Gunman's Song (2 page)

“There is no happiness without her,” said Shaw. Yet even as he spoke he collected himself gradually, reached inside his coat, and took out a bandanna. He gave it to Carmelita, then wiped his own eyes when she had finished and given it back to him. After a while Shaw freed himself from her arms and stood up, dusting his trouser knees. “I need to go to town and talk to the sheriff. I want the men who killed her to pay for it.”

“You mean you want to see them
hang
?” Carmelita asked, choosing her words.

“No,” Shaw said, the strength coming back into his voice, “I don't want to see them hang.” He picked up his dusty Stetson from where he had laid it on the ground and leveled it atop his head. He rubbed his eyes briskly with the bandanna.

Without another word, he walked toward the buggy while Carmelita stood in silence for a moment, watching him go. She wondered if even her dead sister Rosa had ever seen this man weep. She shook her head and pushed back a strand of her dark hair that had crossed her face on the wind. Well…his tears were a secret she would never reveal. With a parting look at her sister's grave, she made the sign of the cross and walked away.

Shaw sat stiff and silent all the way back to town, and Carmelita noted to herself how much she must look like her sister Rosa, sitting there beside Lawrence Shaw. If anyone didn't know about this terrible thing that had happened they might have easily mistaken her for her sister Rosa.
The Shaws,
she thought,
seeing the two of them as someone else might see them, crossing the flat stretch of sand, the horse holding its head high, her scarf licking back in the hot wind. She smiled softly and adjusted the riding scarf lower around her neck as she gave Shaw a glance.

“What?” Shaw asked, surprising Carmelita, who didn't realize his peripheral vision was wide and alert.

“Nothing,” she said softly. “I am just glad to see you are feeling better.”

“Feeling better?” he said quietly, taking a deep breath. “I don't think I'll ever feel
anything
again as long as I live.”

“I mean just for this moment,” she said.

Shaw considered it for a second. “For right now…I suppose I feel some better.”

“Yes, for this moment,” said Carmelita, “that is all I meant.”

When Shaw offered no further conversation but only stared out across the endless wavering stretch of sand, mesquite, and creosote, Carmelita gazed ahead and said nothing more the rest of the way into town. When they arrived in Somos Santos, Carmelita said, “I will take the buggy to the livery barn and ride the horse back to the hacienda. Will you be coming home tonight?”

Shaw's gloved right hand rested on the strippeddown bone-handled Colt resting in a one-piece tieddown Slim Jim holster. His expression was flat, yet it implied that she should know that this was no question to ask a gunman, particularly one who had had a stranger asking questions about him in his hometown.

“I mean, so I will know whether or not to prepare a dinner for you,” she added quickly.

“I don't know,” Shaw said. He stepped down from the buggy into the rutted dirt street and looked back and forth searchingly. “But don't worry…I doubt if I'll be hungry.” He walked away toward the sheriff's office.

“But you must eat,” Carmelita said. She stared after him for a second, wondering how she had said the wrong thing, or even
if
she had said the wrong thing. What kind of man was this her sister Rosa had married? Was he evil? she wondered, watching him walk away. Even with all the whiskey he had drunk throughout the day he moved like a man with great personal power and confidence, yet with a wariness and a conviction about him, like a man carrying a cross. No, this man was not evil, but dark and complicated, she answered herself—a man who had seen and touched much evil, and now had been touched upon by much evil. But she sensed no evil in him, not a part of his spirit, at least, she thought…or not in his heart.

When she realized he was not going to respond to her Carmelita coaxed the horse onward to the livery barn. She did not have to ask herself what her sister had seen in this man. She already knew. Her sister Rosa saw in him that thing that all women saw in all injured wild creatures that needed to be saved, either from the wilds or from the wildness of themselves. Carmelita knew that Lawrence Shaw had made Rosa ache inside for him. Rosa had never told her, but Carmelita knew it was so, because this was the same way Lawrence Shaw had always made her feel. She crossed herself quickly at thinking such a thing, hoping that she had not just brought some terrible fate upon both her dead sister's husband and
perhaps herself as well. But it was true, wasn't it? She hastened the horse toward the barn, not wanting to think about it.

Shaw walked on. Out front of the sheriff's office a man stood leaning back against the building, rolling a smoke, with his head lowered just enough to hide his face beneath his hat brim. Instinctively Shaw knew as he walked closer that this was not the young gunman Carmelita had told him about. Shaw looked him up and down, recognizing something familiar about him in spite of time and distance. “Cray Dawson?” Shaw said, stepping onto the boardwalk and stopping.

“Yep,” said the voice, but only after running the cigarette in and out of his mouth to wet it and firm it up. Then he raised his head slightly, giving Shaw a little better look at his face. “It's been a long time, Fast Larry.”

Shaw started to tell Dawson then and there that “Fast Larry” was not a name he went by anymore. There had been a time, a few short years ago, when Shaw had gotten a real boost out of hearing people call him Fast Larry. But no longer, especially now. Yet Shaw decided to let it pass for the moment. “It has at that,” Shaw replied. He watched Dawson raise his head more, bringing up a sulfur match, striking it, then touching the fire to the end of the cigarette. “Sheriff Bratcher's at the Ace High Saloon,” Dawson said, staring into Shaw's eyes. There was more to be said between them, and they both knew it. But each saw by the other's demeanor that anything that needed to be made right would keep until another time. There was no bad blood between them, only things that men needed to clear up in order to face
one another as men. “He figured you'd be coming to see him.”

“Obliged.” Shaw nodded.

As he stepped back down from the boardwalk and headed for the saloon, Dawson called out to him, “Fast Larry?” And when Shaw stopped and turned to face him, Dawson said, “She was a good woman, Rosa.”

Shaw only nodded and touched his fingertips to his hat brim.

Cray Dawson pushed himself forward easily from against the building. “Mind if I walk with you? I was fixin' to go there anyway.”

Shaw only nodded again, but he waited until Dawson walked down from the boardwalk in the same slow, sauntering style Shaw remembered from childhood. When the two walked toward the Ace High Saloon, Shaw asked, staring straight ahead, “How long you been back here?”

“Oh…a couple of months, maybe more,” said Cray Dawson. “You know there's a kid in town been looking around for you.”

“Yep, I heard,” said Shaw, acknowledging the matter, then dismissing it. “So you was here when it happened,” said Shaw.

“Yeah, I was here,” said Dawson. A short, stiff silence passed; then he said, “I saw them when they rode off down Comanche Trail.”

Dawson's words almost stopped Shaw cold in his tracks. But he managed to stare straight ahead and change neither his voice nor his expression. “Recognize any of them?” he asked.

“Just Barton Talbert and Blue Snake Terril. Of course, you already know about them. The other
weren't from these parts.” He looked Shaw up and down. “You're going after them, I know.”

“Yep,” said Shaw.

“Want some company?” Dawson asked, letting go a stream of smoke onto a hot breeze.

“Was you with Sheriff Bratcher?” Shaw asked without answering his question.

“Yep, but everybody give out before we made the border,” said Dawson.

“There'll be no ‘give out' riding with me,” said Shaw, as if in warning.

“I know it,” said Dawson. “That's why I'm offering.”

“I usually ride alone, Cray,” said Shaw.

“But this ain't
usually,
” said Cray Dawson. “I remember their faces.”

Shaw only nodded. “How eager was Sheriff Bratcher to find the killers?” Shaw asked.

Dawson caught the implication in Shaw's voice and said, “He's old, Shaw. He couldn't have handled this bunch anyway.” They paused on the street out front of the Ace High Saloon and Cray asked, “Can I say something?”

“Say what suits you, Cray,” said Shaw.

“I believe your reputation kept Bratcher and his posse from going any farther. For all anybody knew this bunch could have been aiming to kill you. Once the posse realized these men were bold enough to come looking for a big gun like you, it more or less took some of their bark off.”

“So the posse men were afraid of them,” said Shaw.

“That, and the fact that it looked like they were headed for the border,” said Dawson. “Not many
lawmen want to cross that water. You know how that goes.”

“Yep,” said Lawrence Shaw, “I know how that goes.”

They started to step onto the boardwalk out front of the Ace High Saloon when a voice called out twenty yards away, “Shaw! Fast Larry Shaw! I've been looking for you.”

Shaw and Cray Dawson turned, facing the young gunman who stood taking off a pair of leather gloves by loosening one finger at a time. Beside him stood a shorter young man wearing a tattered brown bowler hat. He took the young gunman's gloves and backed away.

“Want me to go get Sheriff Bratcher?” Dawson asked.

“It never changes anything,” Shaw said absently, keeping his eyes on the gunman, at the same time looking past him and from side to side, making sure nobody was hidden with a rifle just for backup. “The sheriff can't stop it.”

“No,” said Cray Dawson, “I meant to witness it, make sure you don't get accused of any wrongdoing.”

“Wrongdoing…I never get accused,” said Shaw, raising a hand slowly, pressing Dawson farther away from him. Dawson took the hint and moved back on his own.

“What is it, mister?” Shaw replied to the gunman, already stepping slowly sideways to the middle of the street.

“You know what it is, Shaw,” said the man. “It's five thousand dollars. That's what it is.”

“Dang!” Cray Dawson whispered, “five thousand dollars?”

Shaw answered the young gunman. “That'll get you into the ground real proper with a lot left over. But it's your call.”

From inside the Ace High Saloon the old sheriff had heard the young gunman call out Shaw's name. He stepped out through the saloon doors with his hand on a big Walker Colt holstered on his hip. Beside him stood a young deputy with a tin badge drooping down from his sagging shirt pocket. The deputy raised a sawed-off shotgun with his thumb lying across the hammer. “I know what it is too,” Sheriff Bratcher called out to both gunmen, “And I ain't having it. You want to get Shaw to kill you, take it somewhere away from Somos Santos.” As soon as Sheriff Bratcher spoke, he turned to the deputy and said in a lowered tone, “Freddie, get out from under me. Spread out along that boardwalk where you can do me some good. I hate for one shot to kill us both.”

“Howdy, Sheriff Bratcher,” Shaw said from the middle of the street without taking his eyes off the gunman.

“Howdy, Shaw,” said Sheriff Bratcher. “I see you've brought more trouble to my town.”

“I didn't bring it, Sheriff; it was here waiting for me,” Shaw said.

“I notice you didn't try talking him out of it, though,” said Bratcher.

“I figured that was your job, Sheriff,” said Shaw. “I won't kill him here in Somos Santos if I can keep from it.”

“I got news for you, Fast Larry,” the young gunman called out, “you ain't killing me nowhere, nohow. So let's get 'em pulled.”

“You heard the sheriff, mister,” said Shaw. “He said no gunfighting here.”

“To hell with him,” said the young man. “He can't stop it.”

“Whoa, now that's not using your head,” said Shaw. “We pull iron, the sheriff here and his deputy are going to be pulling iron too. When the smoke clears it won't matter what kind of showing you made against me…you'll never know about it.”

“I ain't going to be talked out of this, Shaw!” the gunman shouted. “I'm here to kill you, and nothing's going to stop me.” He cut a quick glance to where Freddie the deputy had hunkered down behind a wooden barrel. “You've got no right shooting at me…that's like you're taking his side!”

Freddie rose up with the shotgun hanging slack in his hands and looked along the boardwalk at Sheriff Bratcher. “Is that right, Sheriff?” he asked, looking confused. “Are we taking sides?”

“No, it ain't right, Freddie!” Bratcher barked at him. “Now get down and stay put!” The sheriff directed his next words to the young gunman. “I'm on the side of whoever is defending himself. I know Shaw here ain't going to draw first…so you're starting off in the wrong. If you was to kill him, which I know you won't, then I'll see to it you get tried for murder and hanged, or else you'll make a move on me, and we'll kill you where you stand. Now that's where you've put yourself today. It ain't working out quite like you had it figured, is it?”

The young gunman bristled. “I'm doing it! Shaw, come on, you ready?”

Shaw didn't answer. He only stared.

“I mean it, Shaw! It's time!” he shouted.

Shaw stood silent.

“Don't you want to know my name first?” the gunman asked.

Shaw only shook his head slowly.

“Son of a…” the gunman raged. His hand moved fast, as fast as any Shaw had seen lately. But not fast enough. Shaw's shot hit him dead center of his forehead before the young man got his pistol up level enough to get an aim. The gunman's shot went straight down in front of his boot. Shaw's Colt didn't stop even for a split second. It cocked toward the man in the bowler hat.