Gunman's Tally

 

The two horsemen streaked out of a patch of sage, one a length ahead of the other, dashed down the edge of a dry gulch and came streaming up the far side, leaving long curls of hot desert dust to unwind against the brittle heat of the day.

 

The man in the lead rode with teeth bared to the withering blast of his speed. His chin thong had bitten deep against his cheeks with the pressure of the wind against his stiff, straight-brimmed hat.

 

He loved his gray, that man, and yet his whip arm was never still as quirt rose and fell against the foaming flanks of his stretching mount.

 

The four-point rowels had left their many bright dots of red in the racing gray’s flanks and jabbed now across the open to leave many more.

 

The alkali dust was in the rider’s throat but he did not taste it. It was in his eyes but did not dim the fierce heat of his merciless glance.

 

He saw nothing of the red buttes before them, felt nothing of the sun’s scorching, dehydrating ferocity. He was Easy Bill, on his way to Red Butte and to death.

 

He heard nothing of his companion’s shouts. He had not yet realized that his companion was there.

 

Easy Bill Gates had forgotten his friend—he who would need so many friends in the short future.

 

But Jimmy Langman had not forgotten Easy Bill and he spurred his tortured sorrel through the melting-hot day, trying to keep in sight of the gray. Smiling Jimmy Langman was not smiling at this hour. He knew he would be needed, he would gladly have substituted himself. He had to keep up with Easy Bill.

 

“For God’s sake, pull in!”

 

Smiling Jimmy’s voice was thin and the racing wind whipped it back in his face with the dry sting of the alkali.

 

“You’re killing your bronc!”

 

But Smiling Jimmy might as well have pleaded with the Joshua trees on the far horizon as with Easy Bill Gates that day. 

 

The gray’s heart was great, his stride was long. His speed had fattened Easy Bill’s purse half a hundred times. But Easy Bill thought Buster, the gray, crawled that afternoon.

 

The ride was eternity. The way was infinity.

 

But Easy Bill would have ridden hellbent for China to meet Fanner Marsten. And Fanner Marsten was in Red Butte, a gun on each hip, a smile on his twisted face, waiting and watching for Easy Bill.

 

Jimmy Langman withheld his quirt to the last. Easy Bill flashed down a curving road strewn with black, smoking-hot lava stones, far in advance now. 

 

Jimmy Langman let his quirt fall.

 

“Sorry, Mike,” he told his sorrel and struck again.

 

“Sorry, Mike.”

 

He dug his spurs.

 

“You understand, Mike. We got to be there with him.”

 

The sorrel rushed down the stone-strewn road, breasting Easy Bill’s dust, laying a smoke screen of his own.

 

Hoofs rolling, faster and faster. Hoofs thundering, louder and louder.

 

Fanner Marsten was waiting with a gun on each hip. Waiting for Easy Bill Gates.

 

Far off across the bleak waste, broiling between the coals of red canyon walls, Red Butte came into sight, twisted and shivering and squirming with the barrage of heat waves which shot skyward like a billion glass snakes toward the smoking bullion of the sun.

 

The gray was belly deep in the dust, reaching, reaching, reaching. The sorrel stretched out, shiny and white with lather, keeping up to the snare-drum rattle of Buster’s racing hoofs.

 

“Take him, boy,” pleaded Smiling Jimmy.

 

“Take him, boy.”

 

“We got to be there when they draw.”

 

Since the first instant he had glimpsed Red Butte writhing on its rack of heat in the canyon walls, Easy Bill had not once taken his eyes away from the miserable collection of weary, weathered buildings.

 

Fanner Marsten was waiting there with a gun on each hip and a smile on his twisted face.

 

Easy Bill’s features were frozen by a glue of dust and sweat and hate. In all this withering, frying heat, his brain was frozen, a cake of ice, congealed around one thought—Fanner Marsten must pay!

 

Thundering hoofs, louder and louder. Heat waves above the town, taller and taller. The naked shame of the granite butte growing larger and larger.

 

Easy Bill was over his horn, his quirt arm was a steel piston he did not have to command.

 

Jimmy Langman’s voice behind him went unheard.

 

“Wait, Bill. Wait! You’re crazy! He’s FANNER MARSTEN!”

 

Fanner Marsten must pay.

 

Fanner Marsten was waiting, watching, seeing this twin cumulus coming in a land where it never rained. Fanner was waiting with a score-notched gun on each slim hip and a smile on his bitter, twisted face.

 

Fanner Marsten on the high boardwalk was saying, “Here he comes, boys. That’s Easy Bill. His funeral’s on me!”

 

Easy Bill pushed back the canyon walls and thundered down the narrow pass. Jimmy Langman swerved around the turn behind him, quirt falling, young face drawn, blond hair white as lime from lather and alkali.

 

Something had to stop Easy Bill.

 

Something, anything . . .

 

“Wait!” cried Smiling Jimmy, his voice as hoarse and raw as a stamping mill. He swallowed the dust of his words as he cried, “Bill! You’re crazy! He’s FANNER MARSTEN!”

 

Something had to stop him this side of death. Something, anything . . .