"An Actual, Genuine Shoot-Out"
Nov. 29th, 2024 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"An Actual, Genuine Shoot-Out"
10/3/1878
I.
Johnny Packard's horse fixed a look of bitter reproach on him. The young cowboy had finished with the stiff-bristled curry brush and felt the animal should at least be slightly thankful for the care. But no. The great black stallion glared at him and then stamped a front hoof hard enough to express his displeasure.
"Don't be that way, Terror," Johnny said as he closed the neck-high door of that stall. In his early twenties, with his thick red hair and clean-shaven face Johnny looked a bit younger still, so the 'Kid' part of his nickname made sense. He was breaking in new boots he had bought the day before, and the black Levi's and red flannel work shirt were not well used yet either. Working on the fences and doing yardwork at Old Man Schoeber's farm had put him in the position of owning more than one full set of clothes for the first time since he had been cursed.
The one item which never changed of course was the unthinkably ancient coin of red metal tucked into the beaded band of his black Stetson. That was the source of his curse. Every nightfall, he felt that talisman calling to him, whispering, urging him to place it against his forehead and free the real Brimstone Kid.
After almost a year in Just-Plain-Awful, a town placid as a still life painting, Johnny Packard was getting used to having his gun belt with the matched Peacemakers holstered on each hip stored at the sheriff's office. That was the ordinance, no firearms within town limits. He hadn't needed to clear leather in months, and he hadn't even kept up target practice shooting empty tin cans off railings for a while either. Working hard doing chores and carpentry for the townsfolk earned him a comfortable room above old Bedelia Thorpe's general store and he ate three solid meals every day without fail. The town even got a bundle of newspapers from as far as Tucson every week or so, and Johnny devoured them. It was the longest stretch he hadn't been on the run, he wasn't struggling to survive a blizzard out on the plains or scrabbling for water in sunbaked desert dirt. He wasn't facing down a half-dozen murderous outlaws or riding up to parlay with hostile Comanche. Johnny should have been contented as a fat old cat curled up by a fireplace.
And yet...
The Brimstone Kid went back to press his forehead against the stallion's muzzle. "I know how you feel, hoss. The curse is on you as much as it's on me. You want to gallop hellbent under the moon, you want to greet the sunrise all sore and bloody and tore up. God help me, I want it too. This ain't proper livin' for the likes of us."
Terror snorted more gently and nuzzled up against the cowboy. In the neighboring stall, a painted pony made a grunting noise that lacked the undertones of the sounds the black stallion made.
"We'll head out when it's dark," Johnny said. "We'll seize the night and make the stars tremble, I promise you that."
Moving outside, the Kid nodded to the wiry black youth who acted as stablehand. "Talk to you later, Tobias."
"That's the finest cayuse I ever did see, Mistuh Johnny," said the boy. "You could win the Hadleyburg races hands down with Terror."
That made Johnny laugh. "Terror don't hold by rules, Tobias. He'd be kickin' and bitin' any hosses that got ahead of him. He's muy loco."
The youth was hauling a coil of rope nearly as big as he was. "I'd surely like to see him gallop all-out as fast as he can pound the dirt, Mistuh Johnny. It must be a sight."
"I'll give you a ride sometime when your daddy's in a good mood. Tarnation, look at that sky. Them clouds are gonna bust wide open any time now."
After an oppressively humid stagnant day, heavy thunderclouds had been moving in from the West and now the daylight was an eerie grey without shadows. A stiff breeze was starting to whip dust up in little eddies. The two of them watched the clouds visibly approach. And rolling into town drawn by four horses came the noon stage, late as usual.
Johnny and Tobias watched out of curiosity as the black and gold coach pulled up to a halt in front of the SILVER DOLLAR saloon and cafe, right in the middle of town. The driver and his shotgun assistant started hauling down luggage strapped to the top, including a canvas sack of mail from all points east up to the Arizona Territory border. Four passengers disembarked. The stout lady in a neat blue dress and bonnet was Mrs Klein, the mayor's wife, back from visiting kinfolk in Bear Claw. The thin man with a frock coat and beaver hat was the gambler, Sly Stewart, back to try his luck again. But the final two who disembarked were strangers and that naturally drew everyone's attention.
A thick-middled man in his fifties, well dressed with a long tan coat, floral vest and derby hat, had bright yellow sideburns that reached to his chin and a matching handlebar mustache. He grinned as if completely satisfied with the world and everything in it.
Right behind him was the most sinister figure to hit Just-Plain-Awful in living memory. Very tall, more than six inches above six feet and broad as a blacksmith, he was wearing all black except for a brightly patterned poncho of heavy wool which hung down to his waist. Under a flat-brimmed hat was a hard, angry face that glared in all directions as if eager to fight. He was chewing on a thin black cheroot.
And yet... watching closely, Johnny Packard's finely honed sense of danger did not feel alarmed. He could spot gunslingers, desperadoes and banditos as soon as he saw them. He felt nothing when he spotted this ominous stranger. And that made him extremely interested.
II.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The Kid strode briskly up the main street, avoiding the stinking heaps of horse droppings and using the boards laid down between buildings to keep as much mud off his boots as possible. Townsfolk greeted him with a little more than the usual courtesy. He had never figured out why the people of Just-Plain-Awful had accepted the notorious Brimstone Kid into their community so freely but he was immensely grateful.
In the cool gloomy interior of the SILVER DOLLAR, he stepped up to the bar where a man in a white apron was wiping glasses with a damp rag. "Afternoon, Chawed-Ear," Johnny said. "Might a fella get a plate of ham and eggs with some black coffee?"
"I do believe that's possible, Johnny," the bartender said. His right ear was indeed mangled as if it had been chewed on by some large animal. "Coffee's strong enough to walk over to your table by itself."
"That's the way I like it." The Brimstone Kid let his hat dangle down between his shoulder blades when he was inside, and he tugged off the white ankle-length gloves. Even in the heat, gloves like those were needed to keep the sun from peeling off the skin on his hands. Leaning back in a chair by the round table in one corner, he puzzled over why he was so interested in those two strangers. He had learned long ago to trust his instincts.
As he was working his way through the thick slab of ham with yellow mustard smeared over it, Johnny spotted the very men he was thinking about appear in the doorway. The dude with the yellow mustache was carrying a carpetbag in one hand and a walking stick in the other. Beside him, the bigger man slowly threw his poncho back up over one shoulder to reveal a low-slung gun belt with a old-fashioned Navy pistol in its holster. He swung narrowed eyes over the barroom.
Now Johnny identified his unsettled feeling. He had watched genuinely dangerous gunslingers enter a room, and they hadn't been as obvious. This stranger was too dramatic. He was posing.
The strangers came right up to the table where Johnny sat fork in hand. "Might I be addressing a Mr Jonathon Packard, formerly of the great state of Texas?"
The Kid pushed his cleaned off plate to one side. "You are, sir. I cain't recollect that we ever met before, though."
Getting a gesture of permission from Johnny to join him, the two men pulled back chairs and seated themselves. The older one reached into his carpetbag and pulled out several thick periodicals with gaudy covers and ornate lettering, placing them in front of the Kid. Johnny had read some dime novels in his time, they were good ways to fill time on long winter nights. The ones lying in front of him had titles like EAGLE-EYE ELLINGTON AMONG THE SIOUX and EAGLE-EYE MEETS HIS RIVAL. The flamboyant covers showed detailed ink drawings of a man shooting at a wave of furious Indian braves or marching toward another gunman for a showdown. And the figure, with its poncho and flat-brimmed hat, was clearly meant to represent the surly man sitting across the table at that very moment.
Seeing the puzzled expression in Johnny's green eyes, the older man extended a meaty hand for a shake. "Milton Schussler, my good man, Milton Schussler. But I am better known to the great masses of my readers as Cardigan Stockbridge, the 'Homer of the New West' as I've been called. And that is how I prefer to be addressed."
"You mean, you're the fella who dreams up these yarns?"
"I am indeed. I have written one hundred and forty-three novels to date, with many more on the way. My series include Dick Intrepid, the Pinkerton Detective, and Redskin Ralph, the Half-Breed Avenger. But m biggest success of course has been with this redoubtable soul, Eagle-Eye Ellington."
That made Johnny give the silent man in the poncho a second look. "Well, I'll be dunked in a horse trough if'n I didn't think all these dime novel folks were purely made-up. Meeting the actual Eagle-Eye is an unexpected honor."
"How d'you do, suh?" muttered the man introduced as Eagle-Eye, touching the brim of his hat.
Stockbridge went on, "If I might presume to say, Mr Packard, you yourself have become a rather legendary figure in a short time. Even back in Baltimore, rumors of the daring Brimstone Kid are whispered."
"Whoa, rein in a mite there if you please," Johnny objected. "I got me nary a thought of being legendary, notorious, infamous or even well-known! I don't want a rep. I been living in Just-Plain-Awful as peaceable as an old dawg drowsing in the sun."
"Surely your shootout with Little Clay Hawk..."
"Brother, I'll tell the world that Clay Hawk can outdraw and outshoot me on my best day and his worst day," the Kid said. "I ain't never crossed him and I see no reason to. He's a decent, honorable fellow."
"Then there was Tom Pinto."
"See, Tom and I get along. I can hold my own against him, we did a lotta target practice and comparisons together. But pulling hardware against him in deadly seriousness? Only the Good Lord knows how that would work out, most likely we'd both end up dead."
"Copper-Hair?"
"Ain't never met her."
"The Mexican adventurer, Peligroso?"
"I don't even know if he's real. Meaning no disrespect, Mr Stockbridge, but I don't ride town to town looking for gunfights. That's a damn fool way to live, if'n you ask me." He finished his coffee. "Enough trouble finds me without me searching for some."
The novelist from back East seemed deflated, but only for a second. "Johnny... may I call you Johnny?"
"Makes no never mind to me."
"Johnny, I'm not an historian. I'm not writing school textbooks. I'm selling romantic, colorful tales of hard-riding, narrow escapes, carnage and mayhem with a tinge of romance and a sprinkling of humor. I'm selling this to workmen tired after a hard day, to young boys with feverish imaginations, to store clerks bored with their mundane lives. When they pick up one of my periodicals, they dive for a few hours in a more exciting and flamboyant world than the one they have to live in."
"You sure talk pretty, sir, I can see why you became a writer. Heck, I got nothing against tall tales. I listened to lots of 'em around a campfire. But they got nothing to do with my life."
Now Eagle Eye spoke up so unexpectedly that both men at the table jumped. "There's the money."
"There is that indeed, Johnny. Eagle-Eye has stashed away a substantial sum in the bank from royalties. He gets a percentage of sales and he has started making public appearances at traveling shows. In a few years, he plans to live comfortably on it."
"True," said the man, lapsing back into silence.
That made the young redhead chuckle. "Whoo-ee. I been flush with money and I been flat busted, and I know which one I like better. You'd whip up these wild stories using me as the hero and I'd get a check in the post, is that it?"
"It is indeed, Johnny. You should have the local attorney study our contract first."
The Brimstone Kid took a deep breath and pushed his chair back from the table. "Gentleman, thank you for the offer but I cannot in good conscience accept it. I gotta go my own way, for better or worse."
Before he could stand up, Johnny was halted by a pleading tone in the other man's voice. "There's the final thing you should know, son. Someone bad is on his way to this town. Someone who does live for his reputation and builds it by shooting men dead. He's been following Eagle-Eye and I know he's been hoping to run into you. Brokeface."
III.
"This is all a joke to you, ain't it?" Johnny said in a deadly quiet voice, staring down at the table in front of him. "You make money off your damnfool dime novels and you don't care at tall who gets hurt."
"Now, let's take this in perspective, son..."
"I like this town just fine! I got friends here! They treat me square." The Brimstone Kid got to his feet and fixed those deep set green eyes on the writer. "You're fixing to bring the coldest hearted murderer on the frontier to Just Plain Awful so you can fill your pockets. Get this and get it straight the first time. You take your champion shootist here out to meet Brokeface and I pray to Providence that they let daylight through each other and nobody else gets hurt."
In a whisper, Eagle-Eye said, "I'm not a real gunfighter."
That left Johnny speechless.
"I'm a showman. I do trick shots, hitting targets while standing on a running horse, spinning a silver dollar in the air. I can light a match at twenty feet."
"How are you in a shoot-out?" demanded the Kid.
"I'd be useless. I can't even yell at any one. I never traded punches or wrassled in my born days." Eagle=Eye sounded on the verge of tears at the confession. "Hell, I'd piss my pants if anyone actually pointed a gun at me."
Johnny put some change down next to his plate and stepped back from the table. "Come on, we're going outside. Both of you oughtta be REAL glad I'm not wearing my irons right now."
IV.
The impending thunderstorm still had not broken. Sunlight making it through black clouds left everything in an unreal grey haze of twilight. Five miles outside the town limits was a wooden signpost, WELCOME TO JUST-PLAIN-AWFUL, 2600 FRIENDLY CITIZENS. Three horses were tied up to a railing alongside this sign, including the black stallion Terror, more sullen and uncooperative than ever.
Stockbridge was sitting awkwardly on his carpetbag, hands clasped in front of him, head sagging down. Eagle-Eye paced back and forth, and it was hard to say which man looked more miserable.
With his gunbelt tightened once more around his lean waist, Johnny Packard had spent time throughly inspecting the matched Colt Peacemakers. He was not nearly as skilled with his left hand as with his right... no gunfighters were really ambidextrous.. but having a second gun on hand saved invaluable time that would be lost reloading the first revolver. He was physically as ready as he could be.
But the doubts and uneasiness would not be cleared away. The black Stetson was fixed firmly on his head but the ancient Darthan coin in its band remained cold and inert. It was hours before sunset. The curse which had ruled his life the past four years would not take effect until then. Not for the first time, Johnny felt like an imposter, a flesh and blood boy who only looked a little like the real demonic Brimstone Kid.
With a grunt, he straightened up and stared at the hard-packed dirt road leading in from Black Claw. He didn't need no hoodoo black magic from thousands of year ago. He was a son of the Lone Star, born with iron in his backbone and fire in his gut. He was leather tough and mountain lion quick. Jonathan Bradstone Packard of Brimstone, Texas, would spit in the Devil's eye.
Through his high-arched riding boots, the Kid felt vibrations in the dirt. A speck in the distance grew larger and resolved itself into a mounted rider. He was coming in at a trot, not a full gallop. Johnny made out a big chestnut horse with white blaze on the nose. In the saddle was a man in a long duster which would reach to his ankles when standing and a wide-brimmed slouch hat.
Moving to one side of the trail, with Eagle-Eye and Stockbridge huddled together ten feet from him, Johnny watched the rider slow up and dismount. Brokeface was not much above average height and stocky in build. Under the duster coat were mundane work clothes. As he stepped away from the chestnut, the well-known killer tilted back his hat. A deep vertical crease ran down from forehead to chin, leaving not much nose and a split upper lip. A Kiowa tomahawk had come within a hair's-breadth of splitting the man's face completely open years ago.
Striding over to face Johnny Packard at thirty feet, the gunslinger threw back the right side of his coat to reveal a low-holstered .44. "Anything you wanna say, Kid?"
"Just that this is damnfool nonsense and grown men oughtta be putting their time on Earth to better use," Johnny replied. He had braced his feet well apart, right hand hanging loosely and naturally, left hand resting on his belt buckle.
"You! The Eastern dude," said Brokeface. "You call it."
After an eternal hesitation, Stockbridge yelled, "Draw!"
Seven reports crashed in an unbroken chain that sounded like a crack of lightning at close hand. Johnny had not squeezed off the traditional single shot but had fanned the hammer on his gun fast as he could. Brokeface doubled forward, spun wildly and fell straight down with his face hitting the dirt audibly. Johnny stood motionless, holding his breath, waiting for the hot burning pain or the sudden rush of darkness. Nothing. After a long twenty seconds, he looked down at his body. He hadn't been hit. Not even scratched.
Brokeface had drawn and fired. His gun was lying two feet from his limp hand. Johnny holstered his own Colt and sank to one knee, feeling his hands shaking and the tightness in his chest only slowly easing up. He had been prepared to die and he was going to live.
"That was magnificent," gushed Stockbridge, venturing closer. "You were cold as a snowman and hard as a marble statue. Never saw anything like it."
"Shut up. Just shut up." Johnny Packard rose and stiffly marched over to where everything he was bringing with him was strapped to Terror. He had left an apologetic note to Miss Bedelia in his rented room. "I don't give a damn what shameless lies you write about this. Claim your play-actor Eagle-Eye put out Brokeface's lights. I don't care. But don't lure any more killers to this town. I'm not coming back to Just-Plain-Awful."
He vaulted lightly up into the saddle and Terror snorted in eagerness to be on the trail again. Grasping the reins, Johnny pointed a finger at the two men. "But take my words to heart. If'n I hear that you two have come back to this town, if'n there's any gunplay because of your con game, then I'm gonna come looking for you both. And you won't like what'll happen."
The great black horse launched itself without urging, flying down the trail at a full gallop into the gloom. Eagle-Eye and Stockbridge gingerly approached all that remained of Brokeface as the first heavy raindrops finally began to fall.
11/29/2024
10/3/1878
I.
Johnny Packard's horse fixed a look of bitter reproach on him. The young cowboy had finished with the stiff-bristled curry brush and felt the animal should at least be slightly thankful for the care. But no. The great black stallion glared at him and then stamped a front hoof hard enough to express his displeasure.
"Don't be that way, Terror," Johnny said as he closed the neck-high door of that stall. In his early twenties, with his thick red hair and clean-shaven face Johnny looked a bit younger still, so the 'Kid' part of his nickname made sense. He was breaking in new boots he had bought the day before, and the black Levi's and red flannel work shirt were not well used yet either. Working on the fences and doing yardwork at Old Man Schoeber's farm had put him in the position of owning more than one full set of clothes for the first time since he had been cursed.
The one item which never changed of course was the unthinkably ancient coin of red metal tucked into the beaded band of his black Stetson. That was the source of his curse. Every nightfall, he felt that talisman calling to him, whispering, urging him to place it against his forehead and free the real Brimstone Kid.
After almost a year in Just-Plain-Awful, a town placid as a still life painting, Johnny Packard was getting used to having his gun belt with the matched Peacemakers holstered on each hip stored at the sheriff's office. That was the ordinance, no firearms within town limits. He hadn't needed to clear leather in months, and he hadn't even kept up target practice shooting empty tin cans off railings for a while either. Working hard doing chores and carpentry for the townsfolk earned him a comfortable room above old Bedelia Thorpe's general store and he ate three solid meals every day without fail. The town even got a bundle of newspapers from as far as Tucson every week or so, and Johnny devoured them. It was the longest stretch he hadn't been on the run, he wasn't struggling to survive a blizzard out on the plains or scrabbling for water in sunbaked desert dirt. He wasn't facing down a half-dozen murderous outlaws or riding up to parlay with hostile Comanche. Johnny should have been contented as a fat old cat curled up by a fireplace.
And yet...
The Brimstone Kid went back to press his forehead against the stallion's muzzle. "I know how you feel, hoss. The curse is on you as much as it's on me. You want to gallop hellbent under the moon, you want to greet the sunrise all sore and bloody and tore up. God help me, I want it too. This ain't proper livin' for the likes of us."
Terror snorted more gently and nuzzled up against the cowboy. In the neighboring stall, a painted pony made a grunting noise that lacked the undertones of the sounds the black stallion made.
"We'll head out when it's dark," Johnny said. "We'll seize the night and make the stars tremble, I promise you that."
Moving outside, the Kid nodded to the wiry black youth who acted as stablehand. "Talk to you later, Tobias."
"That's the finest cayuse I ever did see, Mistuh Johnny," said the boy. "You could win the Hadleyburg races hands down with Terror."
That made Johnny laugh. "Terror don't hold by rules, Tobias. He'd be kickin' and bitin' any hosses that got ahead of him. He's muy loco."
The youth was hauling a coil of rope nearly as big as he was. "I'd surely like to see him gallop all-out as fast as he can pound the dirt, Mistuh Johnny. It must be a sight."
"I'll give you a ride sometime when your daddy's in a good mood. Tarnation, look at that sky. Them clouds are gonna bust wide open any time now."
After an oppressively humid stagnant day, heavy thunderclouds had been moving in from the West and now the daylight was an eerie grey without shadows. A stiff breeze was starting to whip dust up in little eddies. The two of them watched the clouds visibly approach. And rolling into town drawn by four horses came the noon stage, late as usual.
Johnny and Tobias watched out of curiosity as the black and gold coach pulled up to a halt in front of the SILVER DOLLAR saloon and cafe, right in the middle of town. The driver and his shotgun assistant started hauling down luggage strapped to the top, including a canvas sack of mail from all points east up to the Arizona Territory border. Four passengers disembarked. The stout lady in a neat blue dress and bonnet was Mrs Klein, the mayor's wife, back from visiting kinfolk in Bear Claw. The thin man with a frock coat and beaver hat was the gambler, Sly Stewart, back to try his luck again. But the final two who disembarked were strangers and that naturally drew everyone's attention.
A thick-middled man in his fifties, well dressed with a long tan coat, floral vest and derby hat, had bright yellow sideburns that reached to his chin and a matching handlebar mustache. He grinned as if completely satisfied with the world and everything in it.
Right behind him was the most sinister figure to hit Just-Plain-Awful in living memory. Very tall, more than six inches above six feet and broad as a blacksmith, he was wearing all black except for a brightly patterned poncho of heavy wool which hung down to his waist. Under a flat-brimmed hat was a hard, angry face that glared in all directions as if eager to fight. He was chewing on a thin black cheroot.
And yet... watching closely, Johnny Packard's finely honed sense of danger did not feel alarmed. He could spot gunslingers, desperadoes and banditos as soon as he saw them. He felt nothing when he spotted this ominous stranger. And that made him extremely interested.
II.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The Kid strode briskly up the main street, avoiding the stinking heaps of horse droppings and using the boards laid down between buildings to keep as much mud off his boots as possible. Townsfolk greeted him with a little more than the usual courtesy. He had never figured out why the people of Just-Plain-Awful had accepted the notorious Brimstone Kid into their community so freely but he was immensely grateful.
In the cool gloomy interior of the SILVER DOLLAR, he stepped up to the bar where a man in a white apron was wiping glasses with a damp rag. "Afternoon, Chawed-Ear," Johnny said. "Might a fella get a plate of ham and eggs with some black coffee?"
"I do believe that's possible, Johnny," the bartender said. His right ear was indeed mangled as if it had been chewed on by some large animal. "Coffee's strong enough to walk over to your table by itself."
"That's the way I like it." The Brimstone Kid let his hat dangle down between his shoulder blades when he was inside, and he tugged off the white ankle-length gloves. Even in the heat, gloves like those were needed to keep the sun from peeling off the skin on his hands. Leaning back in a chair by the round table in one corner, he puzzled over why he was so interested in those two strangers. He had learned long ago to trust his instincts.
As he was working his way through the thick slab of ham with yellow mustard smeared over it, Johnny spotted the very men he was thinking about appear in the doorway. The dude with the yellow mustache was carrying a carpetbag in one hand and a walking stick in the other. Beside him, the bigger man slowly threw his poncho back up over one shoulder to reveal a low-slung gun belt with a old-fashioned Navy pistol in its holster. He swung narrowed eyes over the barroom.
Now Johnny identified his unsettled feeling. He had watched genuinely dangerous gunslingers enter a room, and they hadn't been as obvious. This stranger was too dramatic. He was posing.
The strangers came right up to the table where Johnny sat fork in hand. "Might I be addressing a Mr Jonathon Packard, formerly of the great state of Texas?"
The Kid pushed his cleaned off plate to one side. "You are, sir. I cain't recollect that we ever met before, though."
Getting a gesture of permission from Johnny to join him, the two men pulled back chairs and seated themselves. The older one reached into his carpetbag and pulled out several thick periodicals with gaudy covers and ornate lettering, placing them in front of the Kid. Johnny had read some dime novels in his time, they were good ways to fill time on long winter nights. The ones lying in front of him had titles like EAGLE-EYE ELLINGTON AMONG THE SIOUX and EAGLE-EYE MEETS HIS RIVAL. The flamboyant covers showed detailed ink drawings of a man shooting at a wave of furious Indian braves or marching toward another gunman for a showdown. And the figure, with its poncho and flat-brimmed hat, was clearly meant to represent the surly man sitting across the table at that very moment.
Seeing the puzzled expression in Johnny's green eyes, the older man extended a meaty hand for a shake. "Milton Schussler, my good man, Milton Schussler. But I am better known to the great masses of my readers as Cardigan Stockbridge, the 'Homer of the New West' as I've been called. And that is how I prefer to be addressed."
"You mean, you're the fella who dreams up these yarns?"
"I am indeed. I have written one hundred and forty-three novels to date, with many more on the way. My series include Dick Intrepid, the Pinkerton Detective, and Redskin Ralph, the Half-Breed Avenger. But m biggest success of course has been with this redoubtable soul, Eagle-Eye Ellington."
That made Johnny give the silent man in the poncho a second look. "Well, I'll be dunked in a horse trough if'n I didn't think all these dime novel folks were purely made-up. Meeting the actual Eagle-Eye is an unexpected honor."
"How d'you do, suh?" muttered the man introduced as Eagle-Eye, touching the brim of his hat.
Stockbridge went on, "If I might presume to say, Mr Packard, you yourself have become a rather legendary figure in a short time. Even back in Baltimore, rumors of the daring Brimstone Kid are whispered."
"Whoa, rein in a mite there if you please," Johnny objected. "I got me nary a thought of being legendary, notorious, infamous or even well-known! I don't want a rep. I been living in Just-Plain-Awful as peaceable as an old dawg drowsing in the sun."
"Surely your shootout with Little Clay Hawk..."
"Brother, I'll tell the world that Clay Hawk can outdraw and outshoot me on my best day and his worst day," the Kid said. "I ain't never crossed him and I see no reason to. He's a decent, honorable fellow."
"Then there was Tom Pinto."
"See, Tom and I get along. I can hold my own against him, we did a lotta target practice and comparisons together. But pulling hardware against him in deadly seriousness? Only the Good Lord knows how that would work out, most likely we'd both end up dead."
"Copper-Hair?"
"Ain't never met her."
"The Mexican adventurer, Peligroso?"
"I don't even know if he's real. Meaning no disrespect, Mr Stockbridge, but I don't ride town to town looking for gunfights. That's a damn fool way to live, if'n you ask me." He finished his coffee. "Enough trouble finds me without me searching for some."
The novelist from back East seemed deflated, but only for a second. "Johnny... may I call you Johnny?"
"Makes no never mind to me."
"Johnny, I'm not an historian. I'm not writing school textbooks. I'm selling romantic, colorful tales of hard-riding, narrow escapes, carnage and mayhem with a tinge of romance and a sprinkling of humor. I'm selling this to workmen tired after a hard day, to young boys with feverish imaginations, to store clerks bored with their mundane lives. When they pick up one of my periodicals, they dive for a few hours in a more exciting and flamboyant world than the one they have to live in."
"You sure talk pretty, sir, I can see why you became a writer. Heck, I got nothing against tall tales. I listened to lots of 'em around a campfire. But they got nothing to do with my life."
Now Eagle Eye spoke up so unexpectedly that both men at the table jumped. "There's the money."
"There is that indeed, Johnny. Eagle-Eye has stashed away a substantial sum in the bank from royalties. He gets a percentage of sales and he has started making public appearances at traveling shows. In a few years, he plans to live comfortably on it."
"True," said the man, lapsing back into silence.
That made the young redhead chuckle. "Whoo-ee. I been flush with money and I been flat busted, and I know which one I like better. You'd whip up these wild stories using me as the hero and I'd get a check in the post, is that it?"
"It is indeed, Johnny. You should have the local attorney study our contract first."
The Brimstone Kid took a deep breath and pushed his chair back from the table. "Gentleman, thank you for the offer but I cannot in good conscience accept it. I gotta go my own way, for better or worse."
Before he could stand up, Johnny was halted by a pleading tone in the other man's voice. "There's the final thing you should know, son. Someone bad is on his way to this town. Someone who does live for his reputation and builds it by shooting men dead. He's been following Eagle-Eye and I know he's been hoping to run into you. Brokeface."
III.
"This is all a joke to you, ain't it?" Johnny said in a deadly quiet voice, staring down at the table in front of him. "You make money off your damnfool dime novels and you don't care at tall who gets hurt."
"Now, let's take this in perspective, son..."
"I like this town just fine! I got friends here! They treat me square." The Brimstone Kid got to his feet and fixed those deep set green eyes on the writer. "You're fixing to bring the coldest hearted murderer on the frontier to Just Plain Awful so you can fill your pockets. Get this and get it straight the first time. You take your champion shootist here out to meet Brokeface and I pray to Providence that they let daylight through each other and nobody else gets hurt."
In a whisper, Eagle-Eye said, "I'm not a real gunfighter."
That left Johnny speechless.
"I'm a showman. I do trick shots, hitting targets while standing on a running horse, spinning a silver dollar in the air. I can light a match at twenty feet."
"How are you in a shoot-out?" demanded the Kid.
"I'd be useless. I can't even yell at any one. I never traded punches or wrassled in my born days." Eagle=Eye sounded on the verge of tears at the confession. "Hell, I'd piss my pants if anyone actually pointed a gun at me."
Johnny put some change down next to his plate and stepped back from the table. "Come on, we're going outside. Both of you oughtta be REAL glad I'm not wearing my irons right now."
IV.
The impending thunderstorm still had not broken. Sunlight making it through black clouds left everything in an unreal grey haze of twilight. Five miles outside the town limits was a wooden signpost, WELCOME TO JUST-PLAIN-AWFUL, 2600 FRIENDLY CITIZENS. Three horses were tied up to a railing alongside this sign, including the black stallion Terror, more sullen and uncooperative than ever.
Stockbridge was sitting awkwardly on his carpetbag, hands clasped in front of him, head sagging down. Eagle-Eye paced back and forth, and it was hard to say which man looked more miserable.
With his gunbelt tightened once more around his lean waist, Johnny Packard had spent time throughly inspecting the matched Colt Peacemakers. He was not nearly as skilled with his left hand as with his right... no gunfighters were really ambidextrous.. but having a second gun on hand saved invaluable time that would be lost reloading the first revolver. He was physically as ready as he could be.
But the doubts and uneasiness would not be cleared away. The black Stetson was fixed firmly on his head but the ancient Darthan coin in its band remained cold and inert. It was hours before sunset. The curse which had ruled his life the past four years would not take effect until then. Not for the first time, Johnny felt like an imposter, a flesh and blood boy who only looked a little like the real demonic Brimstone Kid.
With a grunt, he straightened up and stared at the hard-packed dirt road leading in from Black Claw. He didn't need no hoodoo black magic from thousands of year ago. He was a son of the Lone Star, born with iron in his backbone and fire in his gut. He was leather tough and mountain lion quick. Jonathan Bradstone Packard of Brimstone, Texas, would spit in the Devil's eye.
Through his high-arched riding boots, the Kid felt vibrations in the dirt. A speck in the distance grew larger and resolved itself into a mounted rider. He was coming in at a trot, not a full gallop. Johnny made out a big chestnut horse with white blaze on the nose. In the saddle was a man in a long duster which would reach to his ankles when standing and a wide-brimmed slouch hat.
Moving to one side of the trail, with Eagle-Eye and Stockbridge huddled together ten feet from him, Johnny watched the rider slow up and dismount. Brokeface was not much above average height and stocky in build. Under the duster coat were mundane work clothes. As he stepped away from the chestnut, the well-known killer tilted back his hat. A deep vertical crease ran down from forehead to chin, leaving not much nose and a split upper lip. A Kiowa tomahawk had come within a hair's-breadth of splitting the man's face completely open years ago.
Striding over to face Johnny Packard at thirty feet, the gunslinger threw back the right side of his coat to reveal a low-holstered .44. "Anything you wanna say, Kid?"
"Just that this is damnfool nonsense and grown men oughtta be putting their time on Earth to better use," Johnny replied. He had braced his feet well apart, right hand hanging loosely and naturally, left hand resting on his belt buckle.
"You! The Eastern dude," said Brokeface. "You call it."
After an eternal hesitation, Stockbridge yelled, "Draw!"
Seven reports crashed in an unbroken chain that sounded like a crack of lightning at close hand. Johnny had not squeezed off the traditional single shot but had fanned the hammer on his gun fast as he could. Brokeface doubled forward, spun wildly and fell straight down with his face hitting the dirt audibly. Johnny stood motionless, holding his breath, waiting for the hot burning pain or the sudden rush of darkness. Nothing. After a long twenty seconds, he looked down at his body. He hadn't been hit. Not even scratched.
Brokeface had drawn and fired. His gun was lying two feet from his limp hand. Johnny holstered his own Colt and sank to one knee, feeling his hands shaking and the tightness in his chest only slowly easing up. He had been prepared to die and he was going to live.
"That was magnificent," gushed Stockbridge, venturing closer. "You were cold as a snowman and hard as a marble statue. Never saw anything like it."
"Shut up. Just shut up." Johnny Packard rose and stiffly marched over to where everything he was bringing with him was strapped to Terror. He had left an apologetic note to Miss Bedelia in his rented room. "I don't give a damn what shameless lies you write about this. Claim your play-actor Eagle-Eye put out Brokeface's lights. I don't care. But don't lure any more killers to this town. I'm not coming back to Just-Plain-Awful."
He vaulted lightly up into the saddle and Terror snorted in eagerness to be on the trail again. Grasping the reins, Johnny pointed a finger at the two men. "But take my words to heart. If'n I hear that you two have come back to this town, if'n there's any gunplay because of your con game, then I'm gonna come looking for you both. And you won't like what'll happen."
The great black horse launched itself without urging, flying down the trail at a full gallop into the gloom. Eagle-Eye and Stockbridge gingerly approached all that remained of Brokeface as the first heavy raindrops finally began to fall.
11/29/2024
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Date: 2024-11-30 02:52 am (UTC)I don't know why there are two bad guys named Brokeface, one in the Mythical West and one in the modern story "Urban Foraging." There doesn't seem to be any connection between them. Maybe it's just unikely coincidence.
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Date: 2024-11-30 05:20 pm (UTC)Another of my DW correspondents recently posted something that would be apropos for this story—affording me a cue to share:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enuOArEfqGo
This live performance by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra reveals exactly how the various evocative vocal and instrumental sound effects are being produced (as well as which are which.)
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Date: 2024-11-30 09:34 pm (UTC)Thank you for that link. All these years of loving that soundtrack and I never thought to look for an orchestral video to see just HOW those weird bird-call sounds were made. Fascinating. Next I must find exactly what the male singers are saying? Is it even words or just sounds made for the suggestive effect?
There was a story years ago, "Pine Box, Arizona," https://dochermes.dreamwidth.org/104474.html where Jeremy Bane meets modern day avatars of Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef. If I live long enough, my stories will eventually feature versions of everything from the Steam Man of the Prairies to Tom Petty lyrics. It's a goofy hobby.
Feel free to drop off any interesting links you find. I'm always open to falling down a new rabbit hole\1
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Date: 2024-11-30 10:16 pm (UTC)https://www.tiktok.com/@thisaintjay/video/6743045086235413766?lang=en
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Date: 2024-12-02 07:45 pm (UTC)I'm lucky in that I found in childhood that I love playing with words and images, constructing narratives and just enjoying mental processes. Never regretted it.