The Law of a Fast Gun (2 page)

“Jesse, how are you coming with that blanket?” Bert called.

Jesse pulled his pistol and cocked it. “You’re right,” he said as he started back.

Bert saw him coming, and saw Jesse raise his pistol.

“If you’re going to shoot me, Jesse, get it done,” he said. There was no panic in his voice. “You see where my pistol is. There’s nothing I can do to stop you.”

Jesse pulled the hammer back and aimed it. Then, sighing, he lowered the gun.

“Do it, Jesse, it’s your duty. You know that if our roles were reversed, I would shoot you.”

“Don’t tempt me, Bert,” Jesse said. He walked back to the horses, grabbed a blanket from one of them, then returned to where the Yankee captain was lying.

“Here’s the blanket,” he added, tossing it toward him.

“God go with you, Jesse,” Bert said.

“God?” Jesse shook his head. “No, you were right the first time, Bert. There is no God for the likes of us.”

Jesse walked around to examine the carnage. There were seventeen dead Yankee soldiers, as well as eight of the men who had come with him. That was nearly one-fourth of his entire outfit.

Jesse heard the train whistle and knew the train was coming back.

“You’d better get out of here,” Bert said.

Jesse hesitated.

“Go on,” Bert said. “I’ll tell them that everyone was killed.”

“Careful, Bert, that’s very close to a violation of duty, isn’t it?”

“Yes, well maybe some of my old roommate’s bad habits have rubbed off on me,” Bert answered.

The train whistle was much louder now, and the puffing of the steam engine could be heard quite near.

Jesse went back to the horses, where he scattered all of them but the ones he and Kincaid were riding.

“You couldn’t do it, could you?” Kincaid asked.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jesse said without answering him directly.

As they rode away, they could hear the train braking behind him.

One year later

The victorious Union Army was encamped in a five-acre field just outside Independence, Missouri. The field was dotted with white tents and red, white, and blue flags. To the south of the field, in an enclosed area, nearly one thousand men, former soldiers of the Confederacy, were being detained until their repatriation.

“Hey, Yank! When you goin’ to let us go home?” one of the detainees shouted. “You done said yourself that the war was over.”

“When we get all of you Rebel trash to sign the oath of loyalty,” the Union sergeant answered. “But if it was up to me, I’d just keep ever’one of you right there in that pen for the rest of your lives.”

“Yeah, well if it was up to me, we’da never surrendered,” the prisoner called back.

“Sergeant,” someone called. “Send the next twenty men over here.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant answered. He counted out twenty. “You men,” he said, pointing to a couple of tables, behind which sat Union officers. The tables were flanked by armed guards. “Go over there and take your oath.”

“Then what?” one of the men asked.

“Then you’re free to go home. Or wherever you want to go,” the sergeant said. “Just so long as you don’t bear arms against the U.S. government ever again.”

For the rest of the morning groups of twenty were marched over to the tables where the oath was admitted. The group Jesse was in was taken over at about noon.

“You fellas get in line there, and listen up to what the captain has to say,” a sergeant ordered.

“Men, the generosity of the United States government knows no bounds,” the captain began. “Even though you have taken up arms against us, we are a forgiving people. In a couple of minutes I’m going to ask you to take an oath of loyalty to the U.S. government. Once you take that oath, you are free to go.”

“Will I be a’gettin’ my rifle back?” one of the men asked.

“No. Officers may keep their sidearms. All other weapons are confiscated.”

“But, we’ll be a’needin’ them weapons for huntin’ and sech,” the man said.

“You should have thought of that before you took up arms against your country,” the captain said. “All right, now, step up to the table, one at a time.”

Jesse was third in line, and close enough to the table to hear what was going on.

“What is your name?” the captain asked the first man.

“Sergeant Ken Waters.”

“You aren’t a sergeant anymore, Mr. Waters. The Confederate Army no longer exists. Who were you with?”

“I was a Confederate,” Waters replied.

“You were all Confederate trash. I mean who was your commander?”

“First one and then another,” Kincaid said. “I don’t know how you Yankees did it, but we moved around a lot.”

“Did you ever ride with William Quantrill, Bill Anderson, Quint Wilson, Jesse Cole, or any other irregular unit?”

“What if I did?”

“I’ll ask the questions, Mr. Waters.”

“No, I never rode with any of them.”

“Very well, hold up your right hand and repeat after me. I, state your name.”

“I, Ken Waters.”

“Swear that I will never take up arms against the United States government again, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to same, so help me God.”

Waters repeated the oath.

“You’re free to go, Mr. Waters.”

“What about lunch?” Waters asked. “You fellas haven’t fed us any lunch yet.”

“You are a free man, Mr. Waters,” the captain said. “You are no longer our responsibility.”

“But I don’t have any money or anything. I don’t even have any cornmeal.”

“Next,” the captain said, ignoring Waters’s complaint.

Just before Jesse stepped up to the table, the captain who was doing the interviews was replaced by another officer.

“Who’s next?” the new officer called.

Jesse took a deep breath. The new officer was Bert Rowe, now a major.

When Jesse stood in front of the table, Bert looked startled. There was a long, silent moment while the two men stared at each other. Jesse braced himself for the inevitable.

“What is your name?” Bert asked.

Was Bert saying that he wasn’t going to betray him? Or was he just testing him?

Jesse took a chance.

“My name is Tobin. Don Tobin.”

“Mr. Tobin, have you ever ridden with Quantrill, Anderson, Wilson, or,” Bert paused for a long moment before he said the last name, “Cole?”

“I’ve never ridden with any of them,” Jesse replied.

“Are you willing to take the oath?”

“I am.”

“And abide by it?”

“Major, to me, abiding by an oath is a sacred thing,” Jesse said.

“Is that a fact? You mean like, an oath to duty, honor, country?”

“Yes,” Jesse said. He stared pointedly at Major Rowe. “Just like that.”

“I’m glad,” Bert said. “I’m glad that this war is over and the animosity and all its horrors are being put behind us.”

Bert administered the oath, then he and Jesse shook hands.

Jesse started to walk away, but Bert called toward him. “Mr…. Tobin…is it?”

Jesse stopped. Had Bert just been playing with him?

“I wouldn’t spend much time in Missouri, if I were you.”

“Thanks,” Jesse called back over his shoulder.

Jesse left the camp, walking toward Independence. He had no horse, and on his person he had no money and no weapon. But the war was over, and he was a free man. And he knew where twenty thousand dollars of Yankee greenbacks were buried.

One hour after Jesse left the camp, a lieutenant and a sergeant came over to Bert’s table.

“Major Rowe, be on the lookout for a man calling himself Don Tobin,” the lieutenant said.

“Don Tobin?”

“Yes, sir. We just got word that the man calling himself Don Tobin is really Jesse Cole.”

“And he’s here, in our camp,” the sergeant added.

“I wish you had come by earlier,” Bert said.

“Why?”

“I’ve already paroled a man named Don Tobin.”

“Damn!” the lieutenant said, hitting his fist in his hand. “Do you have any idea where he went?”

Bert shook his head no. “You know how this works, Lieutenant. Once these men are paroled, they are on their own.”

“Yes, sir, I reckon so,” the lieutenant said. “But we now have authorization to hang him on the spot just as soon as we find him. And after all the killin’ he done, well, that’s one fella I’d pure dee like to see strung up.”

Ten Years Later

EVEN AS THE FINAL CHORDS OF THE PIANO CONCERTO
were still reverberating through the Munich Opera House, the crowd erupted in thunderous applause.

“Bravo! Bravo!
Wunderbar! Prächtig
!” the crowd shouted in appreciation.

Standing, Mason Hawke turned to face the accolades and adoration of his audience, bowing in respect as the applause continued.

Someone in the audience began to whistle, and the whistling grew louder and louder until it became the whistle of an incoming cannon ball.

“Get down! Yankee artillery!”

It was then that Hawke realized that he was no longer on a concert stage in Europe wearing the formal attire of a pianist;
he was on a Civil War battlefield wearing the soiled gray of a Confederate uniform.

Hawke dived behind a nearby rock as the incoming shell exploded above, sending shards of red-hot shrapnel singing through the nearby tree limbs. He could hear the cannonading of Confederate Napoleon 32-pounders as they returned fire.

Thump thump thump.

His stomach shook with each blast.

Thump thump thump.

The acrid smoke of the black powder charges drifted across the field as the cannonading continued.

Thump thump thump.

“Hit ’er again, George! You’ve just about got her!” someone shouted.

Thump.

Hawke opened his eyes and looked around his room. The shade was pulled, but a small hole in it projected onto the wall a detailed image, not a shadow but a photographic image, of the cottonwood tree that grew just outside the saloon.

“Again!” the man called.

Thump.

“That got ’er. We can get the wheel off now.”

Hawke sat up in his bed and swung his legs over to one side. He sat there a moment, gradually getting reacquainted with the world to which he had said good-bye the night before.

He thought of his dream, or rather, the two dreams that seemed to merge into one. Both dreams recalled incidents from his past. He had, indeed, been a concert pianist. “The best young talent to come from America in many a season,” was the way the
London Times
put it in the article that told of Hawke being knighted by Queen Victoria for his contribution to the world of music.

Hawke had enjoyed a grand tour of the Continent, playing before the crowned heads of Europe and winning over audiences everywhere he appeared. Therefore his dream of an applauding audience was not without justification.

But the other dream, which had encroached on the first, was equally valid. Hawke had also endured the cannonading of Yankee guns, after he’d abandoned his musical career to answer what he considered to be a higher calling—the calling of honor. Hawke left Europe before his tour was completed, and returned home to join his father’s regiment and fight for the South.

It had been his intention to resume his musical career after the war. But as it turned out, that wasn’t possible. Many of the men who were not killed were maimed and scarred by the war. And some of the worst scars were not visible.

Hawke was one of those men. For every relative and friend he saw die, and for every enemy soldier he killed, he had lost a small part of himself. Sometimes he found himself envious of his father and brother, both of whom were killed in the war. It would have been better, he believed, to have died with his dreams intact, than to wander through the rest of his days…a life without purpose, and a man without a soul.

Padding barefoot across the plank floor, Hawke picked up the porcelain pitcher and poured water into a basin. He washed his face and hands, then worked up a rich lather and shaved.

It was already mid-morning, but the heavy green shade that covered the window kept out most of the light. Not until he was dressed did he open the shade to let the morning sunshine steam in. He stood at the window for a moment, looking out at the street below.

The banging that had intruded into his dream, indeed had shaped it, came from the freight office across the street. There, an empty wagon sat on blocks with one of the wheels removed. Another freight wagon was just pulling away, while a third was being loaded.

Braggadocio, Nebraska, was an industrious town, full of commerce and activity. By painted signs and symbols, the various mercantile establishments made themselves known
to the citizens of the town, as well as to the farmers and ranchers who came in to buy their supplies. Next to the freight office, the druggist was sweeping the front porch of the apothecary, his business advertised not by words, but by a large cutout of a mortar and pestle. Next to that, a striped pole advertised the barbershop, and next to that a big tooth led patients to the dentist.

From his position at the window, Hawke could not see the big, painted, golden mug of beer just below him that indicated the saloon. The porch overhang blocked his view. This building, where the Hog Lot Saloon was located, was not only Hawke’s living quarters, it was also his place of employment.

After sunset Braggadocio became a totally different town. As industrious as it was by day, it was anything but that at night. Then, for those who availed themselves of the opportunity, Braggadocio was a place of pleasure. And as a piano player in the Hog Lot, Hawke contributed to that pleasure.

“Hmmm. Good morning.”

Hawke turned back toward Cindy Carey, one of the other people who contributed to the pleasures to be found in Braggadocio. Cindy was a twenty-two-year-old woman whose copper hair and smooth skin made her one of the most popular of the bar girls who plied her trade at the Hog Lot. Sitting up in bed, she yawned and stretched, and when she did, the sheet slid down, exposing both her breasts. The dissipation of her profession not yet having left its mark, Cindy’s small but well-formed breasts were firm and smooth.

“Good morning,” Hawke replied. “I trust you slept well?”

“I slept like a log,” Cindy said. She smiled. “And I won the bet.”

“What bet is that?”

“That you could do more than just play the piano,” she said.

“Damn,” Hawke teased. “And here I thought you loved me for myself. Now I find out you were just trying to win a bet.”

Cindy’s smile disappeared. “Hawke, no, it was more than
that,” she said. “It was a lot more than that. I just meant that—”

Hawke laughed. “I was teasing you, Cindy,” he said. “You’re a sweet girl and I enjoy being with you.”

Cindy laughed.

“What is it?”

“I don’t think I’ve been called sweet since I was seven years old. I’m a whore, remember?”

“Is there any law that says a soiled dove can’t also be a sweet person?
What
you are isn’t
who
you are.”

“Yes,” Cindy said, smiling again. “Yes, I guess that’s right, isn’t it?”

“You coming down to breakfast?”

“I’ll be down soon as I’ve dressed.”

Leaving Cindy still in his bed, Hawke went downstairs into the main part of the saloon. The one connection he maintained with his concert-tour past was in his mode of dress. Whereas the average citizen of the town, as well as habitués of the saloon, dressed in denim and plaid shirts, Hawke wore a suit with a silken vest, often complimented with a cravat. So finely turned out was he that most didn’t even notice the Navy Colt .32 that he wore in a holster rig, low on his right side.

John Harder, the man who employed Hawke, didn’t own the only saloon in town. There was one other, called Foley’s. But the Hog Lot was easily the most popular, and it was the only one that could afford a piano and a pianist. The old upright piano had seen a lot of wear, but with bits of wire here and a few wooden wedges there, Hawke managed to keep it reasonably tuned.

He took a seat at a table halfway between the piano and the potbellied wooden stove that sat in a sand box. The stove, cold now in the summer months, retained the aroma of charred wood from its winter use.

Betty Lou Tinsdale was sitting at the next table, drinking coffee. She had lost her husband during the late war, and
turned to prostitution as her only means of support. When she was too old to be “on the line,” she became a cook, in the employ of John Harder.

As soon as Hawke sat down, Betty Lou called over to him. “Will Cindy be joining you for breakfast?”

“What?”

“Cindy,” Betty Lou said. “Is she joining you, or is she sleeping in?”

“What makes you think—” Hawke started, but Betty Lou interrupted him with a whooping laugh.

“Hawke, you aren’t going to try and tell me that Cindy Carey didn’t spend the night with you, are you?”

“You know about that?”

“Of course I know about it. Honey, do you think for one moment that she didn’t let everyone know who her special beau was last night?”

“I, uh, didn’t know it was such common knowledge.”

“Common knowledge? Hah! I wouldn’t be surprised if Vernon Clemmons didn’t wind up doing a story about it in the
Journal
. By the way, I made some gravy this morning. I thought it might go good with biscuits.”

“Betty Lou, anything is good with your biscuits,” Hawke replied.

“You do have a silver tongue, Mason Hawke,” Betty Lou said as she started toward the kitchen.

John Harder came out of his office and sat down at Hawke’s table. “Betty Lou,” he called. “How about some coffee?”

“Coming right up, hon,” Betty Lou called back over her shoulder.

“How’d you and Cindy get along last night?” Harder asked.

“Fine, just fine,” Hawke replied, his voice showing his irritation.

“Well, if you were going to do it, last night was the night for it. The Bar-J will be in town today. I expect Cindy and all
the other girls are going to be very busy for the next couple of weeks.”

“The Bar-J?”

“It’s a ranch up in Cherry County, owned by a man named Clint Jessup. He’s bringing his cows down to the railhead here, to ship back East. And that’s a big herd, which means there will probably be from twenty-five to thirty riders.”

“That many thirsty cowboys should be good for your business.”

“Yeah, I suppose….” Harder said, almost wistfully.

“Well, won’t it be?”

“I’m sure it will be. But there’s been trouble every year. You see, the cowboys have been out rounding up the cows, then pushing the herd down. That means they’ve been away from civilization for about six weeks by the time they get to Braggadocio. They’ve got a lot of pent-up energy, and sometimes they can get a little out of hand. So much so that there have been a few in town who have suggested that we close down the cattle pens so they have to go somewhere else to ship their cows.”

“Is that likely to happen?” Hawke asked.

“No, not really, I don’t think. Of course, there are always a few that make trouble. But mostly they just drink and get a little sentimental.” Harder chuckled. “If it’s true that music hath charms to soothe the savage beast, then I’ll be counting on you to play the kind of music that will keep them calm.”

“It would be easier for me to play that kind of music if you had a piano worth playing,” Hawke said, pointing to the cigar-scarred and beer-stained upright. “With business picking up, maybe you could buy a new one.”

“A new one costs too much.”

“What I don’t understand is why you will hire a pianist, but you won’t buy a decent piano.”

“It’s damned if I do and damned if I don’t,” Harder said. “If I hire you, I can’t afford a piano. If I buy a new piano, I can’t afford you. If you want a good piano to play, you can
always go down to the church. I haven’t spent that much time in the church, but Bob Gary tells me they have a very fine piano.”

“Bob Gary is a churchgoer?”

Harder chuckled. “Yeah, a bartender a churchgoer. Who would’ve thought it? But he’s a regular. Anyway, he tells me they have a fine piano, so I reckon you could always play that one if you’d like.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Hawke said. “I’ll do the best I can with what I’ve got.”

“I thought you might,” Harder said. Then, looking toward the front of the saloon, he added, “Well, speak of the devil.”

Harder was talking about Bob Gary, who had just come in. Although the bar wouldn’t have any drinking business until noon, Gary came in early every day in order to wash the glasses and take inventory of his stock.

“’Morning, Bob,” Hawke called.

“’Morning, Hawke,” Bob replied.

Betty Lou came in from the kitchen then, carrying Hawke’s breakfast, plus a coffeepot and three cups.

“I seen you comin’ in and figured you’d be wantin’ some coffee too,” she said to Bob.

“Thanks, Betty Lou,” Bob said. Then he looked at Hawke. “So?” he asked as he lifted his cup.

“So?” Hawke replied, looking confused. “So what?”

“How was it last night?”

“That’s what I want to know too,” Betty Lou said. “I asked him, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it.”

“What the hell?” Hawke said in exasperation. “Did I leave my damn door open last night?”

Harder, Bob, and Betty Lou laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Cindy asked, coming down the stairs in the midst of all the laughter.

“Oh, just a joke Hawke made,” Harder said.

“You want some breakfast, honey?” Betty Lou asked.

“Just some coffee,” Cindy said. “But I’ll take one of
Hawke’s biscuits,” she added, reaching across the table for it as she sat down.

“Well, we need to get back to work,” Harder said. “It’ll also give you two some time together. You might need it.”

With Betty Lou, John Harder, and Bob Gary gone, Hawke and Cindy were alone at the table. Hawke lifted his cup to his mouth and looked over the rim at Cindy while he drummed on the table with the fingers of his left hand.

“What?” she asked innocently.

“What do you think?”

“They were talking about us, weren’t they?” Cindy asked.

“Yes.”

“I wonder why.”

“Yes,” Hawke said. “I wonder why.”

“Are you angry?” Cindy asked.

“Should I be?”

“Hawke, you aren’t mad at me, are you?” she said. “I mean, every girl that works here has been wanting to get you to go see the elephant with them. When you agreed to go with me, I…well, I just couldn’t keep quite about it.”