Gunman's Song (26 page)

“What can I do for you, Mayor Bland?” Barton Talbert asked the stoop-shouldered man standing before him. The mayor fidgeted with the brim of his worn derby hat, taking a moment to summon up his courage before raising his eyes to Barton Talbert, who sat tilted back in a wooden chair with a boot hiked up on the tabletop. The rest of the outlaws lounged along the bar, watching in curiosity. Bo Kregger stood rigid beside Barton Talbert's chair with his arms folded, a scowl on his face.

“Mr. Talbert, sir,” said Mayor Bland, “I…that is, we…the town council, that is, have had several complaints about the behavior of your men.” He fidgeted in place, his eyes fearful and unsteady.

“No,” said Barton Talbert, looking greatly concerned, “tell me it ain't so, Mayor. My men? Misbehaving?” He gave the faces along the bar a stern look, then said to the mayor, “Are these just wild, unfounded rumors, or is there some particular thing you can put your finger on?”

The mayor ventured a nervous look around the saloon. Both bat-wing doors lay broken on the floor. The saloon's large windows were a pile of broken glass shards. A wall stood blackened and charred by
flames. In a rear corner stood a horse with Gladso Furlin sitting passed-out drunk in the saddle. “Nobody is blaming anything on anyone in particular,” the mayor said. “I think it's more of an overall rowdiness that this town can't abide.” He cleared his throat and wiped a hand across his wet brow. “They have asked me to come and point this out to you and to…well…” He hesitated. “To ask you and your men to leave.”

As the mayor spoke, Denver Jack Fish walked through the open doorway dragging two freshly slaughtered goats behind him, blood smearing behind them. “Leave?” said Barton Talbert in stunned disbelief, gesturing toward the dead goats. “My goodness, Mayor, we was just getting prepared to invite this whole town to an old-fashioned fiesta!” He grinned broadly. “Compliments of me, of course.”

“And me,” said Bo Kregger in a low growl.

“Yes, excuse me, Bo,” said Talbert. “Compliments of me
and
my
good friend
Bo Kregger.”

Seeing the outlaws were in a better mood than they had been since their arrival in Brakett Flats, the mayor pressed on. “I…that is,
we
appreciate your offer, Mr. Talbert, but I'm afraid there have just been too many complaints.”

“And they decided that since you
are
the mayor, it would be only fitting that you be the one to ask us to leave?” Talbert chuckled. “You are one game peckerwood,” he added. “I have to give you that.”

“Mr. Talbert, we're just a peaceable little town here…we like to welcome everybody. But you have to admit, this is a pretty unrestrained group of men you have riding with you.”

“
Unrestrained?
” blurted Jesse Turnbaugh through
his thick, tangled black beard, jumping out from the bar as if prepared for a gunfight. “Nobody calls me
unrestrained
and lives to tell about it!”

“Easy there, Jesse!” said Talbert, raising a hand toward him as if to hold the outlaw back. “I don't think the mayor meant to single you out, did you, Mayor?”

Mayor Bland looked terrified. “Oh, no! No, indeed! I'm referring more to an overall disruptive attitude!”

“Disruptive
attitude
! Now you're stepping on
my
toes,” said Denver Jack Fish, dropping a rope he was using to string up the goat carcasses. He stepped forward, wiping his palms on his trousers.

“Boys, boys,” said Talbert in a mock show of trying to calm the men. “Let's not allow the mayor's fit of cruel name-calling drive us to rash violence.”

“I certainly didn't mean to call anyone a cruel name,” said Mayor Bland. His face had turned chalk white beneath a deep layer of sweat.

“Of course you didn't,” said Barton Talbert. “I can see this is not exactly your area of experience.” Then he said to the men, “I'm sure the mayor is new at this sort of confrontation.”

“Well…yes,” the mayor said, sweating heavily, rounding a finger in his white shirt collar. “If we had a sheriff, I believe he could better express what I'm trying to commun—”

“There's the problem, all right,” Talbert butted in. “There's no sheriff here! Had I known that to begin with I ain't sure we would have stopped here. I don't mind telling you, Mayor, a prudent man wants the comfort of law and order anywhere he goes these days.”

“Please, Mr. Talbert,” the mayor said, seeing how
he was being strung along by the outlaws and their leader, “I'm only trying to get along with you, see if we can come to some sort of—”

“I know what!” said Talbert, cutting him off again. “We'll elect you a sheriff right here and now! All these men, all these guns…!” He thumped his palm soundly on his forehead. “Why the hell didn't I think of this before?”

“Mr. Talbert,” said the mayor, almost pleading, “I don't want any trouble; this town doesn't want any trouble.”

“Nonsense, Mayor Bland!” Talbert boomed with a grin. “It's no trouble at all.” He turned to the men, saying, “Boys, which one of you would like to make a bid for the office of sheriff in this small but, I feel, very promising community!”

Bobby Fitt spit on the floor in disgust and said, “Brakett Flats is the worst shithole I ever stepped foot in. I'd like to see everybody who lives here fall over and choke to death!”

“Well, there, Bobby,” said Barton Talbert, “I can see we won't be calling upon you for any campaign speeches, will we?” Grinning up at Bo Kregger, he said, “Make a note, Bo, no goodwill speeches from Bobby Fitt.”

From the doorway Blue Snake Terril called out through the roar of laughter from the men, “This ain't no child's game here, Barton! We've got some hard killing coming our way.”

The laughter fell. Mayor Bland looked sick to his stomach, sweat running down his cheeks. Barton Talbert looked over at Blue Snake and said, “I know it ain't no child's game, Snake, damn it. But I don't see where we've got much to worry about now that
Bo Kregger is guarding our flank. Ease up; have a drink. Where have you been, anyway?”

“I rode back a ways with Curley and Stanley, making sure they'll do what they're supposed to when Shaw shows up.”

“Don't you worry about those two ol' long riders; they're both tougher than pine knots,” said Talbert.

“I know,” said Blue Snake, “but I spent most of the day firing this baby.” He patted his holstered pistol. “When Shaw gets here, I don't plan on leaving my fate in anybody's hands but my own.” He shot Bo Kregger a look, saying, “No offense, Kregger.”

“None taken,” said the surly gunman.

“Lawrence Shaw?” the mayor said, his eyes widening even more. “Shaw is coming
here
? To Brakett Flats?”

“That's right,” said Barton Talbert. “Now you see why we need a sheriff so desperately?”

Mayor Bland only stared, unable to respond for a moment. Finally he said, “Fast Larry Shaw isn't a troublemaker. I've never heard of him having any trouble with the law.”

“Not yet, you haven't,” said Talbert, standing as he spoke and walking over to where Gladso Furlin sat in his saddle in a drunken stupor, a whiskey bottle standing between his thighs. “But then Shaw hasn't yet met our new sheriff here.”

He gave Gladso's horse a slight nudge on the rump, sending it forward with Gladso wobbling in the saddle. A new roar of laughter rose up from the men as the horse walked calmly out the door, Gladso tilting dangerously to one side. “I better go get him before he breaks his damned neck,” said Gladso's brother, Harper, hurrying from the saloon.

Turning to Mayor Bland, Barton Talbert said, “He ain't looking too spry right now, Mayor, but once he sobers, he'll be a sheriff this town will be proud of!”

Laughter erupted again. At the bar, Blue Snake poured himself a shot of rye and tossed it back, saying under his breath, “Damned fools! Fast Larry Shaw is going to walk right through the lot of them.”

Seeing the look on Mayor Bland's face, Barton Talbert looped an arm over his shoulders and said, “You think you've seen some
unrestrained
behavior? Hell, Mayor, this little fiesta wingding ain't even started yet!” He drew the mayor closer, saying into his ear, “I know there's some young women lives in this town…now where have you got them hiding?”

“No, honestly, there are no young women here…only the ones you've seen!” said Bland. “I'm afraid you're mistaken! We're not hiding anyone!”

The mayor winced at the feel of the cold metal gun barrel suddenly pressed against his ear.

“Don't lie to me again, Mayor!” Talbert growled, “or I'll clean your ears with this forty-five; then we'll
all
go ask your wife. I bet she'll tell us if we ask her polite-like, don't you think so?”

At the crest of a dry creekbed, Cray Dawson stood up in his stirrups for only a second and gazed up across the higher edge of broken land on the far side of a wide, sandy basin dotted with mesquite and creosote brush. When he sat down Jedson Caldwell started to rise up and take a look for himself, but Shaw said, “Stay put, Caldwell,” causing him to sit back down in his saddle.

“I didn't see anything worth seeing,” said Dawson, as if to satisfy Caldwell's curiosity.

Jedson Caldwell waited, hoping someone would explain why he shouldn't rise up and take a look. Shaw poured a thin trickle of water onto a waddedup bandanna and pressed it to the back of his neck. “That's known in these parts as Sidewinder Ridge,” he said, nodding toward the distance where a white, piercing glare of sunlight mantled a long ledge of jagged earth. “Years ago, one Texas Ranger held back a band of Comanche for three days from a position along that rim. He had a Henry rifle and a Patterson Colt. It's an easy place for a good rifleman to pick your eyes out.”

“Oh!” Caldwell seemed to sink lower in his saddle. “So you think there's some of Talbert's men waiting up there?” he asked, squinting as he studied the harsh land through the sun's glare.

“If they're not, they're damned fools,” said Shaw. “They know I'm coming. We know the Devil ran to them in this direction. Barton Talbert left somebody up there to ambush me; you can count on it.”

“Then what are we going to do?” Caldwell asked, looking back and forth between his two companions.

“What are we going to do, Dawson?” Shaw asked, his way of passing Caldwell's question off to Cray Dawson.

Dawson turned his horse slightly. “All they've seen so far is our dust,” he said to Caldwell. “We're going to follow this creekbed around them as far as we can. Then we're going to wait until dark and come up behind them.” Dawson looked to Shaw to see if he agreed.

“Sounds good to me,” Shaw said. He held his horse back for a moment and let Dawson take the lead.

A mile across the basin, Curley Tomes and Stanley Little lay at the edge of the rim gazing out to where they'd seen the thin rise of dust only moments earlier. “Think it might have just been some elk or whitetail crossing in a hurry?” Stanley Little asked, keeping his voice down even though a mile of sand and brush lay between them and the veil of dust lying sidelong on the hot, dry air.

“Could be, I reckon,” Curley Tomes said, reaching up under his hat brim and scratching his moist forehead.

“Think it might just be some other travelers coming this way? Maybe somebody leaving Texas, heading up to Colorado? I heard there's lots of folks have been doing that lately.”

“Stanley,” said Curley Tomes, taking a deep breath, “who the hell did you ask all these questions before I came along?”

“There's no need getting belligerent about it,” said Stanley. “I was only asking to make conversation.”

“Go somewhere and make conversation with yourself,” Tomes growled, levering a round up into his rifle chamber. “You're starting to get on my nerves something awful.”