Cord smiled. “Preacher pulled my bacon out of the fire long years back. Only time I ever met him. I owe him. I often wonder what happened to him.”
“He’s alive. But getting on in years.”
Cord nodded his head, then his eyes swept the room. “I’ll say it now, boys; we leave the Box T alone. Our fight is with Dooley Hanks. Box T riders can cross our range and be safe doin’ it. They’ll be comin’ through lookin’ for the cattle we scattered. You don’t have to help them, just leave them alone.”
A few of the gunslicks exchanged furtive glances. Cord missed the eye movement. Smoke did not. The gunfighters that Smoke would have trusted had left the area, such as Jim Kay and Red and a few others. What was left was the dregs, and there was not an ounce of honor in the lot.
Smoke finished his beer. “See you, Cord.”
The rancher nodded his head and Smoke walked out the door. Riding toward the Box T, Smoke thought: You better be careful, McCorkle, ‘cause you’ve surrounded yourself with a bunch of rattlesnakes, and I don’t think you know just how dangerous they are.
Seven
The days drifted on, filled with hard honest work and the deep dreamless sleep of the exhausted. Smoke had hired two more hands, boys really, in their late teens. Bobby and Hatfield. They had left the drudgery of a hardscrabble farm in Wisconsin and drifted west, with dreams of the romantic West and being cowboys. And they both had lost all illusions about the romantic life of a cowboy very quickly. It was brutally hard work, but at least much of it could be done from the back of a horse.
True to his word, Lujan not only did his share, but took up some slack was well. He as a skilled cowboy, working with no wasted motion, and he was one of the finest horsemen Smoke had ever seen.
One hot afternoon, Smoke looked up to see young Hatfield come a-foggin’ toward him, lathering his horse.
“Mister Smoke! Mister Smoke!” he yelled. “I ain’t believing this. You got to come quick to the house.”
He reined up in a cloud of dust and Smoke had to wait until the dust settled before he could even see the young man to talk to him.
“Whoa, boy! Who put a burr under your blanket?”
“Mister Smoke, my daddy read stories about them men up to Miss Fae’s house when he was a boy. I thought they was all dead and buried in the grave!”
“Slow down, boy. What men?”
“Them old gunfighters up yonder. Come on.” He wheeled his horse around and was gone at a gallop.
Lujan pulled up. “What s going on, amigo?”
“I don t know. Come on, let’s find out.”
Fae was entertaining them on the front porch when Smoke and Lujan rode up. Smoke laughed when he saw them.
Lujan looked first at the aging men on the porch, and then looked at Smoke, When he spoke, there was disapproval in his voice. “It is not nice to laugh at the old, my friend.”
“Lujan, I’m not laughing at them. These men are friends of mine. As well known as we are, we’re pikers compared to those old gunslingers. Lujan, you’re looking at Silver Jim, Pistol Le Roux, Hardrock, and Charlie Starr.”
“Dios mio!” the Mexican breathed. “Those men invented the fast draw.”
“And don’t sell them short even today, Lujan. They can still get into action mighty quick.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it for a minute,” Lujan said, dismounting.
“If I’d known you old coots were going to show up, I’d have called the old folks home and had them send over some wheelchairs,” Smoke called out.
“Would you just listen to the pup flap his mouth,” Hardrock said. “I ought to get up and spank him.”
“Way your knees pop and crack he’d probably think you was shootin’ at him,” Pistol laughed.
The men shook hands and Smoke introduced them to Lujan.
Charlie Starr sized the Mexican up. “Yeah, I seen you down along the border some years back. When them Sabler Brothers called you out. Too bad you didn’t kill all five of them.”
“Wasn’t two down enough?” Lujan asked softly, clearly in awe of these old gunslingers.
“Nope,” Silver Jim said. “We stopped off down in Wyoming for supplies. Store clerk said the Sabler boys had come through the day before, heading up thisaway. Ben, Carl, and Delmar.”
Lujan sighed. “Many, many times I have wished I had never drawn my pistol in anger that first time down in Cuauhtemoc.” He smiled. “Of course, the shooting was over a lovely lady. And of course, she would have nothing to do with me after that.”
“What was her name?” Hatfield asked.
Lujan laughed. “I do not even remember.”
The old gunfighters were all well up in years—Charlie Starr being the youngest—but they were all leather-tough and could still work many men half their age into the ground.
And the news that the Box T had hired the famed gunslingers was soon all over the area. Some of Cord McCorkle’s hired guns thought it was funny, and it would be even funnier to tree one of the old gunnies and see just what he’d do. The gunfighter they happened to pick that morning was the Louisiana Creole, Pistol Le Roux.
Ol’ Pistol and Bobby were working some strays back toward the east side of the Smith when the three gunhawks spotted Pistol and headed his way. Just to be on the safe side, Pistol wheeled his horse to face the men and slipped the hammer thong off his right hand Colt and waited.
That one of the men held a coiled rope in his right hand did not escape the old gunfighter. He had him a hunch that these pups were gonna try to rope and drag him. A hard smile touched his face. That had been tried before. Several times. Ain’t been done yet.
“Well, well,” the hired gun said, riding up. “What you reckon we done come across here, boys?”
“Damned if I know,” another said with a nasty grin. “But it shore looks to me like it needs buryin’.”
“Yeah,” the third gunny said, sniffing the air. “It’s done died and gone to stinkin’.”
“That’s probably your dirty drawers you smellin’, punk,” Pistol told him. “Since your mammy ain’t around to change them for you.”
The man flushed, deep anger touching his face. Tell the truth, he hadn’t changed his union suit in a while.
“I think we’ll just check the brands on them beeves,” they told Pistol.
“You’ll visit the outhouse if you eat regular, too,” Pistol popped back. “And you probably should, and soon, ’cause you sure full of it.”
“Why, you godda—” He grabbed for his pistol. The last part of the obscenity was cut off as Pistol’s Colt roared, the slug taking the would-be gunslick in the lower part of his face and driving through the base of his throat.
Pistol had drawn and fired so fast the other two had not had time to clear leather. Now they found themselves looking down the long barrel of Pistol’s Peacemaker. The dying gunny moaned and tried to talk; the words were unintelligible, due in no small measure to the lower part of his jaw being missing.
“Shuck out of them gun belts,” Pistol told them, just as Bobby came galloping up to see what the shooting was all about. “Usin’ your left hands,” Pistol added.
Gun belts hit the ground.
“Dismount,” Pistol told them. “Bobby, git that rope.”
“Hey!” one of the gunnies said. “We was just a-funnin’ with you, that’s all.”
“I don’t consider bein’ dragged no fun. And that’s what you was gonna do, right?”
“Aw, no!”
Pistol’s Colt barked and the bootheel was torn loose from the gunny’s left boot. “Wasn’t it, boy?” Pistol yelled.
On the ground, holding his numbed foot, the gunny nodded his head. ”Yeah. We all make mistakes.”
“Git out of them clothes,” Pistol ordered. “Bare-butted nekkid. Do it!”
Red-faced, the men stood before Pistol, Bobby, and God in their birthday suits.