Gunman's Song (22 page)

“However you want to play it, Shaw, said Dawson, his eyes scanning the street warily.

“Gentlemen, I don't mind telling you,” said Caldwell in a shaky voice, “I'm just about to come unstrung here. I hope I'm not going to be sick!”

“Do the best you can,” said Shaw. “You're the one they're going to think just came from seeing the doctor.

“So that was good thinking,” said Dawson.

“We'll see,” said Shaw.

The crowd out front of the Ragged Tent Saloon parted, giving first Shaw then the other two plenty of room. Inside, Shaw stopped long enough to look around, seeing a long plank bar lined with bottles, glasses, and beer mugs. A cigar burned in a large copper ashtray. Flies circled puddles of beer. The short, one-eyed bartender's mouth dropped open at the sight of Lawrence Shaw standing less than twenty feet from him. Behind Shaw and beyond the tent flap the crowd swelled, wanting to push forward into the saloon but unable to until he stepped aside and gave them room.

“Lord God, Fast Larry Shaw,” the owner rasped. “It's you, ain't it!” He began wringing his hands together. “Welcome, welcome,
welcome
to my saloon, Mr. Shaw. And you two fellows too! My name's Leo Crumb. I can't tell you what an honor it is to have you.”

Shaw nodded and touched his fingers to his hat brim, walking across the dirt floor to the bar. “Mr. Crumb, set us up three shots of rye and three mugs of beer.”

“Yes, sir, at your service!” said Crumb, already
snatching glasses, mugs, and a bottle of rye. Seeing Shaw reach for his money, Crumb said, “No, sir! Mr. Shaw, your money is no good here! Not now! Not ever!” As he spoke to Shaw he watched the drinkers crowd back in through the open tent flap and line up along the bar. Even as they shoved and poked one another for their own space, they left a wide, clear space for Shaw and his party.

“Much obliged,” said Shaw to the bar owner. Cray Dawson noticed the uncommitted manner in which Shaw had reached for his money. Dawson realized that Shaw was just going through the motion and already knew that he wasn't going to pay for anything.

“How long since Willie the Devil was through here?” Shaw asked, implying that he knew Willie the Devil had been there; it was just a question of when. He looked along the bar, letting the drinkers know that he was talking to them as well as the bar owner.

A silence ensued. But then the whiskey-sodden mule skinner stepped away from the bar, staggered in place, and asked boldly and drunkenly, “What is it worth to you to know?”

“Shut up, Greasy!” said Crumb. “You don't know nothing no way!” He turned to Shaw and said, “To tell you the truth, Mr. Shaw, Willie the Devil ain't the kind of man I'd want thinking that I jackpotted him—”

“Nonsense,” Mace Renfield called out from just inside the tent flap. “Tell Fast Larry Shaw what he wants to know.”

A dead silence set in like a heavy cloud above the drinkers. Renfield walked across the dirt floor slowly,
Red and Harvey stepping through the tent flap and following him closely. Shaw turned from the bar and gave him his flat stare.

“Look, Mr. Renfield,” said Crumb nervously, “Mr. Shaw came to the Wells—this is the first place he came to, right here at my saloon!” He looked past Renfield and at the crowd that had gathered inside the tent flap. Even the bartender from the Buck Horn Saloon had left his post. He stood staring, his stained white apron still on. “What does that tell you about whose saloon is the best?” said Crumb.

Nobody answered.

“Good day to you, Fast Larry,” Renfield said to Shaw in an almost mocking manner, without raising a hand to his hat brim.

“Renfield,” was all Shaw said in acknowledgment, also without raising a hand to his hat brim.

Noting the silence among the drinkers, Renfield said, “Oh? What's this? Nobody wants to speak up?” He turned quickly toward Shaw, seeing how Shaw might react. But Shaw made no response. “Well, then, I'll tell you, Fast Larry Shaw. Willie the Devil was through here…oh”—he considered it—”about a week ago?” He looked at Red and Harvey for help.

“Yeah,” said Red Logan, staring straight at Cray Dawson as if sizing him up. “A week ago sounds about right.” Dawson didn't give an inch. He leveled his gaze into Red's eyes and seemed to lock on them until Red finally blinked and looked away.

Caldwell saw Harvey Tuell staring at him, but he couldn't bring himself to look the man in the eyes.

“Now that I think of it,” said Renfield to Shaw, “the Devil told me that you might be looking for
him…I believe he said there's some dirt between you and his boss, Barton Talbert.” Shaw only stared silently.

Renfield shook his head and chuckled. “Barton Talbert…now there's a man who just seems to draw trouble at every turn in the road.” He took on a serious expression, then said almost between the two of them, “I heard what he and his boys did. You have my sympathy.”

Shaw continued to stare at him.

“But the Devil did ask me if I would do him a favor, and I told him I would.”

“Why are you doing this, Renfield?” Shaw asked bluntly, cutting him off.

Renfield looked surprised. “I beg your pardon?”

Shaw said, “It's not because you need the reputation…you're almost as famous as I am.”

“Almost?” said Renfield. “There's reason enough right there!” He spread a grin. Tossing a glance to Red Logan and Harvey Tuell. “Hear that? I'm
almost
as famous as Fast Larry Shaw.”

Red and Harvey both responded with tight smiles. “Yeah,” said Red, ain't that the berries?”

“It's not for reputation, Renfield,” said Shaw, raising his full shot glass, sniffing the aroma of the rye whiskey, then setting it down without drinking it.

“Huh-uh, I can't buy that. You've done your share of killing. You're not out to prove anything to anybody. What is it?”

“Can I be perfectly honest with you, Shaw?” said Renfield, after a second of contemplation.

“Sure, why not?” said Shaw.

“The fact is, you offend me, sir,” said Renfield.
”You always have. I can't say why, but there it is. So with no further to-do over the matter, let's step outside, walk it off, and get it done. What say you, Shaw?”

Cray Dawson watched closely, seeing Shaw take his time, seeing Renfield grow impatient. For a man who had no idea whether or not his gun hand was going to fail him, Lawrence Shaw seemed to have all the confidence in the world. Shaw raised the shot glass again, sniffed the rye, and this time swirled it slightly in the glass, looking at the amber whiskey as if within it lay the secrets to life. Renfield stared in rapt anticipation. Shaw started to touch the glass to his lips, but then stopped and set it down again.

“Damn it to hell, drink it!” Renfield shouted. “I'm calling you out, Shaw! Quit fooling around! Let's go!”

Shaw took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh, then said, “No, I'm not going to kill you, Renfield…not today, anyway.” He shrugged. “I've got too much to do. Now if you had given me a good reason, like some of those others did…like I killed your cousin, your brother, something like that, I might oblige you. But I'm not going to kill you just because you don't like me…just because something about me
offends
you.”

“There, you see?” said Renfield, pointing his finger. “That's the very thing right there. That attitude of yours, you arrogant, self-centered son of a bitch!”

The drinkers held their breath.

But Shaw chuckled slightly and said, “Nice try, Renfield.” Then he turned to Caldwell and said, “Are you feeling better yet? Did the doctor fix you up?”

“I'm all right,” said Caldwell, amazed at how his
voice didn't crack with fear the way he thought it would if he had to speak.

“Then let's get back on the trail,” Shaw said to both him and Dawson. “We've got a long ride ahead of us.”

“No, Shaw!” Renfield shouted. “You're not going to put me off! You either draw or I'll kill you where you stan—”

Renfield never finished his words. His hand never touched his gun butt. He flew backward, his head snapping back at an odd angle as Shaw's bullet hit him between the eyes. Dawson saw Shaw's Colt streak up from his holster, not as fast as the last time, he thought. But Shaw had rattled Renfield, then caught him completely off guard. In the split second it took for Renfield to hit the dirt floor, both Red Logan and Harvey Tuell went for their guns. From the corner of his eye Dawson saw Shaw's gun hand slump and knew that the one shot he'd made was all he was going to get.

Cray Dawson sprang forward, his Colt coming up toward Red Logan. He saw Logan's Colt explode straight toward him, he thought. But he had no time to duck, or even to flinch. His hammer fell and Red Logan flipped backward and landed atop Mace Renfield even as Red's shot whistled past his head. Seeing Red Logan go down, Harvey Tuell dropped his gun and bolted from the tent so fast his hat flew off his head.

At the open tent flap, Buddy Edwards yelled, “
Nooo!
” seeing his pal Vincent Mills sink to his knees with a gout of blood spewing from his chest. Dawson's shot had gone through Red Logan and hit Vincent by a sheer turn of fate. But Vincent, feeling
himself shot, responded instinctively, drawing his gun with his right hand while his left hand pressed against the flow of blood.

Cray Dawson also responded instinctively. Seeing Vincent Mills's gun come up pointing at him, he fired again, his shot knocking Vincent backward against Buddy Edwards, who had knelt beside his fallen friend. Blood splattered on Buddy's face.

Dawson saw that a terrible thing had just happened; but as he lowered his Colt, he saw Buddy Edwards reach for his range pistol with tears in his eyes. “You killed Vincent!” Buddy shrieked hysterically, firing repeatedly at Dawson. “You killed my friend!”

“Don't!” cried Dawson. But Buddy kept firing, one bullet slicing through Dawson's shirtsleeve. Then Dawson fired once with deliberation and the shot silenced both the slow-witted cowboy and his rusty range pistol.

In the fury of gunfire, in order to protect himself and his saloon, Crumb grabbed a small pistol from his trouser pocket and started to aim it at Cray Dawson, but Caldwell, who appeared to have been frozen in place, suddenly drew his pistol and cocked it toward the bartender.

“Don't shoot!” Crumb shouted, letting the small pistol fall from his hand as if it had turned red-hot. Caldwell stood visibly shaking, yet he kept himself under control.

Cray Dawson shot a glance around the saloon, then at Shaw, seeing the way his gun hand hung limp at his side. Shaw managed to raise his pistol enough to drop it into his holster, but Dawson could tell the move had taken everything out of him. “Everybody
stand real still,” Dawson said, fanning his Colt back and forth, making sure the fight was over.

“Mister,” said the drunken mule skinner, “you just killed two cowboys who never done anybody any wrong in their lives!” He pointed at Buddy Edwards. “That one was simpleminded to boot!”

“I didn't mean to shoot them,” said Cray Dawson.

“Shut up, Dawson,” said Shaw. “We all saw how it happened.”

“If he just hadn't drawn that pistol!” said Dawson.

“I said shut up, damn it!” Shaw snapped. “You don't have to justify saving your own life to anybody.”

Dawson swallowed a tight knot in his throat and lowered his pistol. He knew Shaw was right…but somehow being right didn't help at all.

Shaw led Dawson and Caldwell out of town quickly, keeping a close watch on the trail behind them. When the three stepped down from their saddles inside a strip of oak and juniper woodlands along the banks of Turkey Creek, Shaw took a bottle of rye from his saddlebags with his good hand and pitched it to Cray Dawson. “What's this for?” Dawson asked, giving Shaw a look that bordered on hostile.

Shaw pulled a sawed-off shotgun from his bedroll, clamped it under his arm, and said to Dawson, “What do you think it's for?” Then he turned without expecting an answer and gathered the horses' reins. “If you don't want it, throw it in the creek.” He handed the three sets of reins to Caldwell and nodded toward a stretch of sandy soil filled with scrub brush, wild grass, and mesquite. “Better stake them instead of hobbling them, Undertaker,” he said. “We might be getting some visitors from the Turkey Track Ranch tonight.”

“But won't the folks tell them it wasn't our fault?” said Jedson Caldwell, taking the reins.

“Yeah, the folks will tell them,” said Shaw. “But my experience is that folks see and hear things the way they want to see and hear them. Sometimes the
only thing that'll settle what happened in a gunfight is another gunfight.” As he spoke to Caldwell he gave Cray Dawson a concerned gaze, seeing he had opened the bottle and raised it to his lips in a long, guzzling drink. “Go easy, Dawson,” he said. “If we do get company, I don't want you walking sideways.”