A Noose for the Desperado (10 page)

Bama lurched across the room and grabbed my sleeve as I was about to
walk out. “Don't go down there half-cocked,” he said. “Don't you think
Basset has had this kind of trouble before? He knows what he's doing
and he knows how to take care of himself.”

“I don't want any trouble,” I said, “but I'm going to get what's
coming to me if I have to choke the stuff out of him.”

I shook Bama off and went down the stairs three at a time and burst
into the saloon. The bartender was still leaning on his broom. He
didn't seem exactly surprised to see me and he didn't try to stop me
when I marched straight on back to Basset's office. I kicked the door
open and said, “Goddamn you, Basset, I want what's coming to me...”

But I left the words hanging. Basset had been receiving company while
I'd been upstairs jawing with Bama. Kreyler, the fat man's right-hand
gun, was leaning against the wall near the door. I guessed that Bama
knew what he was talking about; Basset had experience in handling
situations like this.

Kreyler didn't have his guns out, but he had his thumbs hooked in his
gun belt, and all he had to do was cup his hand around the pistol butt
if there was some shooting to be done. Basset was still sitting where I
had left him, smiling that wet smile of his. He sat back wheezing and
coughing.

“Why, son, what seems to be the matter? Ha-ha. You look all worked up
about something. Doesn't he, Kreyler?”

Kreyler didn't say anything; he just looked at me with those flat,
hate-filled eyes.

I said, “I came after my cut of that silver that we took in the
smuggler raid. And don't try to talk me out of it, because I'm going to
get it one way or another.”

I told Kreyler with a look that he could go to hell. If he wanted to
make his draw, it was all right with me. But nothing happened for a
minute. The fat man and the Marshal looked at each other and I began to
get the idea that they were cooking something between them, but I
didn't know what. Basset wasn't armed, as far as I could see, and even
if he did have a gun on him, I figured it would take him a week to find
it among all the folds of fat. If it was just Kreyler's shooting
ability that I had to worry about, I was all right.

“Well, now,” Basset said, “this is very irregular. Very irregular
indeed, isn't it, Kreyler? I was under the impression that you had
picked up your cut this morning, Cameron.” He didn't seem worried, and
that in itself was something for me to worry about. “However,” he went
on, “we always try to keep the men happy here in Ocotillo. Even the
ungrateful ones. Of course, it will mean going into my own pocket, but
just so there won't be any hard feelings, I'm willing to add a little
to your cut. Say another thirty-five dollars. In silver.”

I said, “I was thinking that five hundred dollars would be about
right.”

He didn't like that. Those little eyes began to narrow and I got the
feeling that this was the time to be careful.

“Well, now,” he said, “that's a lot of money. But, like I say, we try
to keep the men happy.”

Grunting, he reached across his desk and pulled the cigar box over.
“I think maybe it can be done,” he said vaguely. “Five hundred. Yes, I
think it can be done, don't you, Kreyler?”

And while he was talking he was opening the cigar box and fumbling
around in it. I had seen him do it before, just the way he was doing it
now, and it hadn't meant a thing. But this time it did. Something
prodded me in the back of my mind and I knew that it wasn't a cigar
that he was fumbling for.

It was a little double-barreled derringer, probably, but he didn't
get to use it. I guess he intended to let me have both barrels right
through the lid of the box, and it wasn't such a bad idea, at that,
because one of those little belly guns can do damage out of all
proportion to its size. It was a nice setup, all right. In another
second he would have shot my belt buckle right through my backbone. If
he had lived that long.

At times like that you appreciate your training, and when it came to
guns I had one of the best educations in the world. My right hand took
over where my brain left off, and what came next was as natural as
reciting the multiplication tables. More natural for me.

So I shot him. It was as simple as that, and I didn't wait to see
where the bullet hit, because I already knew. When Pappy Garret trained
a man, he didn't leave any margin for doubt about things like that.
After I had pulled the trigger I moved one foot just enough to pull my
body around and lay the pistol on Kreyler.

As a gunman, maybe the Marshal was all right as long as he stayed in
his own class, but he hadn't had the advantage of studying with an
expert, the way I had. As it was, I had all the time in the world. I
could have shot him twice before the front sight of his pistol cleared
his holster, and Kreyler knew it. I guess there was an instant there
when he was already seeing himself frying in hell, because his eyes got
that sick look and he lost heart and didn't even try to get his pistol
out.

There's one thing about gun fighting, when you start shooting it's
hard to stop. The first thing a gunman learns is to start shooting the
minute his hand hits the gun butt—that is, he starts cocking his
pistol the instant he starts his draw. If he's good enough he's got his
pistol cocked and is squeezing the trigger by the time he clears
leather, and from then on it's almost automatic. You cock again as the
gun goes down from recoil, shoot again, cock again, until you're out of
ammunition.

That's the way it usually goes. That's the way Kreyler expected it to
go this time, and from the way he looked, he was already feeling the
shovels hit him in the face as they covered him up in some boothill
grave. But about that time something stopped me. I broke off right in
the middle of the cock-trigger action and just stood there looking at
him.

For a while he didn't believe it. And neither did I. I couldn't think
of any good reason why I shouldn't shoot him. He had been drawing on
me. He and the fat man had set a nice little trap for me. On top of
that, I should have shot him just because of the principle of the
thing, if for no other reason, because in the school I had attended
they taught never to pull a gun on a man unless you meant to kill him.

This was the second time I had pulled on Kreyler. And he wasn't dead
yet.

But finally I began to understand what had happened. In the heat of
the fight I had forgotten that Kreyler was a U.S. marshal, and I guess
it was instinct alone that held my trigger finger just in time.

After a minute Kreyler began to realize why I hadn't killed him, and
I think it crossed his mind that maybe he could make his draw and shoot
me while I was worrying about it. But it was just a fleeting thought. I
didn't want to kill him, but I would if he forced it. And he knew it.

No more than two or three seconds had passed since I had put a bullet
into Basset, but at that moment it seemed like years ago. I realized
that I had been holding my breath, so now I let it go.

I said, “Just move easy, unbuckle your belt, and kick your pistol
over here.” —

He hesitated a moment, then his pistol hit the floor and he kicked it
over. I heard somebody running in the saloon, so I stepped over to the
door and saw the bartender diving under the bar. After a shotgun, I
figured. But he got peaceful when he saw me standing there, and all he
came up with was a rag.

“Go over to one of those tables,” I said, “and sit there until I
think of something for you to do.”

His Adam's apple went up and down a few times, as if he were trying
to swallow his stomach, then he went over to a table and sat down,
still holding onto the rag. Then there was a commotion outside the
saloon and in a minute Bama and Marta came bursting through the
batwings. They hurried on back and stopped at the doorway of Basset's
office, looking in.

“My God,” Bama said weakly. He wiped his hand across his mouth,
looking as if he needed a drink. Marta didn't do anything except stare
at me.

I said, “Keep an eye on the bartender, Bama. How much racket did I
make?”

“Plenty,” he gulped. “My God, did you have to kill him?”

“Of course I had to kill him. He was getting ready to shoot me with
that derringer in his cigar box.”

I turned them and glanced at Basset for the first time. He was
sprawled out in his chair, as formless as three hundred pounds of lard
in a hot room, and getting more formless all the time. There was a
black little hole about nine inches below his left shoulder, but there
wasn't any blood to speak of.

I said, “You've been around here a while, Bama. How much excitement
is this going to cause?”

“Plenty when Basset's men find out. That will take a little time,
though. We heard the shooting upstairs, but I doubt if anybody else
did.”

“Anyway, that gives us some time to figure out something. First
there's the silver. I'm going to get my cut of that before I do
anything else.”

Bama had opened Basset's cigar box. Something happened to his face as
he stared into it. I don't know just what it was, but suddenly he
looked very tired and very old. I pulled the box over and had a look at
it. Then I heard myself saying, “Well, I'll be damned.”

There hadn't been any derringer in it, after all.

It was a shock at first. Then it occurred to me that it had been a
lot bigger shock to Basset. There was something in it that seemed funny
to me at just that moment, and I laughed a little and said again,
“Well, I'll be damned. There wasn't any gun in there at all, he was
just reaching for a cigar.”

Bama looked at me with those old eyes. “You can kill a man like that,
and then laugh at it?”

I was keyed up, I guess, or I wouldn't have paid any attention to
him. But as it was, it went all over me.

I said, “What are
you
crying about? You shoot Mexicans in the
back, don't you, for a few lousy pieces of silver? What makes you think
that you've got a right to read a sermon to me?”

It hit him like a kick in the gut, and I was sorry after I had said
it. I would have taken it back if I could, but I couldn't, so I tried
to pass it off the best way I could.

“Why don't you go on out and take a look at the bartender?” I said.
“If anybody comes into the saloon, let me know.”

That left me with Kreyler, and the problem of what to do with him.
But first there was the silver, so I said, “All right, where does
Basset keep his money?”

Kreyler gave me a flat look. “He doesn't keep any money, not here.
After a raid he has it expressed to a bank in Tucson, under another
name.”

“But he must have some money here,” I said. “Enough to pay me what he
owes me.” I dumped Basset out of his chair and he hit the floor like a
wagonload of mud. Then I began going through the drawers of his desk
until I found what I was looking for.

It was in the strongbox that I had seen earlier in the morning, and I
had to go through the dead man's pockets to get the key. After I got
the box open, there it was, about five hundred adobe dollars.

“That will just about do it,” I said, and I sat down in Basset's
chair and raked the silver coins into a canvas sack.

Kreyler was watching me, and he didn't look exactly brokenhearted
because the fat man was dead. But I could understand that. With Basset
dead, and the Indian dead, I had opened the road for the Marshal to sit
down at the boss's desk and take over the business for himself.

“You really owe me a great deal,” I said. “I've done you two big
favors since I've been in Ocotillo, getting rid of Basset and the
Indian. To say nothing of not shooting you when I should have.”

“You haven't got the guts to shoot a United States marshal,” he said
flatly.

Every man makes a mistake once in a while, and Kreyler made one right
then. I had my money gathered up and was ready to leave everything just
the way the Marshal wanted it—but when he opened his mouth he ruined
it.

The idea must have been in the back of my mind all the time. Maybe it
was even there when I shot Basset. I don't know for sure, but the idea
jumped up too fast and too full-blown to have come from nowhere, and I
guess I was just waiting for a chance to do something about it.

“Bama!” I yelled. “Come here!”

I was sitting at the fat man's desk, feeling pretty pleased with
myself, as Bama came up and stopped in the doorway.

“Bama, how do I look?”

His eyes were puzzled. “You look all right, I guess. Why?”

“I mean how do I look sitting here at Basset's desk?”

“I guess I don't know what you're talking about.”

But Kreyler did. I grinned at him and he started swelling up like a
toad and you could fairly see the angry fires behind those eyes of his.

“Bama,” I said, “I want you to go out and pass the word around that
Basset is dead. Find all his men you can. Tell them I killed Basset and
from now on I'm the boss of these smuggling raids. If they don't like
it, just remind them what happened to the Indian. Oh, yes, and tell
them that from now on they get the fair cut that Basset promised them
but didn't give them, and that it will all be in silver or gold,
whatever the smugglers have on them. But the thing I want you to
impress them with is that I'm the boss. And I'll be the boss until a
faster gunman comes along to change my mind.”

IT WAS KIND of funny the way it all happened. One minute I was just
another wanted gunman on the run, and the next minute I was all set up
in business as the boss of a band of cutthroats. It happened so fast
and so natural that I didn't have time to give it much thought. I just
saw the opening and took it. That, I realized later, was the way bosses
were made.

There was one thing, though, that complicated things, and that was
figuring out what to do with Kreyler. The Marshal was the key to the
whole thing here in Ocotillo. He gave the business the protection and
the freedom to operate that it had to have, and without him the whole
thing would fall down around my shoulders. However, that worked itself
out along with everything else.