The Law of a Fast Gun (11 page)

TWO DAYS AFTER THE RAID, MAYOR JAMES CORNETT
and the city council of Braggadocio called for a town meeting, and since the only place in town large enough to hold the meeting was the Hog Lot Saloon, the mayor asked John Harder if he would make his establishment available.

“Sure, I’d be glad to,” Harder replied. He smiled. “Hell, that has to be good for business.”

“I’m also going to ask that you close the bar during the meeting,” Mayor Cornett said.

“Now wait a minute, James,” Harder answered. “First you ask me to let you use my place for a meeting, which is fine by me. But then you tell me I can’t serve any drinks. If I do that, we’re going to have some mighty upset and thirsty people.”

“If they are that thirsty, they can go to Foley’s.”

“Fine, now you are giving my business to my competition,” Harder complained.

Cornett sighed. “If you’d like, I’ll issue an executive order closing Foley’s until the town meeting is over.”

“No,” Harder said. “No, don’t do that. Foley and I get along pretty well. I don’t want to do anything that would make it bad for him. Just get the meeting over with as soon as you can.”

“Look on the bright side of it, John,” Cornett said. “You’ll have people here who have never set foot in your place before. You might wind up getting some new customers out of this.”

Harder smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. Hey, maybe I’d better get the place spruced up a bit before everyone shows up.”

True to his word, John Harder had his saloon sparkling clean by the time the people began showing up. Millie and the other girls, who normally dressed as provocatively as possible, were wearing demure clothing, and they acted not as bar girls, but as hostesses, serving coffee and helping the visitors find seats for the meeting.

Even though extra chairs and benches were brought in, there still wasn’t enough seating for everyone, so many were standing along the walls. The mayor and city council took their places behind a table set up just in front of the piano. If a reminder of the midnight raid was needed, the bullet-scarred piano served that purpose.

Hawke was standing alongside the piano, leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. He saw Gideon McCall come in, and wondered if this was the first time the preacher had ever been in a saloon. Then he recalled the conversation he and McCall had on the night of the raid. It was strange and enlightening to see them conversing, and as Hawke thought back on it, he realized that this might not be his first time after all.

Parson McCall’s wife and daughter were with him, and Hawke was pleased to see that a couple of men got up to offer their seats. Gideon seated his family, then came over to stand beside Hawke and looked at the piano.

“I’m sorry about your piano, Mr. Hawke,” he said. “It certainly looks beyond repair.”

“Yes, well, in a way, it’s hard to tell, because it wasn’t that much of a piano to begin with,” Hawke joked.

“Mr. Hawke, I know how it is with people like you.”

“People like me?”

“Yes, people like you who have God-given talent. I’m talking about artists, writers, musicians,” Gideon continued. “You do what you do not merely to make a living, but because it is something you have to. You might call it a divine discontent. So anytime you feel that you must play the piano, please know that you are free to come play the one at church.”

“Thanks, Parson.”

“Gideon,” McCall said. He smiled. “I had a name before I had a title.”

Hawke chuckled. “Gideon, sometimes I get the impression that you had a lot before you had a title.”

Before Gideon could reply, Cornett banged his gavel on the table to call the meeting to order. “Folks,” he called.

“How long is this meeting going to last, Mayor?” someone asked.

“Not too long,” Cornett answered. He banged the gavel again. “If you folks will quiet down a bit, we’ll get this meeting started.”

“Mayor,” someone called from the audience, “some of us want to know…where was Marshal Truelove while all this was goin’ on the other night?”

Truelove was sitting at the table with the city council. “I was in Plumb Creek,” he said.

“Well, you shoulda been here. What were you doin’ in Plumb Creek, anyhow?”

“I’ll answer that, Matthew,” Cornett said to Truelove. “For your information, Mr. Lewis, Marshal Truelove was in Plumb Creek testifying at a trial.”

“Yeah, well, he should’ve been here, protecting us,” Lewis said.

“Lewis, what did you expect the marshal to do? Stand out there at the edge of town and face them down all by his own-self?” one of the others asked.

“Please,” Cornett said. “If you will all just be patient, we’ll get to the questions later. Now, it’s time to get the meeting started.”

Again Cornett banged his gavel.

“I’m going to open the meeting by calling on Vernon Clemmons.”

“Wait a minute,” Lewis said. “How come he gets to ask the first question?”

“Because he isn’t asking a question, he is making a proposal,” Cornett said. “Now, Lewis, if you don’t settle down, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Mayor,” Lewis said, “the other night, while my wife and me was sleeping, a bullet come through the window and hit the headboard not more’n two inches from my wife’s head. So you can see why I’m mighty interested in what’s going to be done.”

“Well, there ain’t nothin’ goin’ to be done, Lewis, unless you shut up and let ’em get on with it,” one of the others said.

There were a few nervous chuckles.

“Thank you, Mr. West,” Cornett said. “All right, Mr. Clemmons.”

The newspaper reporter came up to the front to address the others.

“Mr. Lewis, I understand your concern,” Clemmons began. “I’ve heard similar stories from others in town, and I think we are fortunate that no one was killed. That’s why I think the ordinance that my newspaper has proposed is more important now than ever before. I think—”

Clemmons stopped in mid-sentence and stared toward the front door. Others, seeing him do so, looked around as well. They saw Clint Jessup enter with two men.

“Please,” Jessup said when he saw everyone looking at him. “Don’t stop on our account.”

“Major Jessup, the bar is closed,” Cornett said. “If you must have a drink, Foley’s is open.”

“We’re not here for a drink,” Jessup said. “As you know, I own the Bar-J. These two gentlemen own the two other cattle companies that are here now. How come you didn’t send word that you were having a meeting?”

“I didn’t send word about it because this is a town meeting,” Cornett said. “It is for citizens of Braggadocio only.”

“It may be a town meeting,” Jessup said, “but it concerns us, so I figure that gives us the right to sit in.”

“Well, you figure wrong.”

One of the men on the city council said something to Cornett then, speaking so quietly that nobody but Cornett could hear him.

“Are you sure?” Cornett asked.

The council member nodded.

Cornett cleared his throat, then spoke again. “Very well, Major Jessup,” he said. “Our city attorney says you folks may attend.”

“Thank you.”

Clearing his throat, Clemmons continued his report.

“The men who rode into our town the other night, shooting wildly and raising hell, were cowboys.”

“You don’t know that they were cowboys,” Jessup called out loud, interrupting Clemmons’s presentation.

“Well, Major Jessup, we know they weren’t a group of store clerks,” Clemmons said.

The others at the meeting laughed.

“They were,” Clemmons continued, pausing for a moment while he considered his statement, “in all probability, cowboys. I’m not saying that they were Bar-J riders. Although there has been a suggestion that the raid was a diversionary effort in order to facilitate the jail break of three of your riders.”

“They are young and reckless,” Jessup said. “They saw the opportunity to leave and they took it. That doesn’t mean it was a raid to free them.”

“Major Jessup, one simply has to put two and two together. There was a midnight raid and your three men escaped.”

“If you think about it, Clemmons, it simply makes no sense,” Jessup said. “The three men would have been released the next day when I paid for your window. And by the way, I did pay for your window yesterday, did I not?”

Clemmons cleared his throat. “Yes, you did,” he admitted.

“Then I think we can dismiss that as a reason for the raid.”

Clemmons looked at the representatives of the other cattle companies. “Regardless of the reason, the fact remains that the raid did happen, and it was conducted by cowboys. They could have been any of the outfits, or they could have been a combination of several cowboys from all the companies. The point is, they came into town shooting indiscriminately, and we were lucky not to have any of our people killed.

“That’s why I feel that the ordinance I’m suggesting would prevent anything like this from ever happening again.”

“Do you have a motion for us to consider, Mr. Clemmons?” Cornett asked.

“I do,” Clemmons replied. “Mr. Mayor, I propose that the city of Braggadocio enact an ordinance that would require all cowboys who wish to visit us to surrender their weapons as soon as they come into town.”

“Hear! Hear!” someone shouted, and the others in the audience applauded.

“Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, may I say something?” Jessup called.

“Major Jessup, you haven’t shut up since you arrived. I told you, this is a meeting for citizens of the town. And since you are not a resident, you have no voice.”

“Mr. Mayor, that isn’t exactly true,” Gideon said, speaking for the first time.

“I beg your pardon?” Cornett replied. “What do you mean it isn’t exactly true?”

“There are no provisions in our city charter for a town meeting, as such. You can declare an executive session of the city council in which everyone is barred except members of the council. Or you can declare an open session of the city council which bars no one. And it certainly should not bar anyone who has a vested interest in the outcome, which Major Jessup and the other cattlemen certainly have.”

“Webber,” Cornett said to the city attorney. “Is the parson right?”

Webber nodded. “I’m afraid he is, Mayor.”

“All right, Jessup, you can speak,” Cornett said.

“Thank you, Parson,” Jessup said to Gideon. “Mayor Cornett, members of the city council, before you vote on any proposal that would take away the guns of the cowboys, I would like to remind you of something. Since we arrived here for the express purpose of shipping our cattle east—an operation, I might add, that is vital to the economy of this town—two men have been killed by gunfire.”

Jessup paused for a moment, and it had just the effect he was looking for, because every eye in the building was looking directly at him, and every ear was attuned to his words.

“The two men who were killed were Ian McDougal and the poor unfortunate soul you have on public display right now. Ian McDougal was a cowboy, a fine young man who worked for me. And I think it is generally assumed that the corpse you are now displaying is also a cowboy. Both, I remind you, were killed by citizens of your town.

“Not one citizen of your town has been killed by a cowboy’s gun. And the one, unfortunate incident that took the life of a young lady who worked in this very establishment was an accident. All who witnessed it agree upon that.

“So, what do we have? We have three dead.” Jessup held up three fingers. “The first, a young lady who was not
murdered, but who died in a tragic accident. Ian McDougal, a fine young man from an upstanding Iowa family who was shot and killed by Mr. Hawke, and the young man who had hurt no one, but was merely engaging in an act of youthful exuberance, shot down in the street two nights ago by an armed citizen of Braggadocio.

“And yet in the wake of these three deaths, what do you do? You propose to pass a law that would disarm the cowboys but leave the citizens of your town armed. Before you vote, I ask you to consider the fairness of that.”

Jessup sat down.

“Thank you, Major Jessup,” Cornett said. He looked at Clemmons. “Mr. Clemmons, do you have a response for Major Jessup?”

Clemmons applauded softly, almost sarcastically. “Bravo, Major Jessup,” he said. “You made a brilliant presentation of your case…unburdened by any obligation to the truth, but brilliantly presented, nevertheless.

“Your suggestion that the tragic death of Cindy Carey was an accident borders on the ludicrous. Miss Carey did fall down the stairs, but only because, in fear for her life, she was running from an enraged Ian McDougal. Mr. Hawke did shoot McDougal, but not until McDougal had already shot Bob Gary, and shot at Mr. Hawke.

“And, as for the—how did you put it? A poor unfortunate soul?—I would remind everyone that the poor unfortunate soul you are lamenting was a member of a large and rowdy band of riders who galloped into town at four in the morning, not to enjoy any of our amenities, but to shoot up the town. In fact, one could almost say it was reminiscent of the heinous bushwhacker bands who, during the late war, spread violence and terror among innocent citizens.”

Clemmons pointed to Lewis. “And, as Mr. Lewis can attest, barely two inches separated an act of…
youthful exuberance
,” he set the words apart, “from a tragic killing.

“I urge the town council to pass and to enforce a law that
would take away the cowboys’ pistols as soon as they come into town. Thus disarmed, we will enthusiastically welcome them to visit our drinking establishments, enjoy our restaurants, shop in our stores, and enjoy all that our beautiful city has to offer the peaceful visitor.”

“Does anyone else wish to speak?”

“I would like to speak,” a large-framed, white-haired man said. He was standing with the other cowboys.

“And you are?”

“You know me, James. I’ve been bringing cows to Braggadocio ever since the railroad arrived.”

“I know you. But for the record, please.”

“I’m Charley Townes, I own the Rocking T. We got here a couple of days ago. I don’t know what kind of trouble you’ve been having with the Bar-J, but you’ve had no trouble with the Rocking T, nor have you ever had trouble with any of my men. If you pass this law disarming cowboys, you are lashing the shoulders of many to get to a few. And if you do that, you may wind up causing more problems than you solve.”