The Last Shootist (12 page)

The horsebreaker reined the tired, skittish animal closer to the two men and slid off to the ground.

“You' turn then, young man. Horse is tuckered, so you shouldn't have much difficulty stayin' on.”

Now he was trapped. No excuses in front of these hard men, for Sam Graham was giving him a bloodshot eye. So, against his good sense and health, Gillom Rogers climbed over the railing and jumped into the horse pen. Gene Rhodes waited, holding the reins tight under the
grullo
's slobbering mouth. He removed the last lariat from around the horse's neck, to reduce the chance of the mare stepping on the rope and injuring herself.

The youngster got one foot in the stirrup and both hands on the saddle horn, but the shadow jumper kept edging away, bouncing the expectant rider on one foot until Gene shouldered the rank horse into the railing so she could be mounted.

“Got a temper like Satan's,” Gillom offered. Swinging himself slowly up into the small saddle, his spurs jingling, he leaned forward to grab the reins from his host's grasp.

And then they were off to the rodeo again! Gritting his teeth, rocking back, his bones jarring, Gillom clung onto the saddle horn and almost dropped the reins after one two-legged kick.

“Lean back!
Ride
that wringtail, cowboy!” shouted Gene from a top railing.

The wild bronc reared one more time, pawing the air with its front hooves. Gillom blew his stirrups and his death grip on the horn, slid rapidly off the back of the saddle and off the horse's hind quarters. He let go the reins or the frantic horse might have fallen backward atop him. With a last buck and a snort the sweaty mare capered away, free of half its problem.

Gillom staggered to his feet and jumped aside as the riderless horse brushed past him.

“Get back on he'. Show he' who's trail boss!”

Gillom brushed his jeans and clambered back up on the rail where he sat bent over, sucking air.

“Not today.”

“First thing tomorrow then. You fall off a horse, you gotta get back on. Don't let this bronc beat you, boy, or you'll be scared a horses the rest of you' natural life.”

The teenager nodded.

“You bent, kid?” asked Graham.

“Jus' my pride.”

“You did okay. Everybody gets unhorsed sometimes,” added the ranch owner. “By the time we get all these bangtails finished off, you'll be a broncbuste'.”

Gillom's smile was tight. “
If
I'm still walkin'.”

Gene Rhodes slapped him on the back as they stepped gingerly down to walk back to the ranch house. “Let's get some grub. Unsaddle that switchtail for me, Sam!”

This brought Sam Graham up short. “You
told
'im?”

“He asked about you' loud grievin'.” Mr. Rhodes pointed at his mysterious guest. “Gillom's not going anywhere for a while. An' by then, Graham, you'll be headed another direction.”

Sam Graham glared at his host. “I frown on loose discussion.”

*   *   *

After a noon dinner of burnt beef and beans, respecting Sam Graham's delicate stomach from its prior night's sousing, the three enjoyed long afternoon naps under the shady cedars out back of the corrals, lulled by sweet breezes eddying down off the nearby mountaintop. Gene read one of his dime novels he'd gotten with his Bull Durham coupons,
The Woman in White
by a British writer, Wilkie Collins, which he said was a mystery tinged with sadness. He offered to lend it to Gillom when finished.

Sore from two hard riding days in a row, the three men took turns bathing with one bar of soap in the biggest cold spring which burbled up away from the horse pens, where the red soapstone of the mountain behind them met the white limestone of the mountain to the front of their stone house. They rested in the altogether in the early summer sunshine, contemplating life on their mountain.

“I ain't gonna tell anyone I metcha, Mister Graham, I promise.”

The big cowboy slanted his pale blue eyes toward the naked teenager sunning on the sandstone nearby. “Easy to say, kid. Up here.” The outlaw pointed into the distance eastward. “Different story down there, when you're looking at reward money headlined on a poster featuring a rough sketch of yours truly.”

“Naw, I don't need that kind of money.” The young tough looked at his patron. “Gene doesn't, either. I'm sorry to hear about your brother. Lots of stories kickin' round El Paso about Blackjack. All bad.”

Sam's blue eyes flashed as he sat up suddenly. “That
was
his problem. Tom did pure-dee crazy things without thinking them through. That was my little brother's real name, Tom. Blackjack is just an alias lots of brush
bandidos
use to confuse people. My oldest brother, Greenbriar, and I kept cautioning him to slow down, but…” The middle brother warmed to his memories, soaking up heat from the smooth rock.

Gene Rhodes smiled ruefully. “Told me when they hung Blackjack over in Clayton a few days ago, he dashed up that gallows' thirteen steps, his one good arm lashed to his back and yelled, ‘I'll be in hell before you start breakfast, boys!'”

“God damn.” Sam Graham fingered the knot on his forehead. “Sounds like Tom. Crazy bastard. He knew fate was coming for him after he got his arm shotgunned in his one-man train robbery near Folsom. A doc took the arm off in the penitentiary, but nobody could get in there to help him get out, too heavily guarded. They wouldn't even release him back to Arizona for the big reward for his crimes over there. They were hot to hang him here in New Mexico as a warning to other train robbers.” Tom Graham's older brother shook his head sadly. “Tom was a tiger, though, insane temper. Absolutely fearless. Everybody said so. Hope he had a long rope and a short drop.”

“My witness said that when they put the black sack ove' his head, he yelled, ‘Let e' rip!' They pulled the trap and ripped his head clean off.”

“Oh
no!
” Sam Graham jerked straight to his feet. “His head came off?
Jesus Christmas!
” Upset and buck-naked, the older brother stalked off.

Gillom stared at Gene Rhodes. “Why would you tell him something like that?”

The rancher watched the agitated bandit disappear around the house's corner.

“Ohh, Sam's a big boy. Maybe his brother's awful demise will keep him on the straight and narrow. Or at least, a little less crooked for a while.” He turned upon Gillom a thoughtful eye.

 

Sixteen

 

That afternoon Gene showed his student more horse-breaking tricks, like using his hands to touch sensitive areas such as its ears and belly and upper legs above the elbows, to get a horse used to people.

Another big buckskin gelding was a step further along, so Gene had Gillom rub his Navajo saddle blanket all over to get the animal adjusted to a different-smelling and -feeling cloth. The horse wrangler then very gently laid a saddle atop this pad and took it off again and back on several times so the horse could get used to the extra weight on its back. Cinching caused a blowup with the buckskin, and with saddle and blanket dumped several times in the dirt, Rhodes decided he'd had enough vexation for that day, too.

“Bucketheaded son of a bitch,” he muttered as he let himself out of the corral.

They left Sam to his misery and whiskey again that night. He was already down to his third and last bottle, which was another one of his problems, whiskey fever. Gene showed Gillom how to rub sharp-smelling horse liniment on his lower-back aches and bruised thighs for relief. Then they retired to different corners of the small house so they wouldn't have to smell each other all night.

*   *   *

Next morning they busied with getting another green-broke paint horse ready to ride around the corral until it either stopped bucking or its rider got launched. Gene Rhodes went first, showing Gillom a few riding tricks. This wild horse was a high roller, leaping with all four hooves off the ground at the same time, with a sharp kick of its rear hooves straight out as a finish. Rhodes even got in a little spurring as he fought to keep his high bootheels in the stirrups and his butt in the small saddle. The older wrangler wasn't graceful, often showing daylight between his tight ass and the saddle, and his spurring wasn't smooth, but even flailing about, Gene managed to stay on these wild horses one awkward way or another.

Gillom borrowed Gene's kidney belt to protect his tender guts from further misadventures. This was a leather belt eight inches wide buckled by three straps around his middle to hold himself in, sort of like a woman's girdle. The youth's second tries were often near wrecks, ending up with the reins between his teeth and both hands pulling leather, but he could now sometimes ride a bucker to a standstill. Gene coached him through his loose management of these tiring mounts.

“Few more days buckin' and bangin' and you'll be an A-number-one bronc rider, kid.”

Gillom brushed off his no longer new jeans one more time, grabbed his dusty hat, and limped to the railing. “Like I said,
if
I can still walk.”

*   *   *

But Gillom swallowed his pain and determinedly carried on with Mr. Rhodes's horse wrangling invitation for another hard day. Sam Graham didn't partake in this rodeo, either. They let him stay up past their bedtime that night, nursing his last bottle and wallowing in sad memories, then sleeping it off again. But the whiskey had run out and Blackjack was no longer mentioned when on their fourth afternoon together, Sam returned from a bath and a shave in the springs just as the student and his teacher were rising from their afternoon siesta.

“Saw you carryin' those fancy pistols up here, youngster. Can you shoot worth a shit with either of 'em?”

Gillom scowled. At least Blackjack's older brother appeared sober.

“I can hit a mark. I've been working on my speed and gunplay regular since I inherited those weapons.”

“From who?” Gene Rhodes inquired.

“John Bernard Books.”

“J. B. Books? The famous
shootist
?” Sam Graham, the notorious train robber, looked skeptical. “I heard Books went down in a big shoot-out in El Paso, the Constantinople I believe it was, in broad daylight not too long ago.”

Gillom nodded.

“
You
were involved in that bloodbath?” asked Gene.

Another nod. “Mister Books was shotgunned in the back, both barrels, by a treacherous bartender in the Connie. J. B. had already killed everybody else in that fancy saloon, five of 'em, but he knew he was dyin' there behind that bar. He had a cancer, too, up his ass, which is why I helped him arrange that shoot-out in the first place. So John Bernard begged me to finish him off. Promised me these matched pistols for doing him the favor.”

Gene Rhodes figured it out. “Then that makes
you
the kid who shot the legendary shootist, John Bernard Books.”

Gillom Rogers did not smile. “Yes I am.”

“My God.” Sam Graham blew some air. “Well, fetch along some rounds, kid, and let's see what kind of gunslick you are.”

They retrieved their revolvers and strapped them on, and Gillom dug a box of .44-.40 cartridges from his saddlebag. The horse-breaking scholar was thinking over what he'd just learned.

“Books lived in Tularosa fo' a couple years with a woman named Serepta Thomas. Must have been ten years ago. Something went wrong between them and she took up with a freighte' named Pardee. They had a couple girls togetha, but Pardee's gone now, too. He used to beat he' regula', so he wasn't missed.” Eugene shook his tousled head. “Serepta used to be a looke'. Blonde.”

“Didn't know that,” said young Gillom. “But some older gal came to visit him in his back room at our boarding house. Maybe it was her?”

Gene made them hike a fair ways up the mountainside behind the house so as not to scare the horses too badly. He tramped along to watch.

“I don't want to referee any fuss, so let's just practice friendly, fellas. No shooting each othe' ah you' own feet, okay?”

Sam grunted and Gillom nodded as they took stances apart in a clearing amidst black cedars and junipers, looking out over the pass through the San Andres and Gene's small ranch below. The teenager safety-checked the empty cylinders beneath the hammers of his two Remingtons. Sam Graham stroked his bushy mustache, watching.

“Okay, rooster.”

“I've only had these pistols from Mister Books a coupla weeks. Not much time to practice.”

“Gunfighters don't get excuses.”

So Gillom performed his fast draws, first with his right hand, then with his off-hand, his left. Pulling both guns at once with respectable speed, he began spins with his dominant right hand, rolling the gun over several times out of the front leather lip of his holster as his arm extended from his crouch. He reverse-spun the big revolver by its trigger guard several times around and slipped it smoothly back into the holster from the rear.

Sam Graham nodded at the kid's display. “You're pretty sudden, kid.”

“What I'd like to do for work. Bank guard, law enforcement, some job lets me handle weapons and use 'em if necessary.”

“You've got quick hands and fast reactions fo' gunplay,” agreed Gene.

Sam Graham snorted. “You join the Laws, only thing you'll succeed in arresting is your own life!”

Mr. Rhodes frowned. “Listen, you whiskey-sucke'. Don't lead this young man down that outlaw trail. Might end up like your brothe'.”

The big train robber scowled, spat, and concentrated on his gun handling. Sam slid his leather holster across to the left side of his gunbelt. He reversed the holster's opening so that his was a right-handed cross-draw across his waist above his center brass buckle. He tried a few pulls with his walnut-handled Colt .45 with impressive speed.