Shotgun Charlie (3 page)

“What I'm trying to tell you, if you'd let me get a word in edgewise . . .” Grady Haskell poked the long barrel of his Colt straight into the fleshy tip of the man's long nose. He pushed it, held it there for a moment, then pulled it away and looked close before smiling, then laughing. The barrel's snout left a pucker, a dimple at the end of the long nose. But the man didn't respond, didn't jerk away because he was dead. His only reaction was a flopped head that revealed a ragged neck gash that welled blood anew. The wound was not an hour old.

“You, sir, are a plumb lousy conversationalist. Anybody ever tell you that?” Grady leaned in close again, as if waiting for a response. “Hmm?”

Getting no response, he howled again, upended a hazel-colored bottle, and bubbled back a few swallows. A thin stream of the burning rye whiskey dribbling out the corner of his stubbled mouth. “Time to get me a Chinese girl, a long, hot bath, and a cee-gar. Maybe even a steak and an Irish apple or two.” He belched and looked around him at the strange room. It should be strange to me, he thought. I have never before been here. And once I do what I need to here, I will take my leave and call it a day.

He fell asleep for a short time, awoke with a start, determined to kill whoever or whatever it was that had interrupted his earned slumber. He saw no one but the dead man, still slumped as he had been in sleep when Grady had come up behind him and sawed deeply into his bulging neck.

The sight reminded Grady of his long-dead grandpappy back in the Chalahoosee Ridge, back in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, where he was raised and where his kind still dwelled. Old Pappy, he had been a mean old coon, but he was generous with his knowledge of corn whiskey making. It was a skill he had worked to teach young Grady. But he and Grady had argued time and again on one point—the old man had said that a proper moonshiner must not like his product too much. Oh, he could enjoy it once the day's labors were through, but there was no call for taking a drink while on the job. And that was something Grady could not abide by.

There came a day when Grady had been entrusted to the operation of the still for an afternoon while his grandfather attended to business in town. Grady decided he'd celebrate the fact that he was nearly sixteen years of age. He'd ladled a dipperful of young, raw corn squeezings. One had led to two, and when he'd been nearly through with a third, along came old Grandpappy, who'd laid down the law, clouting young Grady hard enough to set his ears to ringing. That was when it all happened, when everything in Grady's life turned for naught. And when he made that unbreakable vow to himself never to put up with another man's wrath again, why . . . there was no going back.

He'd taken the beating, not saying much. But he'd managed a bottle of the prime stuff down the front of his bib overalls when he left. He'd finished that bottle off that evening and decided he'd not said nearly enough to the old man, so he headed back to ol' Grandpappy's place, found him asleep in his chair before the potbelly stove, head slumped to one side. He knew that whenever he talked with the old man it was never a two-way road. The old man always had to have the upper hand, always had to edge him out of the conversation altogether.

That time he'd been determined ol' Grandpappy would hear him out. So he'd done the best thing he knew to get the old thickhead's attention—he grabbed up a ball-peen hammer and brought it down on the old man's bean once, twice, three times. And maybe a few more for good measure; he never could recall the exact number.

All this came back to Grady years later as he sat drunk, looking at a different man he'd killed, trying to hold a conversation with him, as he'd done with ol' Grandpappy all those years before. The old man hadn't listened, even though he didn't talk back to him, of that he was sure. And this one was the same.

But now, when he looked at this man, he saw ol' Grandpappy, and though the man had been a crusty sort, he was the only one in the whole dang Haskell clan who had ever paid him any mind, shown him any sort of kindness. And now Grady found himself missing the old man, missing the ridge and those green, green mountains more than he had in a lifetime's worth of Sundays.

“I tell you,” he said to the stiffening corpse, “I don't know how to get back there, to get back home to the Chalahoosee Ridge. I've tried a number of times over the years, but there's always something that needs my efforts. Something that prevents me from pointing my horse toward the southeast. . . . Hey!” Grady leaned forward, shouted again, but the dead man didn't move.

Grady Haskell went on like this, conversing with the man he'd so recently incapacitated, for another hour before expiring himself, a sagged mass of angry killer, in the dead man's other chair.

When he awoke, some hours later, dawn's sun had begun its slow crawl skyward. Grady's head pulsed like a hammer-struck thumb with each beat of his heart. He did his best to ignore the voice inside that told him to lay off the liquor and he might well wake up feeling better one of these days. He knew the voice was probably right, but he pushed it down, did his best to tamp it and ignore it and kill it. And the best way he knew to do that was to guzzle back a few mouthfuls of gargle.

He leaned forward in the chair, caught sight of the man he'd sliced open, and groaned. That was something he didn't need to see first thing in the morning, at least not before he'd taken in some hair of the dog.

“Where is it?” His dry-blood-covered hands scrabbled on the floor by his feet. He usually had enough wits about him to cork the bottle before he dozed for the night. But his fingernails brushed glass. The bottle rolled from him and sounded lousy and hollow. Spent. He groaned again and sank back into the chair. This day had not started well and it was only going to get worse, he was sure.

“What I need,” he said after a few silent moments with his eyes closed, “is a whole lot of money so I don't have to worry about such foolishness.” And as he sat there, as if it were a gift, a reward for his fine new idea, his gaze fell on a half-full bottle of whiskey he'd not seen the night before. He smiled, retrieved it off the sideboard, returned to his chair, and recommenced drinking and thinking.

Grady recalled what the dead man had told him shortly before Grady had made him dead. He'd whimpered, said that what money he had was in the bank, that nobody but a fool would keep his money in his house nowadays.

The thought of it had stunned Grady, but for a moment. Imagine that—plain ol' giving your money to someone else to hold on to for you. Grady wasn't too sure about how other folks might think, but if he had more than the few coins in his pocket, he was dang sure there wasn't a person on the earth who could do a better job watching over it than his own self.

Grady had come back to his senses in time to drag his blade deep into the whimpering man's neck, mostly for being impertinent, but also for not having his money on hand when Grady needed it. Banks . . . of course he'd known about them, even been in one a time or two to redeem pay chits after cattle drives—nasty work were those cattle drives. But he had never considered banks to be of use in his own life.

But the more he thought on it the next day, the more the very idea of banks made good sense. He tugged on the bottle again, licked his lips. A wide, slow smile pulled across Grady Haskell's blood-spattered face, and a low chuckle uncurled itself from deep in his throat. “Yes, sir, I do believe it's time to stab a big pig in the backside, as ol' Grandpappy used to say. Enough of this penny play.”

First things first. Grady knew that all the big operators had gangs to help them pull it off. The trick would be in getting rid of them and keeping the haul himself once the job was done.

Grady didn't fancy sharing much of anything with anybody, never had the urge to do so, in fact, even as a child. But he had no worries about going through the motions of sharing. That was what planning such a job was all about, after all. Now all he had to do was find the gang. He needed a handful of dumb-as-rocks desperadoes willing to do as he told them and then curl up and die when the dust settled.

Another swig off the bottle to seal the deal—at least in his own head—tamped his hangover down to a dull thudding somewhere behind his eyes. Grady stood, straightened his shirt and vest, readjusted his trousers, checked his gun belt, found his dark beaver, flat-crown hat, and saluted the dead man.

“Thanks for your hospitality, friend.” He strode to the door, lifted the latch, and said, “No hard feelings, eh?”

His dry chuckle followed him out the door and continued as Haskell relieved himself against the side of the little farmhouse. Yes, sir, he thought. This is turning out to be one of the best days I have had in quite some time. As he mounted up, he gave thought to the best direction he knew of to find a few men to do his bidding. But most important of all, he gave thought to which direction lay the richest town, one with a big, fat bank waiting for him. And as he wasn't all that far from California, he believed he knew where to go.

The raw tang of slow-burning, wet wood tickled Charlie's nostrils, waking him. Something told him to lift his head, pop open those eyes. Problem was, that was a whole lot harder than it sounded. He tried to run his tongue around the inside of his mouth, but it felt like a raspy river rock and his lips felt as though they'd been hammered together by a burly blacksmith. Same blacksmith whose big fists were playing the Devil's own band inside Charlie's skull, enough so that he was sure it was about to split wide open anytime.

“Boy!”

A voice through water, echoing through a cavern, maybe through a split in a big rock . . .

“Boy!”

Someone smacked him hard on the face. Charlie managed to crack an eye open, enough to let light in. Then came another smack, different this time.

“Boy, you hear me? You got to put some effort into this, elsewise I can't help you.”

Something hit his face again, but this time it didn't feel so much like a crack to the chops as a wet something. It dragged up over his eyes and . . . he could open the other one. Now both, wider.

There was an old man—but wait, wasn't that the same old man? Leaning over him? Yes, he'd seen that face, homely as it was, somewhere before. Now he knew, it was the old man who'd come in with those riders. But what did he want?

“You . . .”

The old man smiled. “That's right. It's me. You remember?”

“Stop it.”

The old man leaned closer. “How's that?” He was still smiling.

Charlie was beginning to get annoyed. Who smiled so much anyway? If this was heaven, he wasn't all that sure he was going to like it. “Stop . . .”

“Stop what?”

“Stop hitting me . . . in the face.”

The old man backed up, eyes wide. “What? Hitting you?” Then his face split wide open in a smile. He turned and said something, and then Charlie heard hoo-raws and guffaws from behind the man.

“He thinks I was hitting him!” More laughter; then the old man bent low and held up a rag. “I was wiping your face down, boy. You done took a chill. Lord knows how long before we come along. By the time we found you, you was past knockin' on the door. You was taking off your hat and steppin' on through!” He turned again.

Now Charlie saw faces crowding down close.

“Ain't that right, boys?”

A chorus of men nodded, all of them looking down at Charlie with more concern than he recalled them having before. As if a bung had been pulled from an overfilled barrel, Charlie's memories of recent events flooded out. Teacup dying, plain old giving up the ghost. All that work of prying around in the rooty, bony soil to carve out a hole big enough for her to rest in . . .

Then gathering those rocks, the never-ending task of hauling stones back for her grave so no critters could have at her. Then the rains, hard, driving rains that laid him low, in and out of himself, as if he were being dunked one minute in icy streams, and then the next in a boiling scalding pot used at pig killings. Then these men had shown up. He recalled them arranged around him on horses, and he'd felt sure they were about to kill him.

“Boy, you back with us now? I think we should muckle on to you and get you to set upright. Can't be good on a man's body to have him all laid out like a corpse when he ain't one. Less'n he's sleeping. Mex and Ace, you get on over here and hoist this big boy upright so he's sitting like a man again.”

Before Charlie could protest, a skinny, freckled redheaded man with a stubbled face and horrible breath grabbed him high on his right arm and a darkish, solid fellow, some years older than Charlie, did the same on his left. This man wore his long hair unbraided, not in any sort of ponytail. It hung down between his shoulder blades and was cut straight across, blue-black in color.

But the thing that stoppered the words in Charlie's mouth happened when he looked up to tell the men to leave him be. He looked right into the man's eyes and saw one blue and one nearly black. The man stared right back at Charlie for a few seconds, and then Charlie broke eye contact and looked away.

“Don't pay him no never mind, boy,” said the old man. “Mex ain't much for talkin', but he'll do in a pinch all right.” The old man slapped his leg. “I recall the time we was up to Lodestone. You remember that, Mex? And we skinned all them dandy gamblers? Hoo-wee, you'da thought none of them high rollers had ever seen an Injun before! And for us to throw 'em one with mismatched eyes? Hee-hee!”

The entire time the old man spoke, Charlie stared at the man's eyes. Couldn't help it. They were spooky, like no eyes he'd ever seen. He wanted to get up and away from the man as fast as his legs could carry him. But he was being muckled on to by two men, and as they dragged him upright slowly, sharp pains raked up his sides and made him gasp, and a cold sweat popped out on his forehead.

“Easy, boys. He's had a time of it.” The old man leaned in. “Boy, you done broke a couple of ribs in all your thrashing and coughing.”

“What's wrong with me?” said Charlie after a few minutes once they'd let him be and the wave of hot pains had ebbed.

“I expect it's pleurisy. Settled right into your lungs and proceeded to march up an' down, causing holy havoc and leaving a mess of misery behind, like Grant through Richmond.”

There was a long silence, and then in a wheeze Charlie said, “I thank you, then, for all you've done. I expect I can make it all right on my own now. I don't have much, but you're welcome to it.”

The old man sniffed, said, “You travelin' alone, boy? You don't mind me asking, how old are you anyway? You seem a bit on the young side, once a fella gets past your size and gets to studying you.”

Charlie didn't reply, so the old man kept talking. “You must have been traveling with one big pard, because that rock pile you built is mighty big! I reckon it must have been your twin, what with the size of it and all.”

Charlie cut his eyes to the man, then looked away again.

“Oh, there I go again, stuffing my boot in my mouth. I'll never learn. Ask the boys. If there's a wrong thing to be said in any situation, you can bet yourself a good hand that Pap Morton will be the one to say it every time.”

Charlie smiled weakly, then fell asleep. As he drifted off, he recollected that he couldn't tell how long it had been since the men found him. Pap had told him a few times, but Charlie still felt confused about the past. He didn't think it mattered all that much, though. Not much did.

The first thing Charlie saw when he awoke was that all the men but Pap had begun loading up as if they were ready to head on out. They were nearly finished and making last-minute adjustments, tightening cinches, gulping coffee, and checking buckles, when Charlie yawned and tried to sit up.

He didn't say anything and no one spoke to him, though he wanted to know what they were all up to. He figured it was none of his business to pry. He also figured they were headed out and going to leave him there as they had found him. Though he had to admit if that was all they were offering, he was a darn sight better off than when they'd found him. So all in all, he had no right to complain.

All the men, save for Pap Morton, mounted up. Again, no one paid Charlie any mind, so he kept his peace. But he was powerfully curious as to what they were up to.

Morton jutted his old bearded chin at Dutchy, the last man in line. “Tawley's place, a month.”

Dutchy nodded, loosed a stream of chaw juice, then tugged the brim of his hat once and followed the others. In near silence the four men rode out of camp, threading through the trees until they were out of sight.

Pap watched them go, then turned to Charlie and clapped his horned old hands together, smiling. “What say we have ourselves a fry-up? I expect you're ready to eat a bear and three cubs.”

Charlie smiled and nodded, not wanting to disappoint the old man. But he wasn't all that hungry. He knew he should be, hadn't had much more than warm broth and a few nibbles of hardtack soaked in black tea since he came around. As Pap bustled about the cook fire, with effort Charlie ran a hand across the tight wraps of blue-and-red flannel the old man had swathed around his chest. “You did this for me?”

“Ain't nobody else around I seen who was about to lend you a hand. And believe me, you needed it.” Pap went back to nudging strips of thick, fatty bacon around in his cast-iron fry pan. The scent reached Charlie's nostrils and he felt a strange sensation, something familiar but almost forgotten to him. What was that?

“I see your nose flexing like a dog on a stink trail. You're hungry, boy. Hee-hee, I can tell. Any second now that gut of your'n will be growling like a angry lion.”

Charlie looked down at his much-thinned belly, and his eyebrows rose as it began to make sounds he hadn't heard in a long time. “I reckon you're right.”

“See? Ol' Pap knows. When it comes to vittles, Pap knows a thing or three!” The old man fairly danced around the fire ring like an Indian doing a war dance, sliding pans and clanking the coffeepot and howling because he blistered a finger.

. . .

“Say, Pap, what was that you said a few days back about skinning them gamblers, on the riverboat, I think it was?”

They rode in silence for a few moments, and then Pap said. “Oh, you heard that, did you? I'd thought maybe you was still half out of your bean to recall that.” He looked at Charlie and smiled. “I talk a whole lot.”

For another long stretch of moments, there was not much more said than that. Then Pap said, “I hope you won't think badly of us, Charlie Chilton, but I will let you in on a secret. I ask you not to judge, if'n you can help it, though. We're what you might call living as we can, taking advantage of situations as they arise, peeling a little bit for ourselves from wads where that little bit won't much be missed.” He flicked a long, bony finger toward Charlie, his face drawn into a gray mask of seriousness. “Mind you, we ain't no common garden-variety thieves.”

“But you are thieves?” Charlie's sudden response surprised even himself.

“Well, no. That is to say . . . not really. At least not so much like that. Here, how you like old Nub?”

Charlie reached down, patted the neck of the big horse he was riding. “Oh, he's a fine one, he is. I still feel odd about riding a beast, though.”

“You mean to say you never rode that old mule you buried back there?” Pap's eyebrows rose high in disbelief.

“Naw, fella like me ain't got no call to go riding an old girl like Teacup. She was . . . well, she was my friend.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes; then Pap said, “Charlie, you are without a doubt one of the kindest souls this old coyote has ever met. How come you to be so nice anyway? Most folks I know have a streak of rank running right through them a good foot wide.”

“Well, I reckon I don't know.” Charlie fidgeted, his big legs hanging down either side of the equally large horse as they plodded along the shaded roadway. They were following whatever course Pap had in mind, seemingly in no hurry at all.

Charlie had been happy to ride bareback, but Pap had insisted he use a spare saddle the boys had scrounged up from somewhere and had lashed to their gear pile. It had proven to be a comfortable ride, despite his initial misgivings about riding another animal. And best of all, Nub didn't seem to mind being stuck with Charlie on his back.

“I'm not one to pry,” said Pap, rubbing his chin. “But I'll go ahead and ask you something, and if you don't care to answer, well, know that I won't be offended in the least. Okay, then?”

“Aw, Pap. I ain't got no secrets. Ask me anything.”

“Okay, then, I will. Where you from? What's your story? I'm a curious sort, and I like to know the folks I'm riding the trail with, if you get me.”

So Charlie told him. Told him all about his gran, the farm, Teacup, his childhood, what he knew of his daddy. . . . He talked on and on while the horses carried them slowly on up the trail to where, Charlie had no idea, nor did he particularly care. He was pleased to have companionship, especially with someone who didn't seem to want anything from him, except for him to natter on like an old hen. After a while he stopped, reddened, and looked away.

“Well,” said Pap, after fashion, “seems to me you've led a busy life, Charlie Chilton. I hope me and the boys don't bore you none.”

Charlie looked up, eyes wide, only to find Pap winking at him.

Far ahead, bars of sunlight sifted through the tall ponderosa pines and lit the trail as if they were in a church and a thousand candles were glowing.

“Now, ain't that pretty?” said Pap.

Charlie could only nod and smile.