The King Hill War (15 page)

“YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN HIM,” IAN SAID, TALKING
to the other sheep ranchers who had again gathered at his house. He was extolling the brilliance of Emerson Booker in his role as an advocate for their cause.

Ian pointed to Emerson. “I’m telling you, you’ve never heard a more golden tongue. He had Gilmore hacking and wheezing like a man who’d just taken a bite out of a sour persimmon.”

“So, we can graze our sheep on the open range?” Clem Douglass asked.

“Absolutely. We have full authority to do so,” Ian said.

“Well, I’m glad of that. No more acreage than I have, my sheep were beginning to find the pickings pretty slim,” Douglass said.

“Yes, it’s the same over at my place,” Mark Patterson said.

“All right, why don’t all of you send your sheep out this evening,” Ian suggested. “We’ll join our flocks again, and I’ll send mine out with Tomas.”

“I’ll go out as well,” Hawke said.

“Sure, if you want to,” Ian said. “But since Judge Dollar set aside the injunction, I don’t think there will be any trouble.”

“Ian,” Emerson said, “if you recall, there was no injunction against us the last time we went out, but that didn’t stop Creed and his boys from attacking us and killing many of our sheep.”

“Emerson is right,” Douglass said. “We had as much right then as we do now, but that didn’t make any difference to them.”

“All right, all right,” Ian said. “I really don’t think there will be any trouble, but if there is, I’m sure that Hawke can handle it.”

“Sorry we’re late,” Arnold said as he and Butrum came into the room.

“That’s all right,” Ian said. “We were talking about the court case and planning on sending our sheep out.”

“I don’t know if we should be so quick to do that,” Butrum said.

“What?” Ian replied. “Why not? We have the legal right to do it.”

“The cattlemen have brought someone in,” Butrum said.

“What do you mean, they’ve ‘brought someone in?’” Ian asked.

“He’s a big fella, with a scar on his face,” Butrum said, drawing his finger down his cheek to indicate the scar.”

“Who is he?” Ian asked.

“His name is Clay Morgan,” Hannah said, and Ian
looked around, surprised that Hannah had come into the parlor.

“Yeah, Clay Morgan. That’s what the bartender said the big man’s name was.”

“Hannah, how in the world would you know that?” Ian asked.

“Jesse told me that the cattlemen had hired him,” Hannah said. She looked over at Hawke, who so far had said nothing about Clay Morgan. “Jesse said they hired him because of you, Mr. Hawke.”

“Because of Hawke? Why because of Hawke?” Douglass asked.

“Maybe they felt as if they needed a gunfighter to deal with our gunfighter,” Patterson said.

“What are you talking about, Mark?” Ian asked. “Hawke isn’t a gunfighter.”

“Then how would you explain this?” Patterson asked. He took a piece of paper from his jacket pocket, the clipping of a newspaper article. After unfolding it, he passed it around for the others to read.

“Mr. Hawke,” Patterson said, “I asked you before if you were a professional gunfighter and you said you were a pianist. Now, given what happened in town the other day, and given this story that ran in the
Atchison Gazette
, I ask you again. Are you a professional gunfighter?”

“No.”

“Are you or are you not the man in this story? Is this story true?”

Hawke nodded. “Yes, the story is true, and yes, I am the man in the story.”

“Then how can you stand there and tell me you are not a professional killer?”

“Mark, didn’t you read this story?” Douglass asked. “For God’s sake, what Hawke did was a good thing. Those two men had already killed, and were threatening to kill children.”

“According to this story, you killed two men,” Patterson said. “You also killed two men in town just a few days ago. Just how many men have you killed, Mr. Hawke?”

“I don’t know.”

Patterson gasped. “You don’t know? You mean you have killed so many men that you don’t even know how many you have killed? God in heaven, Mr. Hawke, what sort of man are you?”

“I killed men during the war, Mr. Patterson. I don’t know how many men I killed, but I killed many. And, as far as I know, they were good men; they were fathers and sons and brothers. They were farmers and merchants and mechanics, and their only crime was that the color of the uniform they wore was different from my own.

“If I could kill good men during the war, then I have no problem killing evil men now, if my life is danger, or if I perceive that the life of an innocent man, woman, or child is in danger.”

“So you are a professional gunfighter,” Patterson said.

“Mr. Patterson, what is your definition of a professional gunfighter?” Hawke asked.

“That is an easy question to answer,” Patterson said. “A professional gunfighter is someone who sells his ability as a gunfighter to whoever is in need of such services.”

“I have never been paid for the use of my guns,” Hawke said. “On the other hand, I have been paid to play the piano.”

“Let it go, Patterson,” Emerson said. “Let’s just be thankful we have a man like Hawke on our side.”

“Hear, hear,” the others said.

“Hawke, what about this man, Morgan?” Dumey asked. “Have you ever heard of him?”

“Yes,” Hawke said. “I’ve heard of him.”

“Is he good?”

“Yes.”

“Are you as fast as he is?” Douglass asked.

“That’s not a valid question,” Hawke replied.

“What do you mean it’s not a valid question? Are you as fast as he is or not?”

“You don’t understand what it takes to be a good gunfighter. Fast has nothing to do with it. Morgan isn’t good because he is fast or accurate. He is good because he can kill a man without giving it a second thought.”

“What do you mean?” Douglass asked.

“If you looked down right now and saw a roach, could you step on it?”

“Of course I could. I do it all the time.”

“What do you think about, when you step on it?”

“What do I think about?” Douglass asked, confused by the question. “Why, I don’t think about anything.”

“Do you think you could kill a man as easily as you can kill a roach?”

“Well, I…” Douglass started, then paused. “I suppose I could…if I had to,” he concluded.

Hawke shook his head. “It’s too late, you’re already dead,” he said.

“What do you mean, I’m already dead?”

“You stopped to think about it. If you had been in a gunfight just now, you would be dead.”

“Yes, but you were just asking a question. If it had been real, why, I’m sure I could do it,” Douglass said.

“As I said, if it had been real, you would be dead,” Hawke repeated. “Taking a man’s life isn’t like killing a roach. It’s an awesome thing, and at that last moment, just before it’s time to pull the trigger, most men will hesitate, just as you did when I asked you the question.”

“Yeah, well, everyone would,” Douglass insisted.

“No, not everyone,” Hawke disputed. “Morgan would
not hesitate. I guarantee you, Clay Morgan can kill a man as easily as you can step on a cockroach.”

“Can you do that, Mr. Hawke?” Patterson asked. “Can you kill a man as easily as you can step on a cockroach?”

“Yes,” Hawke answered.

Hawke’s simple and unemotional answer so stunned the others that they were quiet for a long moment. They stared at him as if he were some dangerous animal on display in a zoo somewhere.

“You know a lot about this sordid business, don’t you?” Patterson asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Mr. Hawke, do you mind if I ask you a question?” Patterson continued.

“No, Mr. Patterson, I don’t mind at all,” Hawke replied, his response disarming in that it contained not the least bit of animus, even though Patterson seemed to be going out of his way to challenge him.

“How does one get to such a point?” Patterson asked. “How in the world could someone ever reach the point that he can kill a man without thinking about it?”

“It’s simple,” Hawke said. “All you have to do is be a man without a soul.”

“Everyone has a soul, Mr. Hawke,” Douglass said.

Hawke shook his head. “I don’t,” he insisted. “I lost my soul at a place called Devil’s Den.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, that’s enough now,” Ian said. “If we are going to turn our sheep out to pasture open range, we need to start getting ready.”

Agreeing with him, the others left to start making preparations. Hawke walked back out to his room in the barn, and Hannah stood at the door watching him. When she turned back she saw that Ian was still in the room with her.

“Is that right, Papa?” Hannah asked. “Has Mr. Hawke really lost his soul?”

Ian shook his head. “No, darlin’,” he said. “Mason Hawke is one of the finest men I have ever known and he has soul as big as all outdoors. But he has been through so much in his life that his soul is hidden behind a big ball of pain that he carries in his heart.”

Out in his room in the barn, Hawke lay on his bedroll with his hands laced behind his head. He stared up at unpainted wide boards that made up the hayloft just over his head.

He tried to keep from thinking about the old…painful memories of the war, but sometimes the memories took on a life of their own, intruding into his senses, like the memory of Gettysburg and Devil’s Den that troubled him now.

Realizing that he could not shake the memory, Hawke knew that there was nothing he could do but close his eyes and let the memory play out.

The angry buzz of bullets could be heard even above the rattle of musketry, the heavy thump of cannon fire, and the explosive burst of artillery rounds. Men were screaming, some in defiance, some in fear, and many in agony.

By now the blood was pooling in the rocks and boulders of Devil’s Den, but still the fighting continued. Mason Hawke had taken shelter in those rocks, and from his position was engaged in long distance shooting, killing Yankee soldiers from five hundred to one thousand yards away. He shot until the hexagon barrel of his Sharps breechloader was so hot that he could no longer touch it, so he took off his shirt to use as a pad to allow him to hold the rifle and continue his killing. Hawke lost count of how many men he had killed, but he knew that one of his victims was a brigadier general.

Around him, sixty-five of his fellow soldiers had already fallen victim to the Yankee sharpshooters under the command of Colonel Hiram Berdan.

“This ain’t never going to stop!” a private next to him shouted in horror. “We’re just goin’ to keep on a-killin’ each other till ever’ last one of us is dead.”

Hawke turned to answer him, to assure him that this battle, like all the others they had been in, would end. But before he could say a word, a minié ball slammed into the private’s head. The man’s blood, brains, and tiny fragments of bone splinters sprayed into Hawke’s face.

Hawke didn’t even bother to wipe off the detritus as he selected his next target.

“Señor Hawke,” Tomas called. Hawke sat up. He didn’t know if he had been jerked out of the memory or if the memory had been jerked out of him. Either way, the memory was gone, and he was glad to be back in the present.