The Last Shootist (13 page)

“Show you a trick my brother Blackjack invented.” Graham took a deep breath, settled into a slight crouch, and drew rapidly, cocking the Colt as he extended his right arm to one side and fired. In a blink, Sam dropped the gun forward on its trigger guard and turned it underneath his wrist as he pulled it back across his body, passed the grip into his left hand, thumb-cocking the revolver again to fire as his left arm reached out. Two shots in only a couple seconds at opponents coming from either direction!

Gillom was open-mouthed at this fancy move.

“Very pretty,” agreed Gene Rhodes.

“Quick pass is better than a toss, which you might drop when they're comin' at you from all directions.” His last shot echoed down the valley leading north and south off this high pass. The men could see they'd gotten the horses' attention in the two corrals down below.

“That's a move John Wesley Hardin could have made,” Gillom added.

“Hardin hurrahed drunks and bullied hotheads who neve' stood a chance against his gunplay. That's how he ran up such a body count at such a young age, before they locked him up in Huntsville. Wes Hardin killed men just to see them kick.”

“John Wesley never shot anybody who didn't have it coming,” replied Gillom with a little heat. “He was a good man compelled to do bad deeds.”

“Neve' showed an ounce of remorse. Wes Hardin was a Baptist preacher's son who thought he was full of God's own grace, when it was really just piss and vinega',” replied Mr. Rhodes.

Graham ended their argument by pulling out a deck of playing cards.

“Hardin used to shoot playing cards and sell them as souvenirs or give them to gals. Neat trick if you can do it.” Sam strode five long paces, maybe fifteen feet, to lodge a couple lower denominations in branch notches of the nearest cedar. “See if your aim's as good as your draw?”

Gillom drew and took his time, cocking and placing four of five shots around a five of spades. The outlaw nodded. Sam Graham proceeded to place all three of his remaining bullets in a tighter grouping. Gillom retrieved the targets while Sam reloaded from his own box of cartridges.

“You're a marksman, Mister Graham.”

“Aim is what counts. Ain't the guy who shoots first, unless you're real close in, but the steadiest hand who walks away. To shoot again, another day.” His pale blue eyes twinkled at his little rhyme and the other two men smiled.

Sam admired the rough triangle of three bullet holes Gillom handed him, then gave the youth two more cards from his deck to place again in the tree.

“Noticed you holdin' your breath, Gillom. Try suckin' it in, then lettin' out a little air before you fire, so you're not puffed up tight. Let your soft pull surprise your finger.”

Gillom walked back reloading and followed the outlaw's advice to let out some breath before thumb-cocking and firing one, two, three, four, five steady shots! This time he didn't miss.

The kid was grinning as Sam went into another crouch, cross-drew suddenly and held the trigger of his .45 against the guard as he fanned three shots with his left palm against the hammer of the gun in his right hand, the echo of one explosion fusing with the bang of the next round. Graham not only missed the target, but the entire tree.

“
Damn!
Never could hit the near side of a barn, fanning. Makes this single-action as fast as a double-action revolver, but it's not very accurate. Don't try that in a gunfight unless you're in real close.” Now Graham took his time, extending his right arm and sighting along the short rear sight and through the removable front sight of his shortened 4
¾
'' barrels. Three shots! He didn't miss, either.

“Wooo!”
exulted Gillom.

“One bullet in the right spot, kid, is all the truth you'll ever need.”

Gene Rhodes roused himself from the stump where he'd been observing.

“Nice shootin', boys. That's probably enough scarin' the horses for today.”

Gillom reloaded and offered his revolver to the older wrangler.

“You wanna try, Mister Rhodes?”

“No thanks, son.” Gene hitched up his short frame. “When I was a little boy on our family farm I watched one of the field hands remove his glass eye at lunch one day to wash it. Being four years old I thought that was some trick and I tried to remove my own eye, too. Hurt like a sumbitch and I've had a weak left eye eve' since. Can't see worth a damn at distance. I'd be a dange' to all mankind shooting pistols.”

They lingered over coffee and the dessert Gene had cooked in his dutch oven in the fireplace—“spotted pup,” rice cooked with raisins and brown sugar.

“You gotta gift with guns, Gillom. Which is probably you' misfortune.”

“I don't know about that, Gene,” replied Sam Graham. “Pistol fighters can always find a job out West. Earn plenty of respect to go along with a payday, too.”

“And an early grave.” Rhodes shook his head.

“Maybe not. If I stay on the right side of the law,” argued Gillom.

“Yes,
if,
” added Gene. “And you respect what the old cowboys used to call the code of the West.”

“What's that?”

Gene Rhodes rubbed his small belly to aid digestion.

“Well, it's sort of a rattlesnake's code, to give fai' warning before you strike. It's to the death after that, the barbarous code of the fighting man. Neve' take unfai' advantage of someone. Neve' use sneaky tricks in a business deal ah a fight, like shooting someone in the back when he's unarmed. You cannot eat a man's food and then stand up and shoot him. You can't kill someone without warning them first you're out to get them, but then ambush is okay, since they've been fai' warned. And keep you' word. Do what you say you' gonna do. Always.”

His reddish-haired friend snorted. “That's how most of these gunfighters' reputations were made, Gene, back-shooting and killing drunks and ignorants. John Wesley Hardin's, for instance.”

“Yeah and it caught up with him, didn't it? Hardin got shot in the back of the head in the Acme by an angry old lawman, who got off scot-free fo' his murder.”

Sam scratched his chin stubble. “John Selman got shot himself not long after for that crime.”

“That's what I'm sayin'. You cross the law's line, it'll catch up with you, soone' ah late', one way ah anotha. You' brothe's fate is gonna be yours, too, pardne', you don't straighten up,” Gene lisped.

Graham scowled at the family reference, got up from the table to pour more coffee from the kettle resting in the fireplace embers.

“You're good with guns, too, Sam. We just saw. You'd make a helluva bank guard ah even a small-town sheriff yourself, somewheres fa' away, unde' another' name.”

“My fate lies somewheres else.”

Gillom had gotten up to take out his revolvers, unload them, and pull out his cleaning rod, gun oil, and a tiny screwdriver. He held up one of the .44-.40 Remingtons, admiring its silver shine in the lamplight as he spun an empty cylinder.

“What should I call 'em, fellas? Fire and Brimstone? Shouldn't I name these guns, like that fair warning you mentioned, Gene? Blood and Death maybe?”

Gene Rhodes's lecture on fair gunplay hadn't quite taken.

*   *   *

Gillom took a respite the next day, letting Sam follow Gene in breaking one of the last wild horses. The kid's tailbone was aching from several days' banging in the saddle, so he watched from the rail and grinned as Graham launched off the back of a big sorrel whose white socks flashed as it crow-hopped around the corral, celebrating unhorsing a rider.

“You
did
let him buck, Miste' Graham!”

“Jesus to Genoa.” The outlaw got gingerly to his big feet, brushing off his pants and his pride.

Rhodes caught the bronc and led him back docilely by the reins to the jockey. “If at first you don't stay on—”

“All right, damn it. My ass says no, but my pride says go. But if I take another circus tumble, Gene, you'll have to iron this nag out for me.”

“My pleasure,” grinned Mr. Rhodes, helping his house guest back aboard. The horse just stood there, breathing hard as Sam lifted the reins, adjusted his fanny in the saddle. Then he gave it a little spur with an iron rowel.

The tall horse was off instantly, sun-fishing with all four legs in the air while it twisted to show its belly, with Sam yelling and grabbing its blond mane. But his saddle weight wore the scared horse down and its buck jumping gradually lessened with Graham yipping and Rhodes yelling at his pupil. “Lean back! Keep its head up!”

The reddish horse pranced by them at a hard trot. “You can bust broncs for me anytime, cowboy!”

“No, one's enough today. Don't wanna push my luck!” yelled the Texas cowboy as he slid off the saddle and let Gillom take the reins of the skittish horse. Gene got the cinch loosened and the saddle off and the teenager yanked the headstall off the feisty animal, which leapt away with a last cow kick at its captors, narrowly missing Sam's head.

“
Whew!
I'll leave the horse wrangling to you, Gene. Ain't my favorite line of work.”

The ranch owner put the sweaty tack atop a railing to dry, and the men tromped off with towels to the bathing spring to dunk their sore butts.

Snow melt burbling up into the two rock pools laved their undersides and made the chilly water bearable. Gillom lay back against the smooth sandstone. Gene joined him in the larger pool, leaving the smaller one to the big bandit.

“Those fou' horses are green-broke now, so I need to drive 'em down to the Ba' Cross for the boys to use as replacements and get 'em cattle-trained before fall roundup. I'll ride down to Engle tomorrow for supplies. It's thirty miles to that cattle depot on the railroad, which will take you anywhere you want to go. You wanna go down with me, Gillom, ah stay up here fo' a while?”

“Oh, I probably should put more miles between me and my trouble. I don't know where to go, though, besides west?”

Graham stopped soaping his head. “Oughta try Bisbee. There's a real fast town. All that copper money has dolled it up pretty good and those free-spending miners keep their saloons open all night. Douglas is building another big smelter a little south right near the border, and it's starting to hop, too. Tombstone nearby has slowed way down since its silver mines mostly played out, but Clifton to the north has got rich copper diggings, I hear. Bisbee's cornered most of the excitement, though, kid. Hottest town in the whole southwest, besides El Paso.”

“You can pick up a Santa Fe express in Engle, Gillom, and be in Bisbee in two days,” said Gene.

“Aways wanted to see that Arizona Territory. Can I sell my horses and tack in Engle and buy a ticket?”

“Sure. I know Slim, the stableman.”

“Bisbee's got the mine and bank jobs you're seeking, kid, guarding all that mineral wealth,” added Sam from his nearby bath.

“Sounds good. What are
you
gonna do now, Mister Graham? Why don't you come along with me?”

“No, too well known in Bisbee. I'll stay up here till Gene gets back from Engle. Then I'll push off for Texas. Need to tell my kin what happened to brother Tom.”

Their host was trying to remove soap from an earhole with a knuckle.

“You'd be wise to stay shy of New Mexico, too, Sam, for quite a while.”

Sam Graham stretched his muscular body. “Central Texas is home. Lotsa good outlaws come from that underbelly of America between Abilene and Austin. Ed Bullion was a train robber, so were the Kilpatrick brothers, George and Ben, the notorious Tall Texan. Will Carver left our gang to join up with the Wild Bunch for some of their better-planned escapades. John Wesley Hardin, too, came from San Saba County. I remember the trouble Blackjack and I got into in San Saba. We were just little kids, but Tom got thrown out of church one Sunday for chasing a barking dog down the aisle.”

Gene Rhodes marveled. “Thrown out of
church
?”

“Yep. Even as a little boy he was a shit disturber. Guess a rope burn was inevitable, but Tom didn't deserve to have his head yanked off. Can't tell that to my kin in Texas or a few of 'em's liable to ride back here to even the score with these uncivilized New Mexicans.”

“No, we can't have that,” agreed Gene.

 

Seventeen

 

After a big meal and a long nap, the three made the hike up to the clearing on the mountainside again. Gillom had more energy this breezy spring day since he hadn't done any horse breaking that morning. As he placed playing cards in their shooting tree, he noticed Sam rubbing his aching ass.

“Look a little butt-sprung, Mister Graham.”

“That horse broke
me
.”

“Aw, Sam. Horses are noble steeds. The cowboy's best friend,” replied Gene Rhodes.

“Not mine. Horses are strictly transportation. Can't see making pets out of 'em.”

Gene took a tender seat on his stump to watch the fireworks.

“Why, Mister Graham. You'll neve' make a good cattleman with that attitude.”

“Exactly,” agreed Sam as he checked his Colt Bisley.

Gillom started practicing his gun juggling, tossing one revolver by the handle to catch again after a full rotation in the air. With his right hand he essayed a tougher toss, catching his other Remington by the barrel after one full flip. Then he was pulling both pistols at once, tossing them across his body in the air, catching them in opposite hands and reverse-twirling the guns back into his dual holsters at the same time.

“You oughta join Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, Gillom,” applauded their ranch host.

“You pull that fancy stuff in a gunfight, they'll be nailing your coffin shut before you can take a bow,” warned Graham.