Dead Man’s Hand (14 page)

* * *

And then, Deke comes riding into town. He doesn’t even try to pretend he’s come for
any reason other than to kill me. He rides straight up to the store. It’s early in
the morning, I’ve just opened up shop, and he walks in, draws his gun, and leads me
out to the place where I killed all those other men, just like I’m going to have to
kill Deke.

Maybe this time will be the time. Everything feels wrong. I’m standing with the early
morning sun in my eyes. I haven’t even fully woken up yet. And the night before, I
drank myself to sleep, thinking of all the men I have killed, men who’d asked for
their own death sentences by wanting to draw against me. My legs felt heavy, my whole
body was sluggish.

Deke did the staring thing. And I am thinking, what is with the gunslinger staring
thing? Why do we have to do this? And my mind sort of drifts off and maybe it’s because
I am lost in thought that I don’t close my eyes this time, but for whatever reason,
I have my eyes wide open which means I am looking at Deke’s butt-ugly face and I see
exactly how it happens.

“Now,” Deke says.

Don’t do it
, I say.

Except when I say it, Deke hears it, in his head, hears me, responding to him, even
though he hasn’t said a word, and although his hand is reaching for his gun, the sound
of my voice inside of his head freezes Deke, just like three dozen others before him,
freezes him in terror at the feeling of someone else inside his head, and in that
instant, my gun is out, my finger already squeezing the trigger.

* * *

After Deke, it just gets worse.

On the one hand, I have become the town hero. The de facto sheriff. Can I say de facto,
in this kind of story? Aw, hell with it. It’s my story. I can say it if I want to.
Women come to me every week, asking me to kill their husbands for beating them. Bad
men come through town looking to exact revenge, and I am the designated guardian of
our population. I have a cheering section. I have fans. Hell, I have a
job
.

My fans get a little cocky, knowing their guy is always gonna be the winner, knowing
that in just a second, I’m going to wipe the smug grin off of the stranger’s face.
Knowing, but not knowing anything. Just knowing their guy is going to win.

And that feels good. I’m not going to lie: it is nice to be loved.

* * *

But the feeling doesn’t last long.

I win. But I don’t feel good about it. Now they’re coming with faster guns, bigger
guns. People want me to close my eyes. People are placing bets. It’s not fun, and
it’s not fair, and I don’t feel good. This is murder, what I’m doing, even if it looks
like self-defense. But what am I supposed to do, turn down the gunfights? Turn my
back on my town, my fans? Live looking over my shoulder? Wait until someone catches
me in a bathtub, or asleep in my bed?

I try to shoot some of them in the hand. I’m a good shot, but I’m not that good a
shot, and some of them die anyway. And the ones who live through it are madder than
hell and demand we go again as soon as their hand heals.

And before long, the town turns, too. They’ve gone beyond asking for protection. They
developed a thirst for it, for the sport of it. Boys line up, imitate my style. The
women, now freed from their abusive husbands, look at me different. I get dirty propositions.
Sometimes more than that.

Some of the men who were my fans now sneer at me. I walk into the saloon, and the
music stops. People look at me, whisper. Made a deal with the devil. Some kind of
witch. Saw him going into an Injun tent and come out without a soul.

Now the kills are piling up. There are hardly any gunfighters left to come challenge
me.

I walk through town now, alone again. I go back to working at the store. People pretend
none of it ever happened. Pretend I didn’t save their asses. People forget quickly.

I almost forget myself. Almost.

* * *

And then comes the day. This day.

It starts early, with the moon looking out of place, and rain falling from a cloud,
there must be a cloud, but it’s nowhere to be found. Maybe up high and thin, a very
diffuse cloud, but whatever it is, there’s water cleaning our roofs, there’s a half
moon in the morning sky.

The stranger who rides in today is different. He doesn’t seem to be looking for a
fight. At least not in the way the other ones all have.

And I’m minding the store, selling picks and shovels. Selling dreams and tools. Selling
snake oil and stories from my ledger. Keeping the books, feeling the judgment, hearing
the thoughts.

The stranger—and this one is a she—she is just out there, on her horse. Not bothering
anyone. Not looking for me. I’m not even sure why she’s here. It’s been so long since
we’ve had a sincere visitor that I almost don’t know what to do.

So the two of us are in agreement: no fight. I feel sure she feels the same, although
it’s not quite yet clear why.

And then I hear it: the town, goading us on. It’s the town who does this, who pushes
us together for their amusement.

They push us together, me and this mysterious woman.

We are forty paces from each other. The sun seems to have gone into hiding (maybe
behind the invisible cloud). But for whatever reason, everything seems wrong again.
Like against Deke, but more intense.

I look over at Ratface.

Come on. You gotta be my help, back me up.

This is your battle
, he says.
I’m here to help
.

It takes a second for it to occur to me what has just happened.

Oh, that’s what happened. Ratface never opened his mouth while saying any of that
to me.

—
You too, I say?

—
Yeah.

—
And you’ve known all along. You’ve just left me out here, to kill all these poor…

—
Hold it right there. Those men came looking for you. They asked for your best, and
they got it.

—
But you could have at least told me. Helped me puzzle through this.

—
That’s all part of your learning. Your training, if you will.

—
My training? I’ve killed half a hundred gunslingers.

—
Those men had it coming. You did the world a favor by taking them from it. Gunslingers
don’t seek each other out like that. They respect each other. Generally. Like me giving
you space. To work it out. Those men weren’t real gunslingers.

—
If they weren’t, then who is?

—
She is
, Ratface says, pointing to the woman forty paces from me.

The town’s whooping and hollering for a fight now. So loud I can barely hear when
this stranger puts her lips right up to my mind and says,
Welcome to the club, buddy. You thought you were the only one?

Ratface says,
There’s a lot of evil out there, outside of our safe little town, outside of your
organized little general store. Welcome to the new world—you ready for it?

I look back at my opponent, and square off. I don’t do the staring thing, and neither
does she. We’re both silent, on the outside, and the inside. I wonder how many others
there are like us out there, wonder why a quiet little bookkeeper. But then I think,
why not me? People think it’s your hand, that’s what makes you a gunslinger. Or it’s
your eyesight, your reflexes. And sure, it is. It’s about who can do the stare-down,
about people who don’t flinch. But it’s also about this, right here. This little moment,
in between moments. When you and the other person are just waiting. It’s about a moment,
knowing what a moment is. It’s about picking the right moment. Knowing that a moment
is a coin, you flip it, on one side is death. The other side: life. For one more day.
For one more moment.

San Francisco was beautiful in the spring, Malone reflected, as he and his horse Worthless
ambled toward town. Unfortunately, the town was Carson City, Nevada. Wild, seductive
San Francisco still lay many days ride to the west, over the imposing crest of the
Sierra Nevada. Malone didn’t brood over the time required, however. He would get there
soon enough. He always got there, wherever
there
happened to be.

Heading down the last bit of forested hill into the city proper, they were closely
watched by a pack of gray wolves. Lying in wait for something small, opportune, and
filling, the wolves instead glimpsed Malone and Worthless and, so glimpsing, held
their peace. Wolves were intelligent critters, and this pack no less so than the average.
Or maybe it was the wolf’s head cap that Malone wore that caused them to shy off,
or the fact that the cap turned to look at them with glowing eyes. Instead of the
howls of outrage that might have been expected to resound from the pack upon encountering
such a sight, there arose from the cluster of close-packed predators little more than
a few intimidated whimpers. Also, one or two peed themselves.

It had to be admitted that there wasn’t much
there
to Carson City, but its civilized surrounds were a considerable improvement on the
vast desert wilderness Malone had just crossed. He was tired and thirsty and hungry
and thirsty and sleepy and thirsty. Leaning forward, he gave his mount an encouraging
pat on the side of its massive neck.

“Oats a’comin, Worthless. Oats and a soft straw bed. Enough o’ the former so’s you
won’t be tempted to eat the latter, like you did that time in St. Louis.”

As the steed of impressive size and indecipherable breed turned its head to look back
at Malone, the mountain man noted that the leather strap across the animal’s snout
was bulging again.
Have to attend to that
, he told himself. Wouldn’t do to get the locals gossipin’.

Room and stable stall arranged, Malone repaired to the bar in the front of the hotel,
sequestering his odiferous enormity at the dimly lit far end of the counter so as
not to unduly panic the other patrons. The husky mustachioed bartender with the wide
impressionist apron waited upon him with good cheer, which the mountain man downed
steadily and in copious quantities.

That was where Hank Monk found him. The stagecoach driver noted the impressive number
of empty bottles arrayed like so many tenpins on the wooden bar in front of the slumped-over
giant, carefully appraised the looming imbiber’s degree of sobriety, and determined
to embark on the potentially risky business of conversation. While the whip was somewhat
smaller than the average man and Malone a bit larger than the average bear, the driver
was possessed of the surety of someone who made his living guiding rickety, rattling
coaches pell-mell down ungraded mountainsides. He was cautious but not intimidated
as he cleared his throat.

“Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Amos Malone?”

Thundercloud brows drew together and eyes like mouths of Dahlgren cannons swiveled
’round to regard the supplicant. “Don’t know as how many folks regard it as a pleasure,
but unless there be another hereabouts sportin’ the same name plate, I’m him.”

Monk smiled politely. “I have heard it tell that you are a bit mad.” The man seemed
fully prepared to chuckle or bolt for the front door, depending on the response.

The giant shrugged, the action jostling his expansive salt and pepper beard. “So have
I.”

“But not to your face.” Monk stroked his own, far more neatly trimmed, beard. “It
would take a brave man to say that.”

“More usual-like they’re addled. I ignore all that they say. Actually, the entire
species is crazy. Mr. Darwin failed to note that observation in his book. I called
him on it but have yet to receive the courtesy of a reply.”

This response, like the name Darwin, held no especial meaning to the stage driver,
so Monk continued with his petition. “I would beg your assistance in a small matter
of considerable urgency, Mr. Malone.”

Turning away, the mountain man picked up a bottle with a particularly garish label
rich with Spanish words of false promise, and proceeded to down the remaining quarter
liter. This explained, Monk now understood, the absence of glasses on the bar.

“I don’t much cotton to beggin’.”

Monk pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Well then, I’ll pay you.”

Malone set down the empty bottle. “Better.”

“I’m presently a bit low on ready cash.” Monk dug into a vest pocket. “But I’ll give
you this.”

Intrigued, Malone turned sideways and leaned forward to inspect the pocket watch.
It was beautifully engraved and chased with raised images of horses and a coach. “A
fine example o’ the timekeeper’s art, Mr. Monk. Real gold, too.”

Monk looked proud. “Was given to me by Mr. Horace Greeley of New York, for getting
him on time to a meeting in Placerville everyone said he couldn’t make. I’ll give
it to you in return for your help.” He nodded at the timepiece. “Worth five or six
hundred dollars, I’m told.”

Malone examined the watch a moment longer before handing it back. “I reckon you’ve
used that watch as collateral in more than one dealing, Mr. Monk, and I expect there’ll
come a time you’ll need it again. What need is so desperate, then, that you’d be willin’
to hand it over to a stranger like myself with no guarantee o’ receiving its worth
in return?”

“I’ve a shipment to deliver to California and gold to bring back. The only man in
either state who I trust to ride shotgun messenger on such a trip is John Barrel.
He has been rendered indisposed by an affliction for which I am unable to find a cure.
From what I’ve heard whispered and rumored, Amos Malone might be the one man with
the wherewithal to bring him back to his duties.”

“I see.” Half-hidden beneath the lower lip of the wolf’s head cap, furrows appeared
in the granitic prominence of the mountain man’s forehead. “And would there be a name
for the nature o’ this affliction?”