He was certain that at this moment he was under observation, and so he fought the impulse to show emotion at the success of his strategy, and he fought the instinct to double-check his placements by looking for signs of his hiding men. He kept his face impassive and registered no excitement, no recognition, nothing but the sullen war face of his breed.
He knew he’d wait a bit. Wherever he was, Swagger himself had just arrived, for just as certainly as Anto had been moved about, Swagger, monitoring him, had to be moving too, to get from place to place and watch for followers. But now Swagger would study the valley, for perhaps as much as an hour, examining every tuft, every rill, every knoll, every bush, every rise, every fall, looking for signs that Anto had somehow done exactly what Anto had indeed done-that is, guess the spot and place men there. So this was where the boys’ snipercraft had to be at its highest.
The day seemed to disconnect from time. The only noise was the persistence of the wind; otherwise the surface of the earth seemed devoid of life except for the naked, now red-shouldered man on the odd four-wheeled vehicle, which looked more like a toy than anything of serious purpose. A bird rode wind funnels in circles, hunting for prey-another sniper, in his way. Some kind of yowl rose briefly and disappeared as briefly, as something ate something else. The time passed, second by second. Anto sat alone on the bike seat, straddling the engine, buck nekkid as the day he was born but now used to it and not feeling shame at all.
Finally a voice crackled through the earphones.
“See the creek running through the valley?”
“I do.”
“Aim for its center. Bisect it-fectly. Within fifty feet, halt. Climb off-ike on the right side. -ands are up, you sidestep ten feet, and stop-n grass. Any sudden mo-ullet in the brain. Whe-dy, I come out of hide.”
“I read.”
“Now do it.”
Anto turned the ignition key.
As the vehicle jumped to life, he tried to fight the grin that split his face, but he was thinking, Dead bang center.
48
Like all western boomtowns, Cold Water had a raw quality to it. Money brought in commerce, which required construction, and soon enough a Main Street sprang up-a bank, a general store, a saloon, a restaurant, a bathhouse, a hotel, all slatternly and crudely constructed of fresh wood, wearing coats of bright paint. The shoppers and watchers and townies, the pioneers, the travelers, the dance hall gals, the town sheriff, all trod back and forth along the dusty street, while above in bright sun the mythic clouds rose and tumbled, and much happiness was felt by all present, for all belonged, just as all adored. All, that is, except Texas Red.
Because Cold Water, for its acquisition of capital, its possible destiny as a railhead, its array of vices and pleasures, had also attracted scum, crude and violent men, for whom civilization meant only one thing: banquet.
Texas Red was one of them.
Wild gun boy, fine dancer, quick to shoot, quickest from the leather, holder of grudges, kisser of gals, he was the whirlwind. His reputation was made in blood and lead. He shed the former, he dealt in the latter. He was the devil to the good citizens of Cold Water, who had formed a posse to take him down. He faced fifteen men.
The first five were to be engaged by rifle, through the window of the hotel. His.44-40 1892, loaded, would be lying at a table to the right of the window. He’d seize it, throw the lever closed, and fire. Then, having put them down, he would set down the rifle and move fast to the window of the saloon, where seven more waited. Seven meant of course he’d have to use both his handguns, the down-loaded.44-40s from Colt, one at his hip, one on his other hip in the reversed and tilted holster. Done with that, he’d move to the next window in the hotel, to see where four more fellows awaited just down the street, and by that time, his smokepoles empty, he’d go to shotgun and slide two 12-gauge red boys into the loading gate of his supremely polished and finished Model 97 Winchester-by way of the Harbin Industrial Fabrication Plant No. 6, Hwang Province, China-and quickly pump and shoot and pump and shoot. Then a reload from the leather bandolier he wore across his red placket front, and two more blasts of justice, and he’d be finished with the first stage of this year’s Cold Water Cowboy Action Shoot. After that, until late tomorrow afternoon, eleven more stages would determine if Texas Red was indeed the best gun in the Senior Cowboy Black Powder Duelist category, and if all his work was worth it. He just had to be finished-to win!-in time to be airborne by six for his eight o’clock in Seattle.
Now, finally, it had begun.
He reached the loading area, and when the shooter ahead had finished and cleared, and the targets had reset, he was approached by the lead range officer.
“Load ’em up, Red.”
“Yes sir,” said Red. He walked to the lever gun, slipped ten.44-40s into the chute on the ’92 receiver, leaving the lever down to show empty chamber, and laid the rifle where designated. He returned, drew each Colt, threaded five robin’s-egg-heavy cartridges-“cah-ti-ges” the Duke had called them as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers-into each chamber as accessed by the popped-open loading gate of Sam’s marvelous, intricate machine, an orchestration of lines and symmetries and streamlines and densities like no other. One in, he spun the cylinder past the next, then sliding in four more, then cocking under control to rotate the cylinder one last time, then closing the gate and restoring the masterpiece to its leather. That ritual was to assure that no live cartridge nested under the firing pin’s pressure, a design weakness in the old gun so grave nobody noticed it for over 110 years. Then, finally, he took his shotgun from his guncart, its pump racked backward to expose empty chamber and empty magazine as well as all the spring-driven, leverage-turned ingenuity of its interior, and moved to set it on the table next to the far window.
He readied himself at the starting line, shivering a little, pianoing his fingers to get them loose and ready, tensing and relaxing his upper-body muscles. He put his earplugs in, then his hands came to his waist and he put on his grimace-tight gunman’s face.
“Shooter ready?” came the question, muffled by the ear protection.
He nodded.
He heard the three-beat timer ticking down, ding, ding, and dong, and on dong-more precisely on the d- so that he was halfway to the first station by the -ong-he raced forward, seized the ’92 in a liquid, practiced choreography, slid it to shoulder, keeping muzzle level and downrange even as he was closing the lever, and fired the first shot as the sight came into focus over the blurred image of the bad guy, in this case a black metal plate, and the trigger came back and the gun shuddered gently as it sent its hunk of lead on its way at a little over six hundred feet per second.
The trick here was not to wait for the clang of the hit and the sight of the plate toppling on its hinge but to be already into the leverwork and already moving the gun by that time, and he fired again and again and again and againagainagain, only aware at the unfocused edge of the drama of the ejected shell casings flipping through the air but most attuned to the great spurt of white, a billow at each report that rivaled the clouds above. And when the last plate fell, he left the action open, set the rifle down, and moved his ass fast to the next window.
This was the killer. The subtlety of cowboy action was that it wasn’t an athletic contest of speed of foot and dexterity, but of course it was, and that it wasn’t a fast-draw contest, but of course it was. You had to calibrate effort versus grace, for to seem to hurry could be called “against the spirit,” a ten-second time penalty; at the same time if you loafed, you lost.