"Showdown On Sunset Ridge"
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dochermes"Showdown On Sunset Ridge"
10/30/1896
I.
Reining in his black horse high on a rise, Johnny Packard paused to watch the men working on the telegraph line. One youngster climbed nimbly up the prongs on a pole, tools dangling from a belt slung over one shoulder, and the foreman was cursing at him to be more careful. "Slow down. Those lines ain't a-going nowhere!"
Looking down, the Brimstone Kid felt a twinge of unprecedented melancholy. 1896. Hard to believe it was only another few years until a new century would start. The West was changing. The frontier was almost tamed now, with railroads and state lines dividing up the old territories into neat boxes. It wasn't like the raw savage country he remembered from when he had first left Brimstone, Texas. And that hadn't been so long ago, to tell the honest truth. He had been seventeen at that gunfight that had veered him into the dark life and he was thirty-eight already. Change had come like a tornado over the plains, leaving wreckage of lives that had to be rebuilt in new ways.
Rubbing the great stallion's neck affectionately, he realized too that Terror was getting awful old for a horse but still ran strongly and effortlessly all day if called upon. It was the cursed token Johnny wore under his hatband that kept the animal young, he was sure of that. The red metal coin that old Machingtok had gifted him with so long ago, it had changed both him and Terror beyond redemption. Across seven states, the story of the Brimstone Kid had been told and retold, growing more fanciful and unlikely over the years until he had to laugh when bits of it reached him.
No more than five feet four and one hundred and forty pounds, Johnny remained lean and quick as a puma, hardened by years of wandering through inhospitable terrain and among unfriendly peoples. His black boots and Levis were well-worn with miles of riding, but his red flannel shirt was almost new. Worn over it was the dark denim vest whose four pockets held most of his personal items; when a man spent so much time in the saddle and pants pockets were difficult to reach, a vest was practical. Pulled down over his shaggy red hair was a black Stetson with red trim and it was under the band around that hat that the curse of his life was carried.
Low on his hips, tied with thongs to his thighs, two molded leather holsters held matched Colt 45 revolvers... the 1875 Peacemakers. Now, during the day, they seemed no more than normal guns but then Johnny also seemed no more than a normal cowboy. He was seeing fewer and fewer men with irons on their hip these days. The need for it had ebbed.
The Kid shook himself from his reverie, tugged at the reins and clicked his tongue to get Terror moving. The sun was past its high point in the sky, it was already after twelve noon. "Come on, big fella, Cabot City is not that far away." They moved away, down the other side of the rise and found a well-marked road worn down by thousands of wagon wheels and steel horseshoes until it might as well have been paved. Johnny urged Terror to pick up the pace, and the big black horse eagerly leaped forward to gallop with the enjoyment of a two-year-old.
Only six miles from Cabot City, a side road turned off, rutted deeply by wagon tracks. Where the two paths diverged was a head-high wooden post supporting a sign into which had been hand-burned THE DOWLINGS - WELCOME. Johnny pushed his hat well back on his head and studied the name thoughtfully. His eyes were bright Kelly green, deepset in a bony weathered face. Dowling was not the name by which he had known Victoria Elliot. He smiled grimly. Many in this land went by names other than which they had been baptized. He guided Terror along the path, avoiding the ruts and trotting through the dry grass of late October.
The homestead was small, just a few cows grazing within a fenced-in field, some chickens scratching around and a half-dozen pigs in a mud wallow. Behind a long low plank building and next to a barn was a cultivated garden of vegetables, some melons and a bit of corn. Enough for two people to live comfortably, he gathered. The house was well-crafted, he decided as he rode up, great care had got into its making.
A shaded porch ran through the front of the building with windows on either side of the front door that was marked by a mounted buffalo skull. Two boxes along the railing stood empty, meant for flowers that had long faded this time of year.
Watching him approach, a tall handsome woman in a blue and white gingham dress with a white apron opened the front door and emerged onto the porch. Long dark blonde hair was tied up under a kerchief. She smiled a flash of perfect teeth and waved to him. "Hello there, Johnny. I had no idea if my message would reach you down by the border."
Dismounting and leaving Terror untethered, Johnny took off his hat to let it hang down his back by its cord. Without the Darthan coin near his brow, he felt more relaxed and human. "It's a sure enough pleasure to meet again, Victoria.. or should I call yuh by yore hitched handle, Mrs Boone?"
"We're going by 'Dowling' now," she answered as she waited for him to approach. She had been drying her hands on a cloth which she now put on the window ledge beside her. "George and Elizabeth Dowling are our names."
"I thought yuh might be tickled to see this item here. I found it for sale down in San Jorge, good two hundred miles from here." He handed over a battered dime novel he had been carrying in his saddle bags and she took it with a wry grin.
"Why, mercy on my soul, that illustration does not resemble me in the slightest!" she exclaimed in mock outrage. "I never ever used a rifle and certainly never on horseback. And that title is a right disgrace. 'The Lawless Exploits of Her Highness Victoria Sanders, the Queen of the Outlaws.' "
II.
Although he pretended to be embarrassed, Johnny deeply enjoyed the rare feeling of being fussed over as the former Victoria brought him a basin of soapy water and towels. He scrubbed his hands, face and neck, ran a wet comb through his dusty hair a few times and felt revived. She had brewed coffee over a fire she already had going in the kitchen and two cups of that hot strong beverage further lifted his spirits. It was infrequent that he felt secure enough to unbuckle his gun belt and hang it from a peg on the wall as he did now, but he did keep his Stetson on his back where he could feel the tingle of the cursed token against his shoulder blades. It was better if no one found out about that secret.
"We only knew each other for a week," she was saying as she bustled about the spotless living room with its colorful Navajo rugs and end table holding twenty books. A banjo hung on the wall behind them. "But that was some week! Between the posse from Wolf City and those renegade Crow braves, we had our hands full. You were surely a welcome sight. That was the first time I ever saw a genuine gunslinger in action."
"You also saw me after midnight, when I seemed a mite different," Johnny said. He was sitting carefully on the couch, hands folded and too aware of his dirty boots on the hardwood floor. "Yet you didn't show any fear."
"Oh, I believe everyone struggles with a dark side to their nature," she replied, sitting down herself in an overstuffed chair facing him. "Yours is simply more visible. I know deep in my heart you're a good decent man, Johnny."
"I try," the Brimstone Kid said. "What happened to that old veteran gunhawk you had with you? The one who fought the bottle?"
"I'm sorry to say he died within that year. Pneumonia. Everyone else in our gang was alive and well last I heard." She sipped at her own cup of coffee and placed it on the saucer resting on the table between them. Victoria had long slender fingers that even the drudgery of housework had not roughened yet.
"And you married that handsome young feller that was so sweet on you!" Johnny teased. "That makes me glad. You've got a fine home here in Colorado, this is a hospitable area far as I can tell."
"Well, we certainly couldn't stay up in Wyoming. Aside from me shooting that railroad man, we were wanted for train robbery and a dozen lesser offenses." Victoria added, "I never told anyone, but that fat old toad was preparing to violate me. His intentions were, shall we say, visible on his person."
"From all I've heard, Jacob McGrath was no-good any way you looked at him. Avengin' your daddy is all a body needs to justify a shooting in my opinion. But I want to palaver, Victoria. I was stayin' at a hotel in Jackson Springs when an old Indian scout I knew relayed you wanted to see me. He heard it from a trader he knew farther north. Folks in my trade have their own sort of telegraph spoken person to person."
The woman who had been called the Queen of the Outlaws without real justification stood up again and took their empty cups and saucers. "You fancy one more cup, Johnny?"
"Yes, ma'am and thank you kindly." He gazed around the room while she went back into the kitchen. There was a barometer on one wall, with a potted plant beneath it. On the mantle over the small fireplace sat a row of knick-knacks and momentoes beneath a painting of a clipper ship at sea. When she returned, he stood up to show as much manners as he knew. His life had been mostly rough and tumble among hard men who had their own code of behavior but he remembered some courtesy.
As he took a sip, he waited for her to speak. Victoria Elliot cleared her throat and began, "To be honest, Johnny, I hesitate to even ask you to listen. You've seen more than your share of danger in your life and I understand if you say this is not your concern. I'm worried about the sheriff, Hank Beaumont."
"What about him?"
"I've taken a liking to him. He's honorable and upright, and he welcomed me and Clay to town as warmly as if we'd been born and raised here. Beaumont only has five more weeks in office, he announced this is his last term and everyone expects his deputy to be sworn in after the election. Beaumont is getting long in the tooth, we all know that. His eyes are getting weak and his time of spending days in a hard chase in the saddle are over."
"Happens to us all," the Brimstone Kid offered.
"So true. This next part is confidential, I don't think it's common knowledge, Johnny, but I've been in his office and watched him working on papers. His hands are getting stiff with arthritis. A hook and draw would take him a few minutes these days, I'm afraid."
"I calculate his deputy would take over the rough stuff, then?"
"Normally. The problem is that a longtime enemy of his has come to Cabot City to call him out. He demands a showdown."
That visibly angered Johnny. "Dang, I blames this whole stupid business of face to face shootouts on them dime novels! So many folks have read those fool stories that they think it's the way things are really done. Back in the lawless days when I was a youngun, there never was a showdown like that. No slinger would be so simple as to stand up in plain view and wait for a mortal enemy to draw at a signal..."
"Newspapers have only added to misconceptions," Victoria said. "I've read so much nonsense about the Brimstone Kid. Be that as it may, the custom has become a matter of pride now. Men feel that they have to answer a challenge like that to keep their self-respect. What worries me is the outlaw issuing this dare is Carson Lee Brown."
The atmosphere in the room changed dramatically. Johnny Packard had not moved or tensed up, but there was a sharp edge in his voice. "He's a frightening man, no doubt. I've known folks who has seen Carson Lee Brown when the guns are barkin' and life hangs by a thread. They all say he's one of the best that ever was."
"I'm not asking you to take on Brown," Victoria said. "But I hoped you might see a solution that will keep Sheriff Beaumont safe with his honor intact. There isn't much time. Brown demands the Sheriff face him on Sunset Ridge today.. right at sunset."
Johnny whistled and shook his head. "Mebbe somethin' will come to me. If'n I meet with Brown first and let some air through his hide, folks would say the Sheriff was afraid and had hired me to protect him. Donahue wants to face Carson Lee Brown his own self. And this ain't the dime novels where a gunman can shoot the iron outta his opponent's grip without hurtin' him. That's simple foolishness. When two men draw on each other, at least one gets dragged away by the boots."
III.
Riding leisurely into town, Johnny Packard ignored the stares he invariably received as he studied the place. Cabot City was well developed, with a feed and grain store next to a livery that sold tackles and harnesses. There was a rooming house that advertised hot baths, shaves and haircuts. There was a steakhouse, two saloons almost next to one another, a general store that took up most of a building. The wide dusty streets were almost deserted, though. He saw no idlers lounging in front of the saloons or grocery, no children playing anywhere. One open wagon pulled by two horses took off out of town as soon as its driver had loaded it with a burlap sack of potatoes, boxes of canned goods and a sack of wheat. The man did not even glance back at the stranger who arrived with a six-gun on each hip.
Glancing up with his customary wariness, the Brimstone Kid saw a curtain being drawn closed again before eye contact would be made. Fear ruled these streets today. It hung heavy in the air like a thunderstorm about to break.
Johnny dismounted and walked Terror over to a watering trough. As the black stallion drank its fill, the Kid stared down the street at the boarding house. At the hitching post in front of that building was tethered a gorgeous golden palomino with white star on its noble brow. The animal stood patiently, dozing in the shade out of direct sunlight. Johnny looked more closely. Fastened behind the stuffed saddlebags was a Remington 30-30 in a leather boot and behind that was tied a sheathed Mexican machete tilted forward so it could be jerked free instantly. The Brimstone Kid smiled grimly. Odds said the rider of that golden horse was not used to a timid life.
Bringing Terror over, Johnny hitched his stallion to the post some distance from the palomino. The two animals snorted agreeably at each other and then settled down to rest with their legs locked. The Kid stepped up onto the porch that ran the width of the rooming house and slowly opened the door. A bell set on a curved bit of metal tinkled as he did so. Johnny found himself in a room with plenty of light from the big picture window and a wooden barber's chair set in the middle of the room. Leaning back in that chair, covered from the neck down by a sheet, a man about forty watched the Kid enter with icy dispassionate eyes. Not much of Carson Lee Brown's face showed over the layer of hot frothy shaving cream, just those eyes and a thick mop of glossy black hair that still gleamed from being washed and shampooed.
The gunhawk's hands were concealed under the sheet and Johnny knew with certainty a big .44 was gripped unseen in one of those hands. As he stepped into the room, Johnny Packard kept both his own hands resting on his gunbelt, near the buckle and not right next to his own revolvers.
"I reckon we know each other," said Brown after a tense second.
"I believe you are correct," the Kid answered. "If you'd meet me to parley outside when you're done, I'd be right obliged."
Brown scoffed. "I can talk in front of this tonsorial artist, if'n you don't mind."
"Fair enough." Johnny picked up a plain wooden chair and turned it around so he was sitting with his elbows resting on the chair back. "Word is there's bad feelin' between you and the Sheriff."
"You might be sayin' that," Brown mumbled as the barber continued to shave him as tentatively as if he was handling a live rattlesnake. "Two years and eight months lost outta my life because of Beaumont. I swore I'd settle with him."
"He's an old man, Mr Brown," said Johnny Packard, thumbing his hat far back on his head. "What's the point? You know he was no match for your draw even when he was in his prime. Killing him today will just cheapen your rep."
"I gave that some consideration. But still, I bears him a grudge and I ain't the kind of man to let a grievance slide." As the barber finished by wiping a hot damp towel over his face, Brown reached up with his left hand to check the results. "Nice and smooth, mister, I likes your work."
"Thank you, sir." Instead of waiting for payment, the barber quickly vanished into a back room and did not emerge again. "So, I get to meet the notorious Brimstone Kid," Brown went on. "You have built quite a name for yourself, I suppose you know that."
"I don't claim much."
"Listen up. These are my words. Don't stand in my way, Kid. I don't know if you're a cowboy who got tied to wild campfire legends or if you're a no-foolin' devil from Hell itself. It don't make no never-mind to me. You don't think you can beat me in a quick draw, I hope?"
"Only one way to find out," the Kid said as evenly as if they were discussing what to have for supper.
Carson Lee Brown studied the redhead, then broke out in a grin. "I'll be skinned if I don't see a total lack of fear in you, Kid. I kinda like your attitude. It'd be better if we don't tangle."
"Sounds good to me," Johnny said. "Truth be told, I'm weary of this life. There ain't no price on my head, I just haveta keep an eye peeled for some slingers who bear me ill will. I believe we have both proven ourselves, Mr Brown."
The gunhawk tugged off the sheet that covered him and holstered the .44 he had been holding. As he stood up, Brown was revealed as remarkably tall, five inches over six feet and trim in build. He wore the usual boots and Levis, but he had on a grey Placket shirt with the wide front flap that buttoned at the right shoulder. Calvary officers used to keep papers and personal items inside flaps on shirts like that. His gunbelt hung down at an angle with its single holster down on his right thigh.
Watching Johnny closely but not with any apprehension, Brown said finally, "I don't calculate you intend to slap your leather, Kid."
"Not here and not now certainly," Johnny answered. "But I admit I am unhappy with your decision." He stood up himself nimbly enough and during the second he was moving, tension flared between the two men as that was the instant a fight would have broken out. "I hope you'll reconsider, Mr Brown. You've been playing the desperate game of do-or-die longer than I have. I suspicions that you're finding it as empty as I do." With that, he deliberately turned away and walked with his back exposed straight through the still open door out into the street.
Left alone, Carson Lee Brown smiled at the cowboy's nerve and rubbed his chin again to satisfy himself it was smooth. "Say, mister," he called toward the back room. "I'm a-leaving my payment on the counter here. You do good work." Clinking down a silver collar, the infamous outlaw tugged on a faded Mexican poncho over his shirt, jammed his battered hat on his head and left the shop as well. Still a few hours before he would get to shoot Hank Beaumont through the stomach and relish watching the slow agonizing death that would follow.
IV.
Walking his horse down the deserted Main Street, Johnny found himself facing a red sun as it sank lower near the cloudy horizon. Away in the distance, the pale blue jagged peaks of the Rockies stabbed upward. Visible just outside of town was a horizontal ledge of stone on an elevation that ran like a wall about seventy feet above ground level. That would be the Sunset Ridge he had heard about. Cabot City had originally been callled Sunset Ridge but a powerful landowner had renamed it after his family when the town had been incorporated. It was on Sunset Ridge that Brown had challenged the Sheriff to meet him just before dark.
Twice, the Kid spotted a doorway that stood open a bare crack and his right hand rested on the butt of his Colt. Even in more relaxed circumstances, spotting an opening that might conceal someone watching him would make Johnny ready for action but this town was so palpably struggling with terror that his own nerves were raw. At the very end of the street, where there was nothing but dirt and scrubby grass reaching a hundred yards to the Ridge, the Sheriff's office and jail stood apart. It was a whitewashed stone building, solidly built with small barred windows and a raised platform by the front door he assumed was for making speeches when the townspeople assembled.
Behind the structure was an area shaded by a canopy where a dark chestnut horse was tied to a horizontal post. Johnny Packard led Terror back there and hitched him up. He had lightly fed his stallion at Victoria's ranch before coming into town. As he patted the big animal before leaving, the Kid caught the beginning of a red glint sparking in Terror's eyes. The approach of sundown always got the black horse excited.
Damnation, thought Johnny, Terror enjoys this whole cursed life more than I ever did.
Striding around to the front of the building, he passed the tiny window of the jail cell and glanced in to see it was unoccupied. By his estimation, Cabot City was tame enough that maybe a Saturday night drunkard or two sleeping it off was the most common occupant of the jail. Remembering some of the rough mining towns and outlaw settlements he had survived, Johnny reflected again how the West was changing. Whether it was growing up or just growing old, he couldn't say.
The door was ajar and he walked in, rapping against the jamb with his knuckles. Behind a chipped desk facing the entrance sat Hank Beaumont. He was a spare, dry old man about Johnny's size, wearing a white shirt with a string tie held by a silver clasp. A long black frock coat fit him loosely, hinting he had been losing weight. On the desk in front of him was a flat-brimmed flat-crowned black hat.
Beaumont had a weathered face, deeply lined by years of stress and worry, with a thick white mustache under a bulbous nose. Set in wrinkles were sad dark blue eyes that watched Johnny entered without reaction.
"Sheriff Beaumont, I take it?" asked the Kid.
"That's right. Not sheriff for much longer though, I reckon." The eyes narrowed for a second. "I do believe you are Johnny Packard. The Brimstone Kid from Texas?"
"You reckon rightly," Johnny said. "But I'm not an outlaw. There's no warrants against me anywhere and never been a price on my head. Which is a heap more than I can say about any visitor to yore town."
Beaumont fixed a hard stare on his visitor and Johnny could imagine how intimidating this man had been in his prime. "So everyone has informed me, son," said the Sheriff. "Are you thinking I might be looking to hire an even faster gun to protect me?"
"No, sir. I ain't never sold my services that way, although I've done my share of honest labor. To tell gospel truth, facing down Carson Lee Brown don't appeal to me noways."
"Well then," the old man said, gesturing to a chair with a hand that was visibly gnarled. "Feel free to unburden your self on what brings you to me."
Johnny Packard removed his Stetson as courtesy and placed it in his lap as he pulled a chair over in front of the desk. On the wall behind Beaumont was a board covered with WANTED posters and legal notices and Johnny noticed that the poster for Tom Pinto still hung there. He wondered if anyone else would ever find out what had happened to Pinto. "Sheriff," he began, "I'm speakin' as a damfool who has been in too many gunfights. I've taken some lead pills in an arm or a leg in my time and I've stood over men whose bodies were still warm with my barrel smokin'. So I'm nobody's meek little lamb."
"I can believe that. Go on, son, I'm giving' you my full attention."
"Sir, I'm sayin' this respectfully. I just don't see no point in shootouts no more. Things are changing. The West is growin' up the way a boy becomes a man and puts boyish pursuits behind him. I'll stand with you. Let's round up a dozen men and confront Brown as a group. He don't want to die. I reckon he'll raise his hands and surrender his hoglegs and go his way if you don't want the headache of holdin' him until a Federal Marshal can come take custody."
Beaumont did not answer for so long that it seemed he wasn't going to respond at all. But, eventually, he leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and gave the Kid a friendly smile. "You mean well, Mr Packard, I can see that. I believe the folks hereabouts would help us out and we might take this viper without a shot being fired. No one would ever say a critical word to me later."
Johnny waited, feeling a depressed certainty what would come next. The sunlight in from the barred window was at a low, nearly horizontal angle. A literal shadow crept over his face as he sat there to match the shadows stirring in his soul.
"But I would know that I'd backed down," the Sheriff said. "It would sit in my gut like a rock I could never digest. Sorry, son. The sun's almost setting. I had best get on my hoss one last time and ride up to Sunset Ridge to meet the man who hates me."
The Brimstone Kid stood up slowly and placed his hat firmly on his head. Over his brow, the Darthan coin was beginning to warm up. There wasn't much time left for any of them. He lowered his hands slowly to rest on the butts of the Peacemakers on either hip. "Sheriff, you've spoken your mind and I respect that. I'm sorry it has come to this."
V.
When Victoria and Clay Elliot rolled up in their buckboard pulled by an aging roan, they saw two or three townsfolk had gathered in on the walkway in front of MCGILLICUDY'S TAVERN where a good view of Sunset Ridge could be had. Only a few more faces peered from second-story windows, with curtains pulled uncertainly aside as if bullets might come seeking them out deliberately.
"I never seen Cabot City with so few people out and about," Clay told his wife. "Not even during that blizzard last Feb-yuary. It spooks me, darling."
Like her husband, Victoria had put on her finest Sunday dress and new bonnet. What kept her from looking her best was how white her face had turned and how thinly her lips were compressed. She sat bolt upright, with her gloved hands squeezing each other in her lap. "There! Can you see him up there? It's Hank Beaumont all right. I can't believe Johnny let me down... where IS he? Why isn't he stopping this?"
"Let's draw a mite closer," Clay said. He urged the roan to pull them almost to the end of Main Street. A few yards ahead to their right, the Sheriff's office and jail stood with darkened windows. "I can't hardly see more than silhouettes up there, darling."
Victoria squinted against the rays of the setting sun, shading her eyes with the back of one hand. They could just make out the dark outlines of two men dismounting with the width of Sunset Ridge between them. The tall thin figure of Carson Lee Brown in his poncho and the smaller form facing him, wearing the long frock coat and flat-brimmed hat. The townsfolk could make those details out but the scene resembled a cameo.
"This is the first time I sincerely wished I HAD been the Queen of the Outlaws," Victoria whispered into her husband's ear. "If I was skilled with gunplay, I'd be racing up there in a heartbeat."
"I'm no use with a shootin' iron," Clay said back in the same hushede tone. "You saw me practicing. Safest place to be was right in front of me."
Silent as the town had been, it now took on the stillness of a tomb. Every person watching Sunset Ridge held a breath. The two black silhouettes faced each other and one called out. Twin flashes of white light flared in the growing gloom and the thunder of the shots rolled down the street like thunder from a nearby storm. For an unbearable second, nothing seemed to happen. Then, the tall figure with the poncho sagged and dropped to its knees, head hanging down so the hat fell off.
His scream echoed. "What are you waitin' for, damn yuh? Finish it!"
The smaller figure fired again and this head shot flung the wounded man over onto his back. Whirling, the survivor climbed back up on his horse and vanished behind the trees.
By twos and threes, townspeople emerged from their hiding places, muttering to each other. Slowly as if being drawn against their wills, they started trudging past the end of the street and up the long trail that led to Sunset Ridge. Oddly, there was no excitement or triumph in their manner, despite the way the threat of a notoriously unstable killer had been removed from their town. They seemed somber and even regretful. Maybe they simply were not used to violence. This area had been peaceful a long time.
Still seated with his feet up on the board, holding the reins loosely, Clay gave a start. "Did you hear that? A door closing, not too loud... and it appears to me it was the back door of the jail!"
"With no lamps being lit in there? Maybe Hank got wounded. He could be hurt bad!" Victoria vaulted down from her side of the wagon with no fuss or dainty lowering of herself by the handhold. A year as a fugitive had made her unconcerned with propriety. She went running toward the building with her husband right behind her. Finding the rear door closed but unlocked, she swung it inward.
"Sheriff? Are you all right? This is Elizabeth, Elizabeth Dowling. Clay's with me. Do you need help?"
From the darkness, an insolent voice called, "If'n you got a lucifer, you might scratch it, my friends."
Clay tugged a friction match from his shirt pocket and lit it with his thumbnail. The familiar tang of sulfur rose as the flame sprang up. Both he and Elizabeth gave audible gasps as the light revealed the scene.
Sitting up on the floor, Johnny Packard was tugging on his boots. His vest was hanging by one arm, and his gunbelt was still hung over the back of a chair. The redheaded wanderer got up on his feet and stamped to be sure the boots were on right, then tugged his jean legs down over them. At that moment, Clay cursed as his fingers were burned by the flame and he shook the match out. While he fiddled with another one, Johnny could be heard buckling his gunbelt on in the dark.
When the second match blazed to light the office, Victoria and Clay saw Hank Beaumont propped up in a corner, tied hand and foot with rope, gagged securely and obviously infuriated. He was wearing only red flannel longjohns. The couple were torn between reacting with laughter or outrage, and ending up staying silent.
"I got to put some miles behind me," Johnny said. When he tugged his own hat back on, the cursed token under the band burned painfully against his forehead. "Maybe you folks can help untie this good man and help him back into his duds before any townspeople start a-knocking. Nobody else needs to know what happened tonight."
Beaumont wiggled and tried to get up but he was tied too well for that. All he could manage was strangled mutterings behind the gag. Victoria crossed over and found the knots were much too tight for her to manage, so she picked up a jackknife from the pile of the Sheriff's own clothing and started sawing with it. Significantly, she seemed to be taking her time and did not remove the gag first.
Tipping his Stetson in a salute, Johnny Packard said, "I do apologize for taking such liberties with your person, sheriff. Maybe someday you can find a way to forgive me although it sure don't seem likely at the moment. It was the best solution I could find to a tough problem. At least that Brown varmint won't be running roughshod over any more towns."
"Johnny, you changed places with the sheriff!" Victoria said. "But.. you know, I reckon it's best all around if no one ever finds out. I hope the sheriff sees it that way, too."
"I hope to be ridin' back this way sometime," the Kid. "We didn't get to chew the fat about old times or to make a toast to absent friends." By now, his irises had a lambent red gleam to them like a cat's eyes reflecting light.
"Your voice sounds so different..." Clay said uncertainly. "What is happening to you?"
"Hah. I am becoming the Brimstone Kid in truth as well as in name," the drifter said as he strode quickly toward the back door. "You don't wanna see this." He rushed out into the darkness and, a second later, the hoofbeats of the black horse Terror pounded off into the night.
5/1/2017
10/30/1896
I.
Reining in his black horse high on a rise, Johnny Packard paused to watch the men working on the telegraph line. One youngster climbed nimbly up the prongs on a pole, tools dangling from a belt slung over one shoulder, and the foreman was cursing at him to be more careful. "Slow down. Those lines ain't a-going nowhere!"
Looking down, the Brimstone Kid felt a twinge of unprecedented melancholy. 1896. Hard to believe it was only another few years until a new century would start. The West was changing. The frontier was almost tamed now, with railroads and state lines dividing up the old territories into neat boxes. It wasn't like the raw savage country he remembered from when he had first left Brimstone, Texas. And that hadn't been so long ago, to tell the honest truth. He had been seventeen at that gunfight that had veered him into the dark life and he was thirty-eight already. Change had come like a tornado over the plains, leaving wreckage of lives that had to be rebuilt in new ways.
Rubbing the great stallion's neck affectionately, he realized too that Terror was getting awful old for a horse but still ran strongly and effortlessly all day if called upon. It was the cursed token Johnny wore under his hatband that kept the animal young, he was sure of that. The red metal coin that old Machingtok had gifted him with so long ago, it had changed both him and Terror beyond redemption. Across seven states, the story of the Brimstone Kid had been told and retold, growing more fanciful and unlikely over the years until he had to laugh when bits of it reached him.
No more than five feet four and one hundred and forty pounds, Johnny remained lean and quick as a puma, hardened by years of wandering through inhospitable terrain and among unfriendly peoples. His black boots and Levis were well-worn with miles of riding, but his red flannel shirt was almost new. Worn over it was the dark denim vest whose four pockets held most of his personal items; when a man spent so much time in the saddle and pants pockets were difficult to reach, a vest was practical. Pulled down over his shaggy red hair was a black Stetson with red trim and it was under the band around that hat that the curse of his life was carried.
Low on his hips, tied with thongs to his thighs, two molded leather holsters held matched Colt 45 revolvers... the 1875 Peacemakers. Now, during the day, they seemed no more than normal guns but then Johnny also seemed no more than a normal cowboy. He was seeing fewer and fewer men with irons on their hip these days. The need for it had ebbed.
The Kid shook himself from his reverie, tugged at the reins and clicked his tongue to get Terror moving. The sun was past its high point in the sky, it was already after twelve noon. "Come on, big fella, Cabot City is not that far away." They moved away, down the other side of the rise and found a well-marked road worn down by thousands of wagon wheels and steel horseshoes until it might as well have been paved. Johnny urged Terror to pick up the pace, and the big black horse eagerly leaped forward to gallop with the enjoyment of a two-year-old.
Only six miles from Cabot City, a side road turned off, rutted deeply by wagon tracks. Where the two paths diverged was a head-high wooden post supporting a sign into which had been hand-burned THE DOWLINGS - WELCOME. Johnny pushed his hat well back on his head and studied the name thoughtfully. His eyes were bright Kelly green, deepset in a bony weathered face. Dowling was not the name by which he had known Victoria Elliot. He smiled grimly. Many in this land went by names other than which they had been baptized. He guided Terror along the path, avoiding the ruts and trotting through the dry grass of late October.
The homestead was small, just a few cows grazing within a fenced-in field, some chickens scratching around and a half-dozen pigs in a mud wallow. Behind a long low plank building and next to a barn was a cultivated garden of vegetables, some melons and a bit of corn. Enough for two people to live comfortably, he gathered. The house was well-crafted, he decided as he rode up, great care had got into its making.
A shaded porch ran through the front of the building with windows on either side of the front door that was marked by a mounted buffalo skull. Two boxes along the railing stood empty, meant for flowers that had long faded this time of year.
Watching him approach, a tall handsome woman in a blue and white gingham dress with a white apron opened the front door and emerged onto the porch. Long dark blonde hair was tied up under a kerchief. She smiled a flash of perfect teeth and waved to him. "Hello there, Johnny. I had no idea if my message would reach you down by the border."
Dismounting and leaving Terror untethered, Johnny took off his hat to let it hang down his back by its cord. Without the Darthan coin near his brow, he felt more relaxed and human. "It's a sure enough pleasure to meet again, Victoria.. or should I call yuh by yore hitched handle, Mrs Boone?"
"We're going by 'Dowling' now," she answered as she waited for him to approach. She had been drying her hands on a cloth which she now put on the window ledge beside her. "George and Elizabeth Dowling are our names."
"I thought yuh might be tickled to see this item here. I found it for sale down in San Jorge, good two hundred miles from here." He handed over a battered dime novel he had been carrying in his saddle bags and she took it with a wry grin.
"Why, mercy on my soul, that illustration does not resemble me in the slightest!" she exclaimed in mock outrage. "I never ever used a rifle and certainly never on horseback. And that title is a right disgrace. 'The Lawless Exploits of Her Highness Victoria Sanders, the Queen of the Outlaws.' "
II.
Although he pretended to be embarrassed, Johnny deeply enjoyed the rare feeling of being fussed over as the former Victoria brought him a basin of soapy water and towels. He scrubbed his hands, face and neck, ran a wet comb through his dusty hair a few times and felt revived. She had brewed coffee over a fire she already had going in the kitchen and two cups of that hot strong beverage further lifted his spirits. It was infrequent that he felt secure enough to unbuckle his gun belt and hang it from a peg on the wall as he did now, but he did keep his Stetson on his back where he could feel the tingle of the cursed token against his shoulder blades. It was better if no one found out about that secret.
"We only knew each other for a week," she was saying as she bustled about the spotless living room with its colorful Navajo rugs and end table holding twenty books. A banjo hung on the wall behind them. "But that was some week! Between the posse from Wolf City and those renegade Crow braves, we had our hands full. You were surely a welcome sight. That was the first time I ever saw a genuine gunslinger in action."
"You also saw me after midnight, when I seemed a mite different," Johnny said. He was sitting carefully on the couch, hands folded and too aware of his dirty boots on the hardwood floor. "Yet you didn't show any fear."
"Oh, I believe everyone struggles with a dark side to their nature," she replied, sitting down herself in an overstuffed chair facing him. "Yours is simply more visible. I know deep in my heart you're a good decent man, Johnny."
"I try," the Brimstone Kid said. "What happened to that old veteran gunhawk you had with you? The one who fought the bottle?"
"I'm sorry to say he died within that year. Pneumonia. Everyone else in our gang was alive and well last I heard." She sipped at her own cup of coffee and placed it on the saucer resting on the table between them. Victoria had long slender fingers that even the drudgery of housework had not roughened yet.
"And you married that handsome young feller that was so sweet on you!" Johnny teased. "That makes me glad. You've got a fine home here in Colorado, this is a hospitable area far as I can tell."
"Well, we certainly couldn't stay up in Wyoming. Aside from me shooting that railroad man, we were wanted for train robbery and a dozen lesser offenses." Victoria added, "I never told anyone, but that fat old toad was preparing to violate me. His intentions were, shall we say, visible on his person."
"From all I've heard, Jacob McGrath was no-good any way you looked at him. Avengin' your daddy is all a body needs to justify a shooting in my opinion. But I want to palaver, Victoria. I was stayin' at a hotel in Jackson Springs when an old Indian scout I knew relayed you wanted to see me. He heard it from a trader he knew farther north. Folks in my trade have their own sort of telegraph spoken person to person."
The woman who had been called the Queen of the Outlaws without real justification stood up again and took their empty cups and saucers. "You fancy one more cup, Johnny?"
"Yes, ma'am and thank you kindly." He gazed around the room while she went back into the kitchen. There was a barometer on one wall, with a potted plant beneath it. On the mantle over the small fireplace sat a row of knick-knacks and momentoes beneath a painting of a clipper ship at sea. When she returned, he stood up to show as much manners as he knew. His life had been mostly rough and tumble among hard men who had their own code of behavior but he remembered some courtesy.
As he took a sip, he waited for her to speak. Victoria Elliot cleared her throat and began, "To be honest, Johnny, I hesitate to even ask you to listen. You've seen more than your share of danger in your life and I understand if you say this is not your concern. I'm worried about the sheriff, Hank Beaumont."
"What about him?"
"I've taken a liking to him. He's honorable and upright, and he welcomed me and Clay to town as warmly as if we'd been born and raised here. Beaumont only has five more weeks in office, he announced this is his last term and everyone expects his deputy to be sworn in after the election. Beaumont is getting long in the tooth, we all know that. His eyes are getting weak and his time of spending days in a hard chase in the saddle are over."
"Happens to us all," the Brimstone Kid offered.
"So true. This next part is confidential, I don't think it's common knowledge, Johnny, but I've been in his office and watched him working on papers. His hands are getting stiff with arthritis. A hook and draw would take him a few minutes these days, I'm afraid."
"I calculate his deputy would take over the rough stuff, then?"
"Normally. The problem is that a longtime enemy of his has come to Cabot City to call him out. He demands a showdown."
That visibly angered Johnny. "Dang, I blames this whole stupid business of face to face shootouts on them dime novels! So many folks have read those fool stories that they think it's the way things are really done. Back in the lawless days when I was a youngun, there never was a showdown like that. No slinger would be so simple as to stand up in plain view and wait for a mortal enemy to draw at a signal..."
"Newspapers have only added to misconceptions," Victoria said. "I've read so much nonsense about the Brimstone Kid. Be that as it may, the custom has become a matter of pride now. Men feel that they have to answer a challenge like that to keep their self-respect. What worries me is the outlaw issuing this dare is Carson Lee Brown."
The atmosphere in the room changed dramatically. Johnny Packard had not moved or tensed up, but there was a sharp edge in his voice. "He's a frightening man, no doubt. I've known folks who has seen Carson Lee Brown when the guns are barkin' and life hangs by a thread. They all say he's one of the best that ever was."
"I'm not asking you to take on Brown," Victoria said. "But I hoped you might see a solution that will keep Sheriff Beaumont safe with his honor intact. There isn't much time. Brown demands the Sheriff face him on Sunset Ridge today.. right at sunset."
Johnny whistled and shook his head. "Mebbe somethin' will come to me. If'n I meet with Brown first and let some air through his hide, folks would say the Sheriff was afraid and had hired me to protect him. Donahue wants to face Carson Lee Brown his own self. And this ain't the dime novels where a gunman can shoot the iron outta his opponent's grip without hurtin' him. That's simple foolishness. When two men draw on each other, at least one gets dragged away by the boots."
III.
Riding leisurely into town, Johnny Packard ignored the stares he invariably received as he studied the place. Cabot City was well developed, with a feed and grain store next to a livery that sold tackles and harnesses. There was a rooming house that advertised hot baths, shaves and haircuts. There was a steakhouse, two saloons almost next to one another, a general store that took up most of a building. The wide dusty streets were almost deserted, though. He saw no idlers lounging in front of the saloons or grocery, no children playing anywhere. One open wagon pulled by two horses took off out of town as soon as its driver had loaded it with a burlap sack of potatoes, boxes of canned goods and a sack of wheat. The man did not even glance back at the stranger who arrived with a six-gun on each hip.
Glancing up with his customary wariness, the Brimstone Kid saw a curtain being drawn closed again before eye contact would be made. Fear ruled these streets today. It hung heavy in the air like a thunderstorm about to break.
Johnny dismounted and walked Terror over to a watering trough. As the black stallion drank its fill, the Kid stared down the street at the boarding house. At the hitching post in front of that building was tethered a gorgeous golden palomino with white star on its noble brow. The animal stood patiently, dozing in the shade out of direct sunlight. Johnny looked more closely. Fastened behind the stuffed saddlebags was a Remington 30-30 in a leather boot and behind that was tied a sheathed Mexican machete tilted forward so it could be jerked free instantly. The Brimstone Kid smiled grimly. Odds said the rider of that golden horse was not used to a timid life.
Bringing Terror over, Johnny hitched his stallion to the post some distance from the palomino. The two animals snorted agreeably at each other and then settled down to rest with their legs locked. The Kid stepped up onto the porch that ran the width of the rooming house and slowly opened the door. A bell set on a curved bit of metal tinkled as he did so. Johnny found himself in a room with plenty of light from the big picture window and a wooden barber's chair set in the middle of the room. Leaning back in that chair, covered from the neck down by a sheet, a man about forty watched the Kid enter with icy dispassionate eyes. Not much of Carson Lee Brown's face showed over the layer of hot frothy shaving cream, just those eyes and a thick mop of glossy black hair that still gleamed from being washed and shampooed.
The gunhawk's hands were concealed under the sheet and Johnny knew with certainty a big .44 was gripped unseen in one of those hands. As he stepped into the room, Johnny Packard kept both his own hands resting on his gunbelt, near the buckle and not right next to his own revolvers.
"I reckon we know each other," said Brown after a tense second.
"I believe you are correct," the Kid answered. "If you'd meet me to parley outside when you're done, I'd be right obliged."
Brown scoffed. "I can talk in front of this tonsorial artist, if'n you don't mind."
"Fair enough." Johnny picked up a plain wooden chair and turned it around so he was sitting with his elbows resting on the chair back. "Word is there's bad feelin' between you and the Sheriff."
"You might be sayin' that," Brown mumbled as the barber continued to shave him as tentatively as if he was handling a live rattlesnake. "Two years and eight months lost outta my life because of Beaumont. I swore I'd settle with him."
"He's an old man, Mr Brown," said Johnny Packard, thumbing his hat far back on his head. "What's the point? You know he was no match for your draw even when he was in his prime. Killing him today will just cheapen your rep."
"I gave that some consideration. But still, I bears him a grudge and I ain't the kind of man to let a grievance slide." As the barber finished by wiping a hot damp towel over his face, Brown reached up with his left hand to check the results. "Nice and smooth, mister, I likes your work."
"Thank you, sir." Instead of waiting for payment, the barber quickly vanished into a back room and did not emerge again. "So, I get to meet the notorious Brimstone Kid," Brown went on. "You have built quite a name for yourself, I suppose you know that."
"I don't claim much."
"Listen up. These are my words. Don't stand in my way, Kid. I don't know if you're a cowboy who got tied to wild campfire legends or if you're a no-foolin' devil from Hell itself. It don't make no never-mind to me. You don't think you can beat me in a quick draw, I hope?"
"Only one way to find out," the Kid said as evenly as if they were discussing what to have for supper.
Carson Lee Brown studied the redhead, then broke out in a grin. "I'll be skinned if I don't see a total lack of fear in you, Kid. I kinda like your attitude. It'd be better if we don't tangle."
"Sounds good to me," Johnny said. "Truth be told, I'm weary of this life. There ain't no price on my head, I just haveta keep an eye peeled for some slingers who bear me ill will. I believe we have both proven ourselves, Mr Brown."
The gunhawk tugged off the sheet that covered him and holstered the .44 he had been holding. As he stood up, Brown was revealed as remarkably tall, five inches over six feet and trim in build. He wore the usual boots and Levis, but he had on a grey Placket shirt with the wide front flap that buttoned at the right shoulder. Calvary officers used to keep papers and personal items inside flaps on shirts like that. His gunbelt hung down at an angle with its single holster down on his right thigh.
Watching Johnny closely but not with any apprehension, Brown said finally, "I don't calculate you intend to slap your leather, Kid."
"Not here and not now certainly," Johnny answered. "But I admit I am unhappy with your decision." He stood up himself nimbly enough and during the second he was moving, tension flared between the two men as that was the instant a fight would have broken out. "I hope you'll reconsider, Mr Brown. You've been playing the desperate game of do-or-die longer than I have. I suspicions that you're finding it as empty as I do." With that, he deliberately turned away and walked with his back exposed straight through the still open door out into the street.
Left alone, Carson Lee Brown smiled at the cowboy's nerve and rubbed his chin again to satisfy himself it was smooth. "Say, mister," he called toward the back room. "I'm a-leaving my payment on the counter here. You do good work." Clinking down a silver collar, the infamous outlaw tugged on a faded Mexican poncho over his shirt, jammed his battered hat on his head and left the shop as well. Still a few hours before he would get to shoot Hank Beaumont through the stomach and relish watching the slow agonizing death that would follow.
IV.
Walking his horse down the deserted Main Street, Johnny found himself facing a red sun as it sank lower near the cloudy horizon. Away in the distance, the pale blue jagged peaks of the Rockies stabbed upward. Visible just outside of town was a horizontal ledge of stone on an elevation that ran like a wall about seventy feet above ground level. That would be the Sunset Ridge he had heard about. Cabot City had originally been callled Sunset Ridge but a powerful landowner had renamed it after his family when the town had been incorporated. It was on Sunset Ridge that Brown had challenged the Sheriff to meet him just before dark.
Twice, the Kid spotted a doorway that stood open a bare crack and his right hand rested on the butt of his Colt. Even in more relaxed circumstances, spotting an opening that might conceal someone watching him would make Johnny ready for action but this town was so palpably struggling with terror that his own nerves were raw. At the very end of the street, where there was nothing but dirt and scrubby grass reaching a hundred yards to the Ridge, the Sheriff's office and jail stood apart. It was a whitewashed stone building, solidly built with small barred windows and a raised platform by the front door he assumed was for making speeches when the townspeople assembled.
Behind the structure was an area shaded by a canopy where a dark chestnut horse was tied to a horizontal post. Johnny Packard led Terror back there and hitched him up. He had lightly fed his stallion at Victoria's ranch before coming into town. As he patted the big animal before leaving, the Kid caught the beginning of a red glint sparking in Terror's eyes. The approach of sundown always got the black horse excited.
Damnation, thought Johnny, Terror enjoys this whole cursed life more than I ever did.
Striding around to the front of the building, he passed the tiny window of the jail cell and glanced in to see it was unoccupied. By his estimation, Cabot City was tame enough that maybe a Saturday night drunkard or two sleeping it off was the most common occupant of the jail. Remembering some of the rough mining towns and outlaw settlements he had survived, Johnny reflected again how the West was changing. Whether it was growing up or just growing old, he couldn't say.
The door was ajar and he walked in, rapping against the jamb with his knuckles. Behind a chipped desk facing the entrance sat Hank Beaumont. He was a spare, dry old man about Johnny's size, wearing a white shirt with a string tie held by a silver clasp. A long black frock coat fit him loosely, hinting he had been losing weight. On the desk in front of him was a flat-brimmed flat-crowned black hat.
Beaumont had a weathered face, deeply lined by years of stress and worry, with a thick white mustache under a bulbous nose. Set in wrinkles were sad dark blue eyes that watched Johnny entered without reaction.
"Sheriff Beaumont, I take it?" asked the Kid.
"That's right. Not sheriff for much longer though, I reckon." The eyes narrowed for a second. "I do believe you are Johnny Packard. The Brimstone Kid from Texas?"
"You reckon rightly," Johnny said. "But I'm not an outlaw. There's no warrants against me anywhere and never been a price on my head. Which is a heap more than I can say about any visitor to yore town."
Beaumont fixed a hard stare on his visitor and Johnny could imagine how intimidating this man had been in his prime. "So everyone has informed me, son," said the Sheriff. "Are you thinking I might be looking to hire an even faster gun to protect me?"
"No, sir. I ain't never sold my services that way, although I've done my share of honest labor. To tell gospel truth, facing down Carson Lee Brown don't appeal to me noways."
"Well then," the old man said, gesturing to a chair with a hand that was visibly gnarled. "Feel free to unburden your self on what brings you to me."
Johnny Packard removed his Stetson as courtesy and placed it in his lap as he pulled a chair over in front of the desk. On the wall behind Beaumont was a board covered with WANTED posters and legal notices and Johnny noticed that the poster for Tom Pinto still hung there. He wondered if anyone else would ever find out what had happened to Pinto. "Sheriff," he began, "I'm speakin' as a damfool who has been in too many gunfights. I've taken some lead pills in an arm or a leg in my time and I've stood over men whose bodies were still warm with my barrel smokin'. So I'm nobody's meek little lamb."
"I can believe that. Go on, son, I'm giving' you my full attention."
"Sir, I'm sayin' this respectfully. I just don't see no point in shootouts no more. Things are changing. The West is growin' up the way a boy becomes a man and puts boyish pursuits behind him. I'll stand with you. Let's round up a dozen men and confront Brown as a group. He don't want to die. I reckon he'll raise his hands and surrender his hoglegs and go his way if you don't want the headache of holdin' him until a Federal Marshal can come take custody."
Beaumont did not answer for so long that it seemed he wasn't going to respond at all. But, eventually, he leaned forward with his elbows on his desk and gave the Kid a friendly smile. "You mean well, Mr Packard, I can see that. I believe the folks hereabouts would help us out and we might take this viper without a shot being fired. No one would ever say a critical word to me later."
Johnny waited, feeling a depressed certainty what would come next. The sunlight in from the barred window was at a low, nearly horizontal angle. A literal shadow crept over his face as he sat there to match the shadows stirring in his soul.
"But I would know that I'd backed down," the Sheriff said. "It would sit in my gut like a rock I could never digest. Sorry, son. The sun's almost setting. I had best get on my hoss one last time and ride up to Sunset Ridge to meet the man who hates me."
The Brimstone Kid stood up slowly and placed his hat firmly on his head. Over his brow, the Darthan coin was beginning to warm up. There wasn't much time left for any of them. He lowered his hands slowly to rest on the butts of the Peacemakers on either hip. "Sheriff, you've spoken your mind and I respect that. I'm sorry it has come to this."
V.
When Victoria and Clay Elliot rolled up in their buckboard pulled by an aging roan, they saw two or three townsfolk had gathered in on the walkway in front of MCGILLICUDY'S TAVERN where a good view of Sunset Ridge could be had. Only a few more faces peered from second-story windows, with curtains pulled uncertainly aside as if bullets might come seeking them out deliberately.
"I never seen Cabot City with so few people out and about," Clay told his wife. "Not even during that blizzard last Feb-yuary. It spooks me, darling."
Like her husband, Victoria had put on her finest Sunday dress and new bonnet. What kept her from looking her best was how white her face had turned and how thinly her lips were compressed. She sat bolt upright, with her gloved hands squeezing each other in her lap. "There! Can you see him up there? It's Hank Beaumont all right. I can't believe Johnny let me down... where IS he? Why isn't he stopping this?"
"Let's draw a mite closer," Clay said. He urged the roan to pull them almost to the end of Main Street. A few yards ahead to their right, the Sheriff's office and jail stood with darkened windows. "I can't hardly see more than silhouettes up there, darling."
Victoria squinted against the rays of the setting sun, shading her eyes with the back of one hand. They could just make out the dark outlines of two men dismounting with the width of Sunset Ridge between them. The tall thin figure of Carson Lee Brown in his poncho and the smaller form facing him, wearing the long frock coat and flat-brimmed hat. The townsfolk could make those details out but the scene resembled a cameo.
"This is the first time I sincerely wished I HAD been the Queen of the Outlaws," Victoria whispered into her husband's ear. "If I was skilled with gunplay, I'd be racing up there in a heartbeat."
"I'm no use with a shootin' iron," Clay said back in the same hushede tone. "You saw me practicing. Safest place to be was right in front of me."
Silent as the town had been, it now took on the stillness of a tomb. Every person watching Sunset Ridge held a breath. The two black silhouettes faced each other and one called out. Twin flashes of white light flared in the growing gloom and the thunder of the shots rolled down the street like thunder from a nearby storm. For an unbearable second, nothing seemed to happen. Then, the tall figure with the poncho sagged and dropped to its knees, head hanging down so the hat fell off.
His scream echoed. "What are you waitin' for, damn yuh? Finish it!"
The smaller figure fired again and this head shot flung the wounded man over onto his back. Whirling, the survivor climbed back up on his horse and vanished behind the trees.
By twos and threes, townspeople emerged from their hiding places, muttering to each other. Slowly as if being drawn against their wills, they started trudging past the end of the street and up the long trail that led to Sunset Ridge. Oddly, there was no excitement or triumph in their manner, despite the way the threat of a notoriously unstable killer had been removed from their town. They seemed somber and even regretful. Maybe they simply were not used to violence. This area had been peaceful a long time.
Still seated with his feet up on the board, holding the reins loosely, Clay gave a start. "Did you hear that? A door closing, not too loud... and it appears to me it was the back door of the jail!"
"With no lamps being lit in there? Maybe Hank got wounded. He could be hurt bad!" Victoria vaulted down from her side of the wagon with no fuss or dainty lowering of herself by the handhold. A year as a fugitive had made her unconcerned with propriety. She went running toward the building with her husband right behind her. Finding the rear door closed but unlocked, she swung it inward.
"Sheriff? Are you all right? This is Elizabeth, Elizabeth Dowling. Clay's with me. Do you need help?"
From the darkness, an insolent voice called, "If'n you got a lucifer, you might scratch it, my friends."
Clay tugged a friction match from his shirt pocket and lit it with his thumbnail. The familiar tang of sulfur rose as the flame sprang up. Both he and Elizabeth gave audible gasps as the light revealed the scene.
Sitting up on the floor, Johnny Packard was tugging on his boots. His vest was hanging by one arm, and his gunbelt was still hung over the back of a chair. The redheaded wanderer got up on his feet and stamped to be sure the boots were on right, then tugged his jean legs down over them. At that moment, Clay cursed as his fingers were burned by the flame and he shook the match out. While he fiddled with another one, Johnny could be heard buckling his gunbelt on in the dark.
When the second match blazed to light the office, Victoria and Clay saw Hank Beaumont propped up in a corner, tied hand and foot with rope, gagged securely and obviously infuriated. He was wearing only red flannel longjohns. The couple were torn between reacting with laughter or outrage, and ending up staying silent.
"I got to put some miles behind me," Johnny said. When he tugged his own hat back on, the cursed token under the band burned painfully against his forehead. "Maybe you folks can help untie this good man and help him back into his duds before any townspeople start a-knocking. Nobody else needs to know what happened tonight."
Beaumont wiggled and tried to get up but he was tied too well for that. All he could manage was strangled mutterings behind the gag. Victoria crossed over and found the knots were much too tight for her to manage, so she picked up a jackknife from the pile of the Sheriff's own clothing and started sawing with it. Significantly, she seemed to be taking her time and did not remove the gag first.
Tipping his Stetson in a salute, Johnny Packard said, "I do apologize for taking such liberties with your person, sheriff. Maybe someday you can find a way to forgive me although it sure don't seem likely at the moment. It was the best solution I could find to a tough problem. At least that Brown varmint won't be running roughshod over any more towns."
"Johnny, you changed places with the sheriff!" Victoria said. "But.. you know, I reckon it's best all around if no one ever finds out. I hope the sheriff sees it that way, too."
"I hope to be ridin' back this way sometime," the Kid. "We didn't get to chew the fat about old times or to make a toast to absent friends." By now, his irises had a lambent red gleam to them like a cat's eyes reflecting light.
"Your voice sounds so different..." Clay said uncertainly. "What is happening to you?"
"Hah. I am becoming the Brimstone Kid in truth as well as in name," the drifter said as he strode quickly toward the back door. "You don't wanna see this." He rushed out into the darkness and, a second later, the hoofbeats of the black horse Terror pounded off into the night.
5/1/2017
