The Desperado (19 page)

“What can I do for you, Pappy? Is there any trouble?”

“Maybe, Jim,” Pappy murmured.

Marshal Langly wiped his face with a neat, clean handkerchief. “What
is it, Pappy? What do you want?”

“I came to kill you,” Pappy said softly.

The words were soft, but they hit Langly like a sledge. You could
hear the wind go out of him, see his guts leak out. He groped for
words, but there weren't any there.

“That's the way it goes with men like us, Jim. You tried to kill me
and failed. A man only gets one chance in this business.”

“Pappy, what the hell's wrong with you? I don't know what you're
talking about!”

“Sure you do, Jim,” Pappy went on in that velvety voice of his.
“Hagan, our trail boss, came to you yesterday with a proposition. A
profitable proposition for you, Jim —maybe fifteen thousand dollars,
if you could figure out a way to keep Hagan from getting his split of
the reward.”

“How could I do anything to you, Pappy? Hell, I've been here all day
playing draw.”

“But not your deputies,” Pappy said. “They're right on the job. The
job you put them on.”

The saloon seemed to be holding its breath. I glanced at faces around
me. There were quizzical half-smiles on most of them, as if they
thought it was all some kind of a big joke. I turned back to Pappy. I
couldn't take my eyes off of him.

For a long moment he was silent, motionless. Langly was frozen. Then
Pappy said, “You might as well draw, Jim.”

The marshal's mouth worked. “Pappy, for God's sake!”

“I'll give you time to clear leather,” Pappy went on, “before I make
a move. That ought to make it about even.”

“Pappy, listen to me!” The marshal was begging now, begging for his
life. “Pappy, for God's sake, I had nothing to do with it!”

“I'll count to three,” Pappy went on, as if he hadn't heard. Then
something hard jabbed me in the small of the back.

I jumped, grunted instinctively. Pappy stiffened, but he didn't turn
around. “What's the matter, son?” he asked quietly.

I had to tell him.

“Somebody's got a gun in my back,” I said. “I'm sorry, Pappy. I guess
I'll never learn.”

I couldn't see who was holding the gun, and I didn't turn around to
look. The slightest movement, I knew, would only get me a sudden trip
to Boothill.

Marshal Langly started to breathe again. He stopped sweating and
shaking, and his face began to get some color. Suddenly he sat back and
laughed out of pure relief.

“Pappy Garret,” he chuckled after he caught his breath. “The
notorious gunman!” Then his voice barked. “Unbuckle your cartridge
belts and drop your pistols to the floor!”

Or I would get a bullet in the back, his eyes said.

For an instant I wondered if Pappy really cared what happened to me,
as long as he could take his revenge out on Langly. But I didn't have
to wonder long. Wearily, he unbuckled the belts and the pistols dropped
at his feet.

“All right, Jim,” he said tiredly. “I guess you've got it going your
way now.”

Langly had his own .38 out now. “You bet I have, Pappy. I've got it
going my way and that's the way it's going to stay.” He sat back,
looking pleased with himself. “You didn't think your old friend Jim
Langly would be the one to bring you to your knees, did you? Well, you
were wrong, Pappy. You haven't got any friends— not even that
kill-crazy kid you've been riding with. Sooner or later he would have
turned on you, because he's just the same as you are.”

He was enjoying himself now. Him with a pistol in his hand and
Pappy's .44's on the floor. And me with a gun in my back. He wasn't
afraid of anything now. He was a hero and enjoying every minute of it.
But the crowd in the saloon was still too stunned to be sure that is
wasn't a joke.

“You know what you are, Pappy?” the marshal smiled. “You're a mad
dog. You kill by instinct, the way a mad dog does. I'll be doing the
whole country a favor by locking you up and turning you over to the
Texas authorities.”

My stomach sank. I might as well die here as on a carpetbag gallows.

But Pappy didn't move. He said, “I don't suppose the price on my head
had anything to do with it.”

Langly went on smiling. He could afford to smile now. He got up from
the table and said, “All right, Bass, take the kid's guns and we'll
lock them up.”

The man behind moved around in front. When he got around to face me I
was too startled to guess what was going on in Pappy's mind. The man
was Bass Hagan.

He must have come into Abilene right behind me and Pappy, but he
hadn't used the same trail we had. He stood there with the pistol in my
belly, grinning that wide grin of his.

“The pistols,” he said. “Hand them over, kid.”

And then I began to get it. Pappy still had his back turned to me,
but I knew what he must be thinking. I reached very carefully for my
right-hand pistol, slid it out of the holster.

“Butts first,” Hagan grinned. He was the careful kind. He was
standing back far enough so that I couldn't rush him, even if I was
crazy
enough to rush a man with a cocked pistol in his hand. “Just
hand them over, kid,” he said.

If he had known more about guns and gunmen he would have done as
Langly had done, ordered me to unbuckle my belts. But he didn't know. I
took the pistol by the barrel, slipping my finger into the trigger
guard, and held it out. It had been a beautiful maneuver when Pappy had
done it. But this time it wasn't Pappy. And the gun in my belly was
loaded and cocked.

Maybe I would have handed the gun over if he hadn't been grinning.
But he kept on grinning and I thought, There never would have been this
trouble if it hadn't been for you. And my hand did the rest.

The pistol was just a blur as it whirled forward. The hammer snapped
back as it hit my thumb on top of the turn, and fell forward.

I think Bass Hagan began to die before the bullet ever reached him. I
could see death in his eyes even before the muzzle blast jarred the
room, before the bullet slammed into his chest and he reeled back
without ever pulling the trigger.

The shot affected the saloon customers like a stunning blow of a pole
ax on a steer. They stood dumb, watching Hagan go to his knees and die,
then fall on his face. Even Langly couldn't seem to move.

But Pappy could. He sliced across with the edge of his hand and sent
the marshal's little .38 clattering to the floor. A split second was
all it took. I wheeled instinctively to turn my pistol on Langly, but
Pappy said sharply:

“No, son!”

For some reason, I held my fire. Nobody but Pappy could have stopped
me then. But Pappy's voice did it. I held the hammer back and my finger
relaxed a little on the trigger.

Pappy said, “He's not worth wasting a bullet on.” But his eyes, not
his voice, put the real bitterness into the words. “Come along, son,”
he said, picking up his guns. “I guess Abilene's not our town after
all.”

Well, if that was the way Pappy wanted it... I started toward the
doors, moving sideways, trying to keep my eyes on both sides of me and
on the bar mirror on the opposite wall. Then Pappy said:

“Just a minute, son. The marshal will be going with us.”

I began to get it then. With the marshal dead, our chances of getting
out of Abilene would be cut down to nothing. But with the marshal going
with us, under the threat of sudden death if anybody tried to stop us,
then maybe we could do it.

I waited, covering Pappy's retreat. Langly's mouth was working again.
He looked as if he was going to be sick on the floor.

“Pappy, for God's sake, can't you take a joke?” he said quickly. “You
don't really think I'd turn you over to the Texas police, do you?”

Pappy's face didn't show a thing. He reached out with a clawlike
hand, grabbed the front of the marshal's ruffled shirt, and gave him a
shove toward the door. Then he paused for just a moment to address our
stunned audience.

“I don't guess it will take a lot of figuring,” he said, “to guess
what will happen to the marshal if anybody tries to follow us out of
town.” He waited another moment to make sure that they had it clear.
Then he said, “All right, son, let's be moving.”

I waited at the doors, keeping the crowd covered, while Pappy got our
horses in the street. He said something under his breath and Langly got
on a gray mare that had been hitched beside Red. It was funny, in a
way. Men with guns on both hips, pushing and shoving in both directions
on the plank walk, and none of them bothering to give us a second look.
I slammed the batwings then, turned and vaulted up to Red's back.

We fogged it down Texas Street in a wedge formation, Langley in the
point and me and Pappy on both sides. Pappy let out an ear-splitting
yell like a crazy man, then drew one pistol and emptied it in the air.
But Pappy wasn't so crazy. The crowd in the street, thinking we were
drunk trail hands, scattered for the plank walks, and we had a clear
road to travel out of Abilene.

“Make for the dust!” Pappy yelled, pointing toward the low-hanging
red clouds rising up from a herd coming in for shipment. I crowded
Langly on my side, turning him to the west. I looked back once as we
went into the dust, but nobody was coming after us yet.

I didn't like the idea of making a getaway along the trail of
incoming herds. Too many people could see us. But pretty soon night
came on and we didn't have to depend on the dust for concealment. Then
we swung to the west, Langly still in the middle.

At last we came to a creek, and we stopped there to let our horses
blow. Pappy seemed to be in good spirits again. He kept looking at the
marshal with that half-grin of his.

“Jim,” he said, “it looks like your friends in Abilene are going to
take our advice and look after your health.” Then he added with mock
soberness, “They sure must love you, Jim. But you always did have a way
with people, I remember.”

The marshal had got over his scare. I guess he already saw himself as
good as dead, and there wasn't anything to be afraid of after that.

He said, “You'll never get away with it, Pappy. They'll get you. No
matter where you go, they'll get you.”

“Maybe,” Pappy said mildly, “but I doubt it. I hear law dogs don't go
snooping around much in No Man's Land, down in the Oklahoma country.”

Langly spat. “No Man's Land is a long way off.”

I could almost see Pappy grinning in the darkness. I caught a glimpse
of steel as he drew his right-hand pistol, and I thought, without any
emotion at all, This will be one more to add to Pappy's score.

But he didn't shoot. There was a blue blur in the night, and then a
sodden thud as the pistol barrel crashed the marshal's skull. Langly
dropped leadenly out of the saddle and hit the ground. Casually, Pappy
bolstered his .44.

“Now why the hell did you do that?” I said. “You're not going to
leave him alive, are you?”

Pappy said, “Jim will do us more good alive than dead. When he gets
back to Abilene, maybe he'll send a posse down to No Man's Land. But
he'll have a hell of a time finding us there.” He looked over to the
east. “The Osage country,” he said, “down in Indian Territory. That's
where we'll make for. The Osages like the cavalry about as well as we
do, and white man's law even less.” He nodded. “That's the place to
make for.”

It was a long ride—half the width of Kansas—from Abilene to the
northeastern border of the Oklahoma country. But Pappy had traveled it
before and he knew every foot of the trail, even at night. We left
Langly on the creek bank with a knot on his head and without any pants.
Taking the marshal's pants had been something that Pappy had thought of
on the spur of the moment, and he still grinned as he thought about it.
“Losing his pants,” Pappy chuckled, “will be almost as bad on Jim as
getting killed. Besides, he won't get back to Abilene in such a hurry
if he has to scout around for a horse and another pair of pants.”

By this time, doing the impossible, crossing half of Kansas when
every law officer in the territory was out to get us, didn't surprise
me. I had come to expect the impossible from Pappy. I began to suspect
that he would live forever, even with the net drawing tighter and
tighter around him all the time, because he knew instinctively what to
do at exactly the right time. While Langly, and maybe the army, were
cutting tracks all over southeastern Kansas and No Man's Land, we were
heading for Indian Territory.

And we made it, in that walk-canter-gallop system of march that Pappy
had developed, traveling only at night and going to elaborate pains to
cover our trail. We came to the wild-looking hill country, bristling
with pine and spruce and hostile Indians—a place where not even the
government agents dared to go without military escort. And not often
then.

We found a natural cave about ten miles from the border, and Pappy
said that was good enough. There was plenty of wild game to keep us
eating, and water in a small stream for us and the horses.

I remember the day we rode into the place. Pappy stood in the mouth
of the cave, grinning pleasantly, not bothered at all at the
possibility of having to stay here for months before we dared venture
out into civilization again.

“Well, son,” he said, “this is going to be our home for a spell. We
might as well settle down to getting comfortable.”

I felt an emptiness inside me. A kind of hopelessness. I felt as if I
had cut away the very last remaining tie to the kind of life I had
known before. This was living like an animal, killing instinctively
like an animal.

I tried to keep the sickness out of my voice as I said:

“Sure, Pappy. This is our home.”

That was spring, in June, and it wasn't so bad at first. We made
friends with some of the Osages. They were on our side the minute they
learned that we were enemies of the white man's government. Sometimes
they would bring us pieces of government issue beef, but not often,
because the government didn't give them enough to stay their own
hunger. Mostly, Pappy and I lived on rabbits that we trapped, or
sometimes shot. Occasionally the Osages would bring us a handful of
corn, and we would parch it over a fire and then grind it up and make a
kind of coffee. Once in a great while, an Indian would overhear
snatches of conversation about the white man's world and would relay
the information to us.