The Last Shootist Read online

  “Lookin’ for Eugene Rhodes.”

  “Sure. If Gene’s not up at his horse ranch, he’ll be over at the little house west of town he’s renting for his wife, May, who’s expecting. But he’ll be in here sooner or later. Mister Rhodes is fond of poker.”

  Gillom stopped in midchew. “I’ll be here a day or two, restin’ my horses.”

  The barkeep smoothed his silk vest. “Who’s lookin’ for him?”

  “Friend of a friend. From El Paso.”

  “Uh-huh.” The bartender gave him a cool stare.

  * * *

  After an exhausted sleep on a hard floor, Gillom was up next morning for that bath and a haircut at the barber shop, turning in his dirty clothes at the Mexican laundry and having a big breakfast at the Oasis Café. He took his time checking on his horses at the stable, then bought a calfskin wallet at a leather goods. Nothing doing at the blacksmith’s, so Gillom had a gunsmith clean his Remingtons while watching the process, then bought gun oil, a brush, and some rags to do it later himself.

  Gillom relaxed outside the gun shop, letting a boy with a shoebox spit-shine his boots, the brown ones with a yellow lightning bolt on each leather top. He watched a couple schoolgirls idle down the boardwalk window shopping. The Wolf’s bartender walked into his view from a side street on his way to work.

  “Mister Rhodes was tending his yard not a half hour ago. Said he’d be in the Wolf tonight.”

  * * *

  A long nap that afternoon left him rested, so Gillom was in good fettle as he finished another beefsteak that evening. Friday night’s arrival had aroused the saloon business and the gambling tables along one side of the Wolf were busy. The bartender, whom he’d been tipping well, caught Gillom’s eye and nodded toward the stocky man who’d just walked in the front door. Short-framed, maybe a hundred and fifty pounds after a big meal, Eugene Manlove Rhodes had a handsome head of unruly blond hair. He caught the bartender’s eye, too, and followed his nod to the teenager’s table.

  “You the sprout making inquiries after me?”

  Gillom dropped his knife and fork and rose up. “Yes, sir, Mister Rhodes. Please, take a seat. Can I buy you a drink?”

  Gene slid out a chair. “Only imbibe coffee or wate’. Whiskey’s the cause a most of the killings in the West and I don’t carry a gun.”

  Gillom pantomimed drinking from a cup to a bartender. “Only take an occasional beer myself. Noticed your crooked nose. Thought you might be a scrapper?”

  Rhodes grinned. “Neve’ walk away from fisticuffs or a wrestling match. But when weapons come out and the combatants get blood-crazed, I head the othe’ direction.” He thanked the bartender who served him his coffee. “You a two-gun man, I see.”

  It was Gillom’s turn to smile. “Carry one for either side of the border.”

  Eugene Rhodes eyed the teenager thoughtfully. “What are you doin’ here, kid?”

  “Well, I needed to get outta El Paso awhile, catch some fresh air in some new country. Dan Dobkins, of the Daily Herald, mentioned your horse ranch up in the mountains.”

  “Dan and I share an interest in writing and American history. Dobkins is a newspape’ man, always reporting on the wilde’ characters in this lawless land, whereas I make my Western stories up. I’ve had a couple articles published in Out West magazine from Los Angeles, so Dan encourages me during my visits to his sinful city.” The rancher scratched his bent nose. “I can understand why you’d want to leave a twenty-four-hour town like El Paso. Helluva fast city for a kid to grow up in.”

  Gillom played with his new Stetson, curling the sides of the brim upward with his long fingers. He had to listen hard, for Eugene Rhodes spoke with a slight lisp, dropping his “r’s” due to a cleft palate he tried to conceal under his broad mustache. The tough rancher didn’t seem self-conscious, though, even of his high-pitched voice.

  “Oh, I’ll get back to the Pass. My mother lives there. My dad was a railroad engineer, died when I was just a tad, so I’ve gotta look after my mother.”

  Rhodes nodded. “I’ll take you to the San Andes when I pack a load of supplies up for my wrangle’ day afte’ tomorrow. Gotta hang round the house here awhile for May. Married a widow with a young son and she’s expecting our first baby in a couple months. Horse ranch is too lonely for youngsters.”

  Gillom started to thank him, but they were interrupted by a commotion outside the saloon. A horse squealed and someone yelled in pain as Gene took off from the table at a fast trot in his high-heeled boots. Gillom hurried behind his new host through the batwing door.

  Outside a roan horse was hot-eyed and kicking, having loosed its tie-rein from the hitching post. A long-haired cowboy was down on both knees attempting to crawl away from the stamping bronco.

  “What happened to you, fella?”

  “Stom-ach cramps. Godamighty,” groaned the cowhand. “Somethin’ I et.”

  “Ohh,” smiled Gene. “And a big bruise to go with ’em. Miste’, you’d betta see a docta’, get some purgative.”

  “Yah…” The cowhand crawled slowly away from his trouble.

  Gillom joined the older rancher gentling his snorty horse in front of the crowd of gawkers who had run outside for the excitement.

  “What was that about?”

  “We’ve been plagued by saddle thieves. Few weeks ago I lost my best saddle right here in front of the Wolf. They ride off into the night, let you’ horse loose to return, but you’ saddle’s headed somewheres else. So I trained this raw bronc Indian-style, to be mounted from the right instead of from the left. That jaspe’ tried to mount him regula’, on the left side, and got a hoof in the belly for his dirty work.” The explanation drew chuckles from the Wolf’s patrons. “Any a you boys see that jaspe’ spookin’ you’ horses again, give him a good kick for me, wouldcha?”

  To shouts of “Sure will, Gene,” and “He ain’t welcome round here,” the drinkers and gamblers filed back in the saloon.

  Gene Rhodes tightened his half-broke horse’s cinch and hoisted himself back onto his second best saddle from the wrong side.

  “You a gamble’, son?”

  “Nope. Can’t afford the expense of learnin’ poker.”

  “Good. Hold onto you’ money. Poker’s my affliction, so I’ll cut the wolf loose in he’ tomorrow night.”

  “Okay, Mister Rhodes.”

  Gene wheeled the anxious animal and booted him down the hard-packed street.

  “Call me Gene!”

  Thirteen

  Walter Thibido was not in a positive frame of mind as he clomped up the few stairs to Bond Rogers’s front porch. The marshal usually left domestic difficulties to his deputies and he hadn’t enjoyed dickering with this imperious widow and her sassy kid in his jail. But those special guns were too valuable to ignore.

  The mother answered his hard knock. “Marshal?”

  “Missus Rogers. Those pistols turn up?”

  “No, I’m sorry to say, they have not. I’ve no idea what happened to them.”

  “I want to speak to your son.”

  “Well, he’s not here. Gillom left.”

  “For where?”

  “I don’t know. He rode out of town and said he was going to catch a train, probably headed west.”

  El Paso’s top lawman glared at her, frustrated. He had not removed his Stetson in deference, and out of courtesy, she had not invited him inside.

  “Probably took those Remingtons with him.”

  “Gillom was not armed when he left here, that I saw.”

  “When was that?”

  “Three mornings ago. Early.”

  “Uh-huh. We had a well-chawed body turn up in our alligator pond, San Jacinto Plaza, that same day. Young Mexican, nephew of this Serrano, from Juarez.”

  Mrs. Rogers acted perplexed. “So?”

  “Serrano was a cattle rustler, an all-purpose bandido. One of the bad boys J. B. Books killed in that shoot-out in the Constantinople. Now Serrano’s cousin turns up as alligator bait on
our side of the line, and his relatives are looking for another missing young kin to this same bandido.” The tightly wound lawman paced about in a little circle on her porch, thinking aloud. “Now your son’s flown the coop, too. All three young men are connected to the Books shoot-out and I wanna know how closely?”

  “I didn’t read about any alligators eating Mexicans in the paper?”

  “No, we’re keeping that quiet. Frightens the tourists. But there were .44-.40-caliber slugs in that Mexican kid, so the alligators didn’t grab him first. I’m gonna put out a wanted bulletin for your Gillom.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “He’s a witness in a murder investigation. And suspected of gun theft. That’s enough for the law to pick him up, anytime, anywhere he turns up.”

  No arguing with this bully. Mrs. Rogers shut her front door. Walter Thibido shouted through it.

  “You see or hear from your son, tell him to save himself more trouble, turn himself in. He’s got more explaining to do!”

  Bond Rogers rested her head against a framed tintype on the wall, of her mother and father and her brother, with her standing in front, all smiling on a sunny day somewhere else. She caught her breath and fought back tears.

  * * *

  Gillom Rogers spent another day lazing around Tularosa, browsing the limited goods in their general store. He got in more practice with his pistols in the alley out behind the Wolf, dry-firing only, not disturbing their peace. He spent another hour under an arch of cottonwoods on a bench in their little plaza writing a letter to his mother, Bond, reassuring her he was okay and had already met a fella who was going to teach him to wrangle horses. Gillom licked a pencil lead and listened to the mockingbirds in the cottonwoods’ branches. The Wolf’s bartender walked by late afternoon again on his way to work.

  “Gotta move your gear outta our storeroom, son. Holding a fight in there tonight.”

  “Then where do I sleep? I paid for that bare corner!”

  “You can move back in after the fight’s over. That spot’s for drunks anyway.”

  Gillom nodded to the older man, who waved as he walked off. At least the locals are warmin’ up to me a mite, he realized.

  * * *

  Gillom was finishing another dinner steak when Gene Rhodes strolled into the Wolf.

  “Gillom! You bet on fights? We got a dog and a badge’ goin’ at it tonight!”

  “Oh, no. Don’t gamble, but I’ll watch.”

  “Okay. Maybe we’ll let you referee.”

  Gene asked his buddy the bartender for a glass of water, drank half of it, and then clambered from a stool on top of the bar counter.

  “Okay, you topers! You betting fools! We’ve got a badge’ going against a kille’ dog in the storeroom tonight! Phil’s got the most ferocious canine I’ve ever seen and I’ve got a hundred dollars says so!”

  A Texas cowboy jumped up. “Take half a thet bet!”

  Card games were hastily concluded, cattlemen rising from the tables, pushing away from their suppers and grabbing their drinks to shuffle off to the back room. Can’t miss this, Gillom figured.

  Rhodes pointed to one of the bigger wranglers. “Phil, get you’ vicious beast.”

  The tall cowboy nodded and headed outside. Another drinker shouted, “I’ll put fifty on a badger’s nose any day!”

  Gene jumped down from the bar counter, took Gillom by the arm, who asked him, “Where is this badger?”

  “Got him in a barrel, in back. Too mean to let around loose.”

  They followed the pushing crowd into the back storeroom, where stood a large wooden rain barrel in the middle of the bare dirt floor with a clothesline leading under it. Oil lamps held by several customers threw murky shadows among the wooden cases of bottles and supplies in the saloon’s dusty storeroom. There came a loud barking as Phil Early led his large mongrel in, half wolf itself, at the end of a stout rope. Bettors moved away as the fighting dog was led up to the barrel and got a whiff of what was inside. The dog snarled saliva as it cut loose with another volley of barking.

  Another cowboy jumped into the lamplight’s circle. “Another hundred dollars on that vicious mutt!”

  Gene Rhodes held up both hands, stepping forward. “Wait! We’ve gotta have a referee!… Gillom, you do it.”

  “Awww, he’s a friend of yours,” a local complained.

  “No, surrah! Just rode into town. Barely know him and he’s not bettin’, eithe’. Gillom will pull fai’.”

  Time held still as everyone looked at the teenager.

  “Well, okay, I guess.”

  “I’ll cover the badger!” yelled a sport.

  Shouts of enthusiasm as one of the badger bettors grabbed Gillom by the shoulder to talk low in his ear. “Don’t pull too hard, kid. Choke the badger and he won’t fight as good.”

  Gillom scratched an ear. “But I like dogs.”

  Bets were made and wads of cash flashed as Phil Early dragged his thoroughly enraged mastiff away from its enclosed prey, passing close enough to mutter to the kid, “Twenty dollars for yah, you half choke that badger.”

  Chewing his lip, Gillom was confused, uncertain who to favor, since either betting contingent was certain to be unhappy with the outcome, and hence with him. All eyes were on the young referee now, as he rubbed sweaty palms on his clean Levis and moved forward to pick up the end of the clothesline.

  In the stillness, a lone voice. “Be fair now. Give ’em room to scrap!”

  The sportsmen edged back against the walls and boxes in the stuffy, darkened room, as the bartender readied himself behind the barrel. Phil knelt beside his excited dog, growling encouragement in its pointed ear.

  “Kill ’im, Cajun. Rip ’im apart!”

  The bartender looked the young ref in the eye. “Ready?”

  An overexcited spectator couldn’t stifle. “’S gonna be bloody!”

  The barkeep tipped the barrel backward and Gillom Rogers gave a tremendous yank on the line and out of the bottom of the barrel popped a porcelain chamber pot, which bounced and rolled across the floor with a hollow ring.

  The surprise stretched across Gillom’s face suddenly gave way to anger as he realized he’d been played the fool. Hoots and laughter exploded on all sides with the betting men convulsed, backslapping one another.

  “Didcha see him choke that badger?”

  Quick as a fox, Gillom’s Remington was in his right hand and cocked as he blasted the chamber pot to porcelain bits. A startled silence among the laughers, then Gillom Rogers smiled.

  “Killed ’im, too.”

  It was safe again to laugh, so the pranksters did. Back in the saloon, the bartender raised a beer mug and tapped Gillom’s glass. “Here’s to that badger.”

  Gillom smiled good-naturedly and met his new friends’ toast.

  “And a two-gun Texan,” offered the mastiff’s owner.

  “We’re just green-hazin’ yah, kid,” added another.

  His mentor drew him by the arm away from the laughing crowd.

  “You’ a good sport, Gillom. That chamber pot’s had a long lineage here in the Wolf, and now you’ part of that tradition, too. You ready to ride tomorrow up to horse camp?”

  “Yessir!”

  “Afte’ breakfast. Gotta pack a couple horses. Meetcha, say, at nine, down at Tom’s stables.”

  “I’ll be ready, Mister Rhodes.”

  “Meanwhile, the pasteboards are callin’. Git a good night’s sleep.”

  Gillom watched the decade-older man stroll off to the gaming tables, poker fever already upon him. “You, too, boss.”

  * * *

  Gene Rhodes evidently had a big night at the poker table, for he showed up half awake and a half hour late next morning at the stable. And they still had to stop at the general store to pick up supplies. Gillom was surprised to see this teetotaler pack three bottles of whiskey carefully in among his canned goods and sacks of flour and beans in the packs he cross-tied behind the saddles of the two horses he was using
for baggage, besides his saddle horse.

  “Thought you weren’t a drinker, Gene?”

  “I’m not. But my wrangle’ up at the ranch asked me to bring him some whiskey. For the snakebite, you know?” He winked at Gillom as they mounted and reined their five horses down a residential street, headed at a slow walk west across the Santa Fe railroad tracks till the animals adjusted to their loads.

  “How far?”

  “Oh, twenty-five miles. That notch you see up in those mountains is my pass. I run a stock ranch for the remuda from the Ba’ Cross Ranch, big spread the other side of the San Andres down toward Engle. I’ve got two hundred wild cattle I let graze loose up there, and invite some of the Ba’ Cross men up in the fall to help brand ’em and drive my steers down to Engle to sell. Ain’t gettin’ rich on a herd that small, but it’s a livin’. Engle’s another cattle shipping town like Tularosa, out in the middle of the Jornada del Muerto. Eve’ been there?”

  Gillom shook his head. “Never been out of El Paso. ’S why I need to see some of this big country.”

  Gene continued his interrogation. “So you finished you’ schoolin’, set off to scratch you’ restless itch?”

  “Umm, got into a little trouble, had to quit this senior year, before graduation. School wasn’t that excitin’, just had to commence my travels a little sooner.”

  “Well, nobody will bother you up in the pass. I’ve given refuge to a number of hard-faced hombres who passed over that lonesome divide while paying attention to thei’ back trail. I’ve cooked fo’ several of the Dalton gang, as well as Bill Doolin. The King of the Oklahoma outlaws himself stayed with me for about three months between his criminal escapades. Helluva crack shot. Bill shot a horse that had me tangled up in the rigging, draggin’ me. I could have been seriously hurt if Bill Doolin hadn’t put him down.”

  The buckaroo looked back over Gillom’s mounts and tack. “You worked horses much?”

  “No sir. We’re town folk, never owned any. I picked these two up … cheap, for this trip.”