’s this all about?”
“Come out and take a look for yourself,” Sly said. “I won’t shoot. At least I won’t shoot first.”
Orvel walked on out to the middle of the road and started in real slow to walking around the curve. He was a-craning his neck, poking his head out in front of the rest of him like as if he was trying to peek around a comer. He waved a arm back behind hisself. “Come on, Orren,” he said, and I seen Orren come out and foller along. Each one of them boys had a six-gun already in his hand. Then, across the road on top of the other ridge, I seen Bud stand up kinda slow-like. He seen his brothers, and he pulled out his own revolver. I knowed what ole Sly was up to, but I also thought he was plumb crazy. I mean, there was them two down below on the same level what he was on, and then there was that other’n up above him just across the road from me, and they all done had their irons in their paws, and there was Sly with both of his Colts still in the holsters, and I knowed that he meant to let the damn Jaspers shoot first. That was his style.
You know, it’s one thing to know all about a feller’s reputation and to even have saw him in action and to know that he’s just about the fastest and most deadliest son of a bitch on the face of the whole entire world and to even believe in him one hundred percent, but it’s a whole’nother thing to be partnered up with him and a-waiting for a big shoot-out like that. I was skeered to death clean down to my dirty socks that he was a-fixing to stop a bullet the way he was a-doing.
Orvel and Orren come on around the curve, still moving catlike, and they stopped still when they seen ole Sly a-standing there. His Colts was still both hol-stered. They didn’t say nothing at first. I reckon they was plumb astonished at the sight of him just a-standing there. Just like their dead brother, they thought for sure they had kilt him. That had to of set them back some, and then the sight of him just a-standing there without even a gun in his hand like he weren’t skeered of nothing in the universe, not God nor the Devil, was a mite unsettling too.
“Goddamn it,” Orvel said. “Sly? It really is you. We all thought you was dead.”
“It’s me, all right,” Sly said. “Alive and well, and I’ve come to kill you.”
“Was it you, then, what killed Oliver?” Orvel asked him.
“I did that,” Sly said, “with pleasure, and I’m here to kill the rest of you.”
“Him and me both,” I hollered. Like I said, I wanted to make sure they knowed who the hell I was and how come me to be a-gunning for them as well as the Wid-dermaker. “My name’s Baijack. I ain’t no goddamned Napoleon, and I was the one a-standing right next to Sly there when you went and shot us damn near to pieces, you chicken sons of bitches.”
“You’re Baijack?” Orvel said.
“I done said it,” I told him. “I’m Baijack.”
“I heard about you, Baijack,” Orvel said. “I ain’t got nothing against you. Shooting you was a accident. You was just in the way. We didn’t even know who you was.”
“You like to killed me just the same,” I said.
“There’s been enough talk,” Sly said. “Get to shooting. That’s what we’re here for.”
“I don’t know, Sly,” Orvel said. “I heard you never shoot first. What if we just turn around and walk away from you?”
“I’ll make an exception in your case,” Sly said. “Now, shoot.”
Now, I think I done told you that ole Bud, what was the youngest of them bastards, was also the one without no patience to speak of, and I guess Bud’s patience, what little he had, was done worn out by then. Likely he got nervous, too, knowing that there was two men there to kill him and his brothers, and one of them was the Wid-dermaker what they thought was dead, and the other’n was Baijack what had been writ about in Dingle’s dime novels. Anyhow, it was just then that I seen ole Bud raise up his six-gun and take aim at Sly. I didn’t have time to do much thinking.
“Look out, Sly,” I yelled out, and I raised my rifle and snapped off a shot at Bud. I missed him, though, I’m ashamed to say, but it throwed his shot off, too, and it give Sly time to draw and whirl and send a slug right up there into Bud’s chest. Bud fell over frontwards and fell clean down into the road and landed with a thud. Orren and Orvel both started in to shooting then, but they was a little far away from either Sly or me for good six-shooting, and their shots was going wild. I raised up my rifle again and took aim at the back of Orren, but the son of a bitch missed fire on me. I cussed and throwed it down into the road and picked up my shotgun and blasted both barrels down ki
nda between them two. I guess some of the shot skittered around and peppered them both some, but it didn’t do no real damage. It did make them both yelp and hop around and dance some and took their attention offa Sly for just a bit. He pointed his Colt and brought down Orren right-quick.
Orvel, he turned and run back toward where his horse was hid, and his running took him outa even Sly’s revolver range. My rifle was down in the road, and my shotgun was empty. I knowed that I wouldn’t be able to drop ole Orvel with just only my ole Merwin and Hul-bert, and I don’t know what the hell come over me, but Orvel was down there below me a-running, and before I knowed what the hell I was a-doing, I had bent my knees to give me some spring, and I pushed with them as hard as I could, and I jumped straight up into the air. I went a-flying. By God, I flapped my wings and soared. I went a-sailing out over the road, and down-below I could see Sly a-looking up at me, and I could see Orvel running like hell for his horse.
I could feel that cold air on me as I sailed with the wind, and then I kinda tilted my arms and shoulders and took me a deliberate turn, and I headed myself right for Orvel. I come at him like a chicken hawk a-diving at a chicken, and he looked back over his shoulder, still a-running, and he looked right at me. He seen me swooping right down at him, and he turned to brace hisself for the impact, and he tried to raise up his six-gun, but he weren’t near fast enough for my Ickrus act. I smashed into him something fierce. The top of my head rammed him right in the face, and I reckon I knocked out all of his front teeth and broke his nose and maybe at least one jawbone.
He went down hard flat on his back, and I crashed down right on top of him. I was all right, my landing having been cushioned pretty good by Orvel. I rolled offa him, and he was a-making all kinds of funny noises laying there on the ground and flailing his arms around some. Whenever I crashed into him, he had lost his grip on his six-gun, and it was laying off at a safe distance. I stood up and brushed myself off, and Sly come a-trotting up to stand there beside me.
The Gunfighter Page 19