Vendetta Trail

WHEN MASON HAWKE RETURNED FROM THE CIVIL
War he found, like many of his fellow Civil War veterans, that there was nothing left for him at home. So Hawke became a wandering minstrel, playing the piano in saloons and bawdy houses throughout the West. What practically no one who heard him playing “Cowboy Joe,” or “Buffalo Gals” realized was that he was one of the most accomplished pianists in the world, having once played before the crowned heads of Europe.

That was a whole world and half a lifetime behind him, and Hawke never looked back in regret, never thought of what might have been. Instead, he continued to wander, knowing that somewhere on the other side of the next range of hills, or just beyond the horizon, there would be another town, another saloon, and another piano.

A seamstress in Texas thought he might be looking for love and she made herself available, but it didn’t work out. A circuit-riding preacher told him he was looking for his soul…and Hawke agreed; at least in so much as he knew that his was a lost soul, but he had not yet found it.

Hawke did not openly seek trouble, but neither would he back away from it, and hotheaded hooligans would sometimes mistake the piano player for an easy mark. He had been pushed into more than one gunfight, and if truth were known, his adversaries did not always have to push that hard to get him to respond. When pushed into a fight, more often than not, someone would die. And then it would be time for Hawke to move on again.

It was that wanderlust that brought him to Nebraska City, Nebraska. He had just finished playing a set when the female proprietor of the saloon walked over to the piano carrying a mug of golden liquid, with a high, foaming head. She handed the beer to Hawke.

“Thanks, Callie,” Hawke said. He blew away some of the foam, then took a drink.

Hawke was nearly six feet tall, clean shaven, with a square jaw and penetrating blue eyes. As always when he was working, he dressed well and at this moment was wearing a white ruffled shirt that was poked down into dark blue trousers. A fawn-colored jacket and crimson cravat completed his ensemble.

“Have you ever been to New Orleans, Mr. Hawke?” Big Callie Mouchette asked.

Big Callie got her nickname from her size. She was six feet tall and weighed three hundred and fifty pounds.

“No, I never have.”

“You should go—someday. I’m from New Orleans, you know. You would love it there. In the theaters and opera houses you will find talented musicians playing beautiful music. And the food! Well, let’s just say I didn’t get to be this size by accident.”

“You are a good, healthy-sized woman,” Hawke said.

Big Callie laughed out loud, a robust, booming laughter that could be heard throughout the saloon.

“‘Healthy-sized’?” she said. She put her arms around Hawke’s head and pulled him in between her massive breasts. “You are delightful, Mr. Hawke. Absolutely delightful. It was a fortunate day for all of us when you brought your charm and talent to Nebraska City. Now, play something for me. I’m going to sit right over there at that table and listen.”

Hawke began playing “Lorena,” a plaintive melody.

Hawke had been playing the piano at the Trail’s End saloon in Nebraska City for two months now. Two months was an exceptionally long time for him to stay in one place and he was thinking about moving on, but the piano here was considerably better than the pianos he had played at most of the other watering holes he had worked.

And Big Callie Mouchette was an easy woman to work for. She was good-natured and generous with her employees. She also enjoyed classical music and often let Hawke play the kind of music he liked to play. Hawke appreciated that so much that he had already stayed much longer than he ever intended.

Another thing that kept Hawke here was that his time in Nebraska City had been very peaceful. But that all came to an end when his song was interrupted by a loud shout, followed by the crashing sound of a breaking bottle.

“You cheating son of a bitch!” a man shouted angrily.

Looking toward the disturbance, Hawke saw a man standing over a table, holding a broken whiskey bottle. Across the table from him was another man, sitting in a chair. There were streaks of blood on the sitting man’s face, streaming down from a wound on his scalp. The two other players in the game had backed away from the table so quickly that their own chairs were on the floor, having been knocked over by their rapid withdrawal.

“By God, nobody cheats me and gets away with it,” the man holding the bottle said.

“He wasn’t cheating, you, Ford,” one of the other players said.

“The hell he wasn’t. I ain’t won a hand in the last hour.” Ford put the bottle down and reached for the money that was piled up in the middle of the table. “I’m just goin’ to take this pot to make up for it.”

“That’s not your pot,” the other player said.

Ford chuckled. “Well now, by God, it’s my pot if I say it’s my pot.”

Big Callie, who had been sitting at her table listening to Hawke play, got up now and hurried over to the site of the disturbance. She began to treat the wounded man.

“Are you all right, Gary?” she asked, solicitously.

“Yes, ma’am,” Gary answered groggily. “I’m a little woozy is all.”

“If I catch you cheating again, you’ll be more than a little woozy. You’ll be a little dead,” Ford said contemptuously as he started to put the money in his hat.

“Billy, did Mr. Fargo win that pot?” Big Callie asked one of the other players. She wet her silk handkerchief with whiskey and used it to treat Gary’s wound.

“No, ma’m, he didn’t. That’s Gary’s pot,” Billy said. “You can ask Jimmy, he was in the game too.”

“Billy’s right,” Jimmy said. “That ain’t Ford’s.”

“Mr. Fargo, I think you’d better leave now,” Big Callie said. “And leave the money on the table.”

“The hell I will,” Ford Fargo said. “I’m leavin’, all right, but I’m takin’ this money with me.”

“I wasn’t sitting at the card table,” Big Callie said. “But there are three men who were, and all three say that this isn’t your pot. If you take that money you will be stealing. And I don’t condone stealing in my establishment.”

“Come on, Big Callie, the son of a bitch was cheating,” Ford said, pleading his case.

“He wasn’t cheating you, Ford,” Jimmy said. “He beat you fair and square.”

“Now you’re all taking up for him.”

“We were in the same game as you. You think we would take up for him if he was cheating? Hell, we lost money too.”

“Yeah, well, neither one of you lost as much money as I did.”

“Neither one of them are as bad at cards as you are,” Gary said. “You are an incredibly bad player, drawing two inside straights, running bluffs in games of stud when the cards clearly show that you don’t have anything.”

“Leave the money on the table, Mr. Fargo,” Big Callie said again. She reached for Ford’s hat and he jerked it away from her, then pushed her back away from him, pushing her so hard that the big woman fell to the floor.

Ford moved to stand over her and, pointing down at her, he snarled. “Stay out of things that don’t concern you,” he said.

Hawke had remained sitting at his piano bench, watching almost passively. He told himself it was none of his business, and he had no intention of getting involved until he saw Ford push Big Callie to the floor.

Then, sighing in resignation, Hawke stood up and walked over toward Ford. Ford either didn’t see Hawke’s approach or he saw him, but took no notice of him. That was no direct insult to Hawke, he was used to that. Piano players tended to fade into the background at saloons, becoming as invisible as a coatrack or a brass spittoon.

“Like I said, I’m takin’ this money, unless there is someone in here who thinks he can stop me,” Ford said as he returned to the table and continued filling his hat.

“That would be me,” Hawke said.

“What?” Ford asked, looking at Hawke for the first time.

“You said unless there is someone who can stop you, and I’m saying that would be me. Put the money back on the table.”

“What are you going to if I don’t put the money back? Play a song for me?” Ford laughed at his own joke, and a few in the room laughed, nervously, with him.

“No. If you don’t put the money back, I’ll kill you,” Hawke said easily.

Hawke’s calm, almost expressionless reply surprised Ford, and the smile left his face.

Putting his hat full of money down on the card table, Ford raised his arm and pointed his finger at Hawke. “My advice to you, mister, is to go back over there to your piano and mind your own business.”

A cold, humorless smile spread across Hawke’s face. “You have just made your first mistake,” he said in quiet, measured words.

“Oh yeah? And what would that be?”

“You are pointing your gun hand at me, but you aren’t holding your gun.”

“Don’t you worry about my gun, you dandified son of a bitch,” Ford said confidently. “I can get to it fast enough if I need to.” He started to drop his arm.

The smile left Hawke’s face. “No, leave your hand where it is.”

“What?”

“Leave your arm pointing toward me,” Ford said. “If I see it so much as twitch, I’ll blow your head off.”

Ford was caught between disbelief and fear. He was not used to anyone running a bluff on him, and he tried to laugh, though the laughter came out strained.

“What are you talking about? You don’t even have a gun in your hand. Mister, you are crazy if you think I’m going to hold my arm out here like…”

Ford started to drop his arm but, in a lightning draw, Hawke had his pistol in his hand. The black hole at the business end of the barrel loomed large in Ford’s face.

“No! Wait!” Ford shouted. He put both arms up.

For the moment the loudest sound to be heard was the steady ticktock of the Regulator clock that hung just above the fireplace mantle. The customers were as shocked as Ford by the Mason Hawke they were seeing now. They had come to know him only as a gentlemanly mannered, well dressed, and very talented piano player. They had never seen this side of him, and he could not have shocked them more if he had suddenly grown horns and a tail.

They observed the unfolding scene from their vantage points within the room, as intent on the proceedings as if they were the audience for a theatrical. In a sense, they were spectators in a theater, but in this case the scene being played out before them was much more intense than anything they had ever seen upon the stage. This was a drama of life or death.

Unable to control the sudden twitch that started in his left eye, Ford examined every face in the room, hoping to see someone he could count on for help. But he had run roughshod over the town for too long, using the town’s fear of him as his weapon. He had no friends, and nobody offered to intercede for him.

Finally Ford looked back at Hawke, realizing that he was on his own.

“Please, mister,” he said with a whimper. “What are you going to do?”

“Yes, Mr. Hawke, what
are
you going to do?” Big Callie asked, having been helped back to her feet now by Jimmy and Billy.

“I think I’ll just shoot him,” Hawke said easily.

“No! My God! Please! No!” Ford screamed.

“I’ll leave it up to you, Miss Callie,” Ford said calmly. “Do you want me to kill him? Or should I let him live?”

“I’m tempted to tell you to go ahead and shoot him,” Big Callie said.

Ford began shaking uncontrollably, and he wet his pants. “Miss Callie, please don’t let him kill me,” he begged.

Big Callie sighed. “Go home, Mr. Fargo,” she finally said in a contemptuous tone. “And don’t come back here until you have learned to conduct yourself as a gentleman.”

“Y…yes, ma’am,” Ford stammered. He reached for his hat, then, pointedly, turned it upside down, dumping all the money back onto the table. Putting his hat back on, he turned to leave.

“Wait a minute,” Hawke called.

Ford stopped.

“Before you leave, shuck out of that gun belt. The pistol stays here,” Hawke said.

“The hell it does!” Ford said in one last attempt at bravado.

“Leave it,” Hawke said coldly.

“Mister, I don’t give my gun up to nobody. Nobody, do you understand that?”

Hawke pulled the hammer back on his pistol, and the deadly, metallic
click
sounded loud in the room. “I said leave it.”

Ford paused for a moment longer, then, with shaking hands, unbuckled his gun belt. He let it drop to the floor.

“Now you can go,” Hawke said.

“When do I get it back?” he asked.

“You don’t get it back,” Big Callie said.

“Are you crazy? There is no way I’m just going to give my gun to you.”

“I won’t give it back to you,” Big Callie said “But if you send your papa in tomorrow, I’ll give it to him.”

“My pa? Do you really think I am going to send my pa in here?”

“If you want your gun back, you will,” Big Callie replied.

Ford glareed at Big Callie and Hawke. The expression on his face was one of seething rage. “I’m going to remember this,” he said. Pointedly, he looked at all the others in the room. “I’m going to remember you too,” said, jabbing his finger toward them. “I’m going to remember every damn one of you.”

As soon as Ford stepped through the door, a cheer went up in the saloon.

Hawke reached down to pick up the gun and belt that Ford had shed. Carrying it over to the bar, he handed it to the bartender.

“Here you go, Mike. Maybe you’d better keep this under the bar until his father comes for it.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Hawke,” the bartender replied with a broad smile.

“Pour Mr. Hawke a drink, Mike,” Big Callie said. “I think he’s earned it, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’d say that he truly has,” Mike said, reaching for the bourbon.

“Nobody takes my gun! Nobody!” Ford’s loud, shrill voice shouted from just inside the door.

“Look out, he’s got a shotgun!” one of the saloon patrons warned.

Hawke turned toward the door just in time to see the enormous muzzle flash of a double-barreled Greener.

Big Callie took the full load, grunting in pain and surprise as the buckshot opened up her chest. Blood sprayed from her like a fountain, and her corpulent body was slammed back against the bar. She slid down to the floor.

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